Game Description

An esoteric action roguelike. Step into a procedurally generated world, discover and exploit its secrets. Balance the limited economy, boost your stats, and break the game to get as far as possible. Start all over upon death, but permanent stat upgrades make you stronger with each run.

Inspired by games I was playing at the time: Hammerwatch, Risk of Rain, and Dark Souls. My goal was 2D top down action, but without being locked into cardinal directions as games of that genre traditionally controlled.

• Snappy, physics-based combat with a multitude of playstyles that requires understanding and adaptation to master.

• High variety of enemies, items, enchantments, and situations.

• Detailed, interacting elements. Fire will propagate quickly over dry grass and burn anything wooden (even your weapon), but rain or a river will put it out. Falling trees can break a stone barrier. Dozens of overlapping systems allow for creative solutions.

• Integrated into Steam for achievements, trading cards, leaderboards, and cloud saves.

“In Celebration of Violence is something that should be experienced by anyone who's a fan of hardcore games.”

- 9/10 rating from TechRaptor.net

“In Celebration of Violence is absolutely for an audience who bemoans modern hand-holding, who wants their combat to punish them for the slightest mistake, and to make deliberate but slow progress through the game . . .”

- 8/10 rating from thexboxhub

I dove right into development for ICoV after graduating. The world was generated using cellular automata, which I got directly from a project in college. I brute-forced my way into learning systems, which I have since found more efficient workflows.

I still have a wishlist of features I’d love to work into this game. I started to build a multiplayer option, but couldn’t get it to work. Mods would have been cool. Further, some weirdly specific issues impacted only a few players, and those were bugs I could never squash.

The game has built a small cult following: it’s well-received among players who love the genre, some of whom have put hundreds of hours in, with different routes and results every playthrough. I can tell that I hit my niche target audience.

As mentioned above, In Celebration of Violence has built a loyal following. If it were an actual cult, Sheesh would be their leader.

Having put hundreds of hours into gameplay, Sheesh was kind enough to write a testimonial about the game from a player’s perspective. If anyone could write about the game experience, it’s Sheesh; he literally wrote the Wiki. His support has been so valuable, and I am eternally appreciative of his enthusiasm towards my game(s). Please read on to hear from someone who may know ICoV better than I do.

“I bought In Celebration of Violence within the first two weeks of early access about eight years ago (August '16, I think) and followed the development process quite actively until 1.0 some 18 months later.

The game was very systems-driven right from the start, which I loved right away. One example is the heat system: If you fire an arrow through a lit campfire, the arrow ignites. If it hits an enemy (or tree), that will ignite and burn as well. The burning NPC will run around and set some trees on fire. The fire then propagates by raising the temperature in the surrounding tiles on some sort of scale until it reaches the point where the next tree ignites, which was just awesome to see in action (and a little scary when half the level burned down); it just looked natural.

The robust systems regarding passive equipment triggering on all sorts of occasions, triggering each other (and the way having multiples of them stack those effects on one another) led to hilarious and incredible late-game interactions. If it made sense in your head, it probably worked in the game. ICoV is one of those games where you can watch a stream of someone else and go, "What the actual ... I never knew that would work!!" even after having played it for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours yourself.

Julian was open to feedback during development, took some advice here and there, and actually listened to and empathized with players, e.g., when it came to balance, the implementation of quality-of-life features, or onboarding new players.

It’s a gem, the kind of game I would want to forget everything about and start afresh.

Sheesh”