u/Ajido_Marujido

Hi all, I recently launched the demo for my game Backpack Syndicate on Steam. I'd love for some roguelite fans to try it out and give feedback so I can keep improving it. Two of my favorite games are Backpack Battles and the oldschool NES Wizardry games (I'm old), so I did what game devs do and mashed them together.

The basic loop is: build out your backpack with weapons and different synergies, head into a first-person dungeon, fight through enemies automatically with the build you've put together, and decide how much you want to explore before moving on.

The demo has 88 weapons right now, and I've been doing a lot of work lately on the item system, balance, floor layouts, and overall pacing. I'm especially curious what people here think of the dungeon exploration side of it. A lot of backpack auto-battlers mostly live in menus, so I wanted the actual run itself to involve exploring, deciding how far to push, and weighing whether extra fights are worth the risk.

Free Steam demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4577300/Backpack_Syndicate/

If you give it a try, I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d want to see improved.

Game Title: Backpack Syndicate

Playable Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4577300/Backpack_Syndicate/

Platform: PC (Windows)

Description:
Hey everyone, I've been working on Backpack Syndicate for a while now and recently released a free demo on Steam.

The basic idea is something like Backpack Battles/Backpack Hero mixed with an oldschool first-person dungeon crawler like Wizardry. You put together your build by choosing weapons, arranging them in your backpack, and looking for synergies between them. Then take that build into the dungeon and see how far you can push it.

The demo currently has 88 weapons with different effects, Rank scaling, resource mechanics, and synergies. I've also been doing a lot of work recently on the balance, level layouts, pacing, and making the item system easier to build around from the start of a run.

I'm mainly looking for feedback from people coming into the game completely fresh. Anything that feels confusing, frustrating, poorly explained, or just not fun would be especially helpful. Thank you!

Free to Play Status:

• Free to play
• Demo available

Involvement: I'm the solo developer of Backpack Syndicate.

https://i.imgur.com/kac3F6p.png

The only sprite images in my game are the logo, which I paid an artist on Fiverr to create (I saw drafts, underwent revisions, etc), and then some item sprites that I bought on the Unity Asset Store back in 2023. The store page doesn't disclose use of AI, I had emailed the artist asking them if AI was used and told no. Sure they could lie, but also I don't think AI was really mainstream back then.

I sent support back screenshots of the purchases and hoping they'll approve, but wondering if others have encountered something similar.

Edit: I forgot to mention that my store page was actually approved, it's just the build is getting rejected which confuses me even more.