I?m a sucker for sci-fi horror settings, so when I saw this brutal app icon alongside colorful screenshots that really pop, I knew I had to go for this app. Wait, what?s that" And it?s a premium game with no in-app purchases" Oh Dead Shell, you say all the right things! I was excited to dive deep into the ghoulish landscape of Dead Shell: Roguelike RPG [$2.99] from the word go. Sadly, my excitement was met with a game that doesn?t really seem to know what it wants to be. It?s definitely an interesting game with a very cool premise, but that only takes you so far.

Despite having the words ?Roguelike? and ?RPG? right in the app name, Dead Shell hardly resembles either and doesn?t really scratch either itch. But I?m getting ahead of myself. This game puts you in sci-fi facilities and installations that are overrun with demons, monsters, and undead. I noticed an immediate Doom vibe before I even read the app description, which wears its inspiration on its sleeve. We are on a Doom-4 Class Planet, it turns out, called Plutonia. A very remote colony, which I guess means it?s entirely up to the 8 mercenaries that you?ll eventually unlock to save the day. The dungeons and the enemies within them are completely randomized in this game. You can use credits to re-roll a dungeon if it seems like it will be too hard at incrementally higher prices. Once you enter, the layout of the dungeon stands before you. Your character is nowhere to be seen, and battles have a quasi-first-...