There are dark places in the world inhabited by evil denizens. Places filled with danger and foreboding where no ordinary man would dare to journey. However, there are a few who are willing to risk death in the name of good, in the name of justice, in the name of.. valuable loot! Hack, Slash, Loot(HSL) is a single-player turn-based dungeon crawler for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Take control of a lone hero and explore sprawling dungeons, fight dangerous monsters, and most importantly, plunder valuable treasures. HSL features thousands of items, monsters, and dungeon features, and with a new dungeon created every game you can be sure that no two plays will ever be the same. Boasting easy to master controls you'll be adventuring in no time, but there is still enough depth to challenge the most hardened of adventurers.
When you first start playing this game, it is almost guaranteed that you will NOT enjoy it. Not because of missing inventory, or towns, or shops, or leveling, or whatever many other reviewers state. This game is about simplicity, and none of that extra stuff is required for a good rogue-like.
You will not enjoy the game in the beginning for the simple reason that you will die. A lot. Without reaching the second level on most tries. And it will NOT be your lack of knowledge of the mechanics, or any mistakes that you may make. It will be because the beginning gameplay is quite enormously unbalanced.
The first 3 classes you have access to suck, plain and simple. The only way to make any progress with them is to be extremely lucky with loot. After all, loot is the only way of regaining health in this game, and when the average monster will deal you more damage than the average health potion heals, that causes a problem. As the first 3 classes start out very ill equipped and with weak stats, they can only survive with either finding TONS of healing items, or striking gold with items of Swiftness (haste, lets you kite lots of enemies forever) and Regeneration (self explanatory.) And that, IMHO, is bad game balance.
Also, as mentioned, the online help document is not very helpful. I didn't even know the game autosaved when you exit and could be continued with the Continue button (which is pretty small and not labeled unless you hover the pointer over it!)
So why am I rating this 5/10 and not 2/10? Because if you persevere and start unlocking more powerful classes (mainly by dying at first, eventually by completing the quests) and finding relics which carry over between playthroughs, the game does actually become fun. You stop cursing at the unfairness of it all and start noticing nice touches, like the very good (for a rogue-like) monster AI, travel using the minimap, and humorous elements throughout.
But for many, this will come too little to late.