Tallowmere 2: Curse of the Kittens

I have a soft spot for games that look like they might not deserve your attention and then refuse to let go, and Tallowmere 2: Curse of the Kittens is exactly that kind of quiet trap. Built entirely by one person, Chris McFarland, it is a 2D action platformer with hard-roguelike bones: procedurally generated rooms, permanent death, no meta-progression, and a score system that ranks you purely by how deep you managed to crawl. The pixel art is not going to dazzle anyone on a screenshot, but give it twenty minutes and you stop noticing the visuals entirely because your hands are too busy blocking projectiles with a shield that somehow never breaks. The shield is the heart of the game. Blocking is not just defensive filler here; well-timed raises reflect enemy projectiles straight back at their source, and once that click happens in your brain you start treating every encounter like a geometry puzzle rather than a hack-and-slash session. Enemies can also be baited into harming each other through smart positioning and the dungeon's own environmental traps, which gives experienced runs a satisfying, low-key tactical quality. The jump system deserves a mention too: there is no jump limit, meaning you can chain aerial movement indefinitely, which makes the platforming feel loose and expressive rather than punishing. On top of that, weapons each behave in meaningfully different ways, tiered loot appears at higher rarity the deeper you push, and blessings and potions let you nudge your build in small but satisfying directions each run. The kitten mechanic is the game's best idea and its sharpest tension knob. Every five rooms you rescue one of nine cursed kittens, which grants a new ability but simultaneously layers a new curse onto your run, things like enemies spawning in paired groups. The further you go, the messier the dungeon gets, but your own toolkit has grown proportionally. It is a beautifully self-contained escalation loop that doesn't need boss gates or unlockable currencies to feel meaningful. The absence of meta-progression is a genuine design choice, not a missing feature: you improve as a player, not as a save file. The co-op side is worth flagging for couch sessions. Up to four players can share a screen locally, and the chaos reportedly tips into the kind of joyful mayhem that makes local multiplayer worthwhile. Online co-op is cross-platform and present, though the community pool is small enough that finding random sessions can be a gamble. Solo players lose nothing essential here; the single-player loop is complete and deep on its own. One legitimate criticism from the community is the absence of boss encounters, which does make very long runs feel like a pure endurance test of enemy density rather than a dramatic arc. The game is still in Early Access, and the developer's published roadmap suggests additional modes and content are coming, but what is already here is substantive. This is the kind of game that surfaces every few years on a store page that nobody clicks, built by one person clearly in love with the genre. It is not the most polished thing you will play, but it is honest, tight where it matters, and generous with replayability for how little space it takes up.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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