A dungeon your best friend built for you
Wally and the FANTASTIC PREDATORS is a top-down shooter rogue-lite where you play as Wally, a predatory fox breaking into animals' homes, taking their money, and getting insulted by NPCs along the way. Runs are perma-death: when you die, everything resets, so each attempt hands you a fresh set of items, curses and weapon combinations. You start each run with a weak weapon and build from there, picking up passive items, quests and upgrades that change the rules of that single session. Some of them are helpful, some are curses that actively work against you, and they stack together in ways that rarely repeat. The tone is scrappy and goofy rather than grim — expect jokes, odd NPCs, and a backpack guy you can hug.
Playing it with a friend
The game has a local co-op mode for two players, so one copy is enough to play together on the same machine. Steam also lists Remote Play Together, which lets a friend join from their own computer while you host. Co-op is described as a way to drag your friends into the run with you, and since everything is perma-death, you'll be restarting together when a run goes sideways. The game is built for 1-2 players, so a group session works best as a pair rather than a full lobby.
What to expect before you start
This one is tagged difficult for a reason. It's fast paced, the bullet-hell sections get dense, and the developer himself admits he isn't sure how many levels there are because the game is so hard — legends speak of players reaching level 4 and the Foxlion boss. There are 10 dungeons, 5 boss fights, 5 single-player run types, branching paths that let you trade max health for a glass-cannon build, and over 150 upgrades, curses, weapons, quests and daily twists. Daily and weekly runs add a new twist each time, like maximum movement speed, extra bombs, or a crit buff on every weapon. There's also a true ending that's kept a mystery. Expect a rough, charming pixel-art package that leans into weird jokes — including at least one dungeon where everything becomes the letter A — and a run that ends the moment you slip up.