‘Statless’ Sees You Dying in an RPG Menu

I’ve been writing about games for almost a decade now, and I’ve never been killed just by choosing selections in an RPG-style menu.

That changed earlier today with Statless, an RPG which features zero character stats and a few interesting system choices.

You see, in Statless, ‘Crystals’ replace health, magic, money, and all other stats. This means that after every battle, when your crystals are restored fully, you can spend them on new spells or boosters which improve your combat effectiveness, but you do it at your own risk as you’ll be able to take even less damage in combat.

This makes Statless a masterful juggling act – buy more spells and narrowly skim through combat and you’ll have them there as back-up in future fights, but be aware that even spells use up your crystals, and you need them to survive.

This is an incredibly clever use of the GMTK 2019 theme: Only One. Where many took this to mean a single attempt or a single life, the reduction of all statistics and characteristics down to a single variable is incredibly well-executed. Not just that, but it’s rife with charm – I really enjoyed the tight line art and silly naming conventions.

Statless is available now on itch.io.

About The Author

Dann Sullivan

After almost a decade of selling games, Dann decided to try his hand at writing about them instead. A few years in and he is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Big Boss Battle, where he and his team cover games of all shapes and sizes. When not in the role, he can often be found seeking out small, memorable game experiences.

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