ok so this game by Tyriq (@fourbitfriday) has been in early access since 2015, and while it hasn't officially released and also I haven't played it in probably over three years I still think about it every month and it's still one of my all-time favorite games. here's why you should check it out
• cool systems - catacomb kids is a roguelike 2D dungeon crawler, with short self-contained levels (think spelunky). everything in the world interacts in very deep and often surprising ways, enemies can hurt each other (the mark of a real Video Game imo), environmental traps are also a great way to kill enemies, you can toss potions into fire to vaporize them, you can make popcorn, you can throw potatoes at enemies.
• good lore that Tyriq is weaving more of daily like: "The Ǩing – a god-man who ruled most of the world for 2000 years – became bored with ȟis long reign. Without warning or fanfare, ȟe transformed all of ȟis power into the language of ȟis people, throwing society into chaos and creating the Grand Poem: Magic." but like actually there's so much lore and I'm pretty sure Tyriq has an extra tome of it that's not even in-game
• a bunch of children getting into fucked up circumstances - looking at you, Made in Abyss fans. The kids you play also have different classes and abilities so a lot of replay value there. Also you can be non-binary kids and iirc the varying voices of the kids isn't tied to their appearance which is cool.
• actually way more content that I've been skilled enough to play - I know there's a whole flesh-themed zone but I'm not even good enough to have gotten there yet.
• it has local co-op
• tyriq did all the writing, pixel art, systems design, proc gen??? (i think audio (which is sick) is doseone iirc)