Sneak into the castle and fight through the dungeon
Son of a Witch is a side-scrolling action roguelike where the king's guards have taken your mother away, and you are sneaking into the castle to get her back. Along the way you learn that a goblin artifact has been stolen, and the goblins are attacking because of it. Your goal is to push through the dungeon and find that artifact at the end. The dungeons are procedurally generated and non-linear, so the layout changes every time you start a new game. Between fights you will find shops, treasure rooms, challenge rooms, and NPCs who give out quests.
Play it with up to three friends
The game supports single player and co-op for up to four players, either sitting together on one screen or playing online. Everyone picks from ten heroes, each with their own starting weapon, items, and skill levels in melee, magic, and archery. The Knight is a melee specialist with damage-reducing armor, the Sorceress fires ranged magic and can create food to heal the party, the Druid adds poison to weapons, the Pyromancer shoots fireballs and ignores fire damage, and the Archer starts with an extra inventory slot. Other options include the Skeleton Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, Alchemist, and Lich, each with a mechanic that changes how you approach a run. Some characters are unlocked by finishing quests. Pets join you as companions, with 42 of them to find.
Build combos out of weapons, potions, and scrolls
There are over 130 items and weapons, and many of them work better together than alone. A Gold Diet potion lets you eat gold, and adding an Appetite potion on top turns that into a large heal. Voodoo Dolls let you hurt marked enemies from range, and pairing one with a Meteor Staff or Bomb makes the hit much worse. The Celestial Smuber hammer deals 200 damage, which doubles to 400 against a marked enemy, enough to drop the first level boss in two hits. Other setups reward clever play: a Rogue Sword plus a Turret Staff lets you hide while turrets clear the room, and the Enchanter's Warbreaker plus the Snake Staff lets you poison everything, then finish weakened enemies for mana. You will also drink random potions, identify magic scrolls, and grab weapons enemies drop.
Know how death works before you start
Runs use permadeath: when you die, the run ends and a fresh world is generated on the next start. If that sounds too harsh, RPG mode keeps your progress and restarts you at the last level instead. Across a run you face 8 enemy factions and 28 bosses, and the enemies and encounters are drawn randomly, so no two dungeons play the same.