*The following review is based on Survival Mode in 20 Minutes Till Dawn v0.7.6*

If you would like to see the TL;DR, please scroll to the bottom for the Verdict.

Another day, another rogue-lite. This time, in the vein of Magic Survival, but with a lovecraftian twist! That means progressively more bullets flying across the screen as you acquire overpowered abilities and upgrades with which to fend off the cthonic horde. Each run simply asks you to survive for 20 minutes, unlocking further difficulties and earning you Souls for upgrades and unlocks.



🔎Interaction
Before starting a run, you select a character, a weapon, a Rune loadout, and Darkness (difficulty). Runes in particular are tucked away in a menu at the top of your screen, and are NOT the name of the currency as it would appear (fools many players, including myself). While you don't have much to choose from initially, you earn Souls whether you win or lose, which can be spent to unlock additional characters, weapons, and Runes upgrades. Each successful victory on your highest available Darkness will unlock the next one, starting from zero and going up to Darkness 15.

Each character and weapon has their own particular characteristics, with characters having 3 personal upgrades to be gained from minibosses throughout each run. Runes are sort of like a customizable talent tree, giving you access to 4 offensive and 4 defensive/utility perks to swap around, depending on your preference. These will form the backbone of your strategy before you even start, as you further augment your stats and abilities by leveling up during the run.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2859789590
⚔️Combat
The flow of each run is largely the same, with the exact time left to survive in the corner of your screen. With the majority of characters, your only real tactic at the start is to fire your weapon and avoid enemies, though a couple characters have active abilities. Each enemy killed will drop small pips of XP that you can collect by getting close, with each level up granting you a choice from a random assortment of perks, and granting access to even more powerful perks and synergies down the road.

At specific intervals, enemy spawns will change, sometimes confining you to a small area for a minute with a boss monster. While minibosses drop character specific upgrades, bosses drop a choice between three powerful upgrade tomes that also come with some sort of drawback. The order of character upgrades and the exact selection of tomes will be randomized, which can be extremely detrimental depending on the circumstance, and you might find yourself skipping on the tomes entirely, when RNG simply fails you.

Regular, small enemies come in a handful of varieties. Some shoot projectiles, some explode. But everything is constantly approaching, and touch damage is always factor. You will need to shoot faster, hit harder, and manipulate your enemies in order to keep up with their increasing numbers and toughness. Sources of healing are scarce, so kiting and building properly are important. As you get better, it will become increasingly easy to complete any Darkness without taking damage, so long as you play well and build efficiently.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2859793438
+ Great aesthetic
The predominantly red, black, and white color scheme is visually striking, and makes it easier to distinguish friend from foe at most points of the game. The strong contrast of light and dark also amplifies the game's tone, fighting off twisted creatures of the night with a hail of bright bullets and flames

+ Tight gameplay
Controls are simple, and hitboxes are very clean. You can skirt past enemies by mere pixels with proper movement, which adds nailbiting tension to difficult situations

+ Diverse options
From characters, to weapons, to Runes, to upgrades... there is a lot of variety to be had in every single run, and it can be very entertaining to try a slightly different strategy, just to see how much it changes things


- Balancing WIP
The power of characters, weapons, Runes, and upgrades varies wildly. Obviously things can't be perfectly balanced, but certain strategies stand head and shoulders above others to a degree that is difficult to ignore. Summons largely ignore perk drawbacks. One Rune gains no benefit past Lv. 1 despite allowing multiple upgrades, and still seems undertuned. Some upgrades open you up to more upgrades that you'll never want, wasting precious upgrade choice slots

- Exhaustive loop
Honestly, you start to miss the auto-attacking from games like Vampire Survivors. With not much to do other than aim and shoot, there were very few instances where I felt the need to let go of the trigger for the entire 20 minutes, which is a little taxing. Runs also get to feel samey with enemies and their patterns repeated every single time on the same map

- Early access woes
The menu is not very pleasant to navigate, and seems caught between being M+KB friendly vs controller friendly. The aforementioned problem with the Runes menu is one I saw echoed by more than a handful of people online after missing it myself for a half dozen runs or so. I've also had problems with my Darkness selection straight up not working, putting me in some other, unknown level of Darkness with no way to check in-game other than by feeling out the difference. All of this could be remedied with further updates, so I chalk it up to the game being Early Access

~ Progression
It personally baffles me that Darkness is unlocked one level at a time, with the difficulty increases being so minimal per step. Not everyone cares about achievements, but as most of them are locked behind Darkness 15, and nothing more is gained from each extra challenge besides more challenge, it makes everything besides Darkness 0 and 15 seem tedious and excessive, though you could certainly argue that it gives you time to experiment with a lot of builds. As indicated, YMMV

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2859786783
Personally, I really like 20 Minutes Till Dawn. Even as things stand, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it for an incredibly cheap asking price. It has a very solid gameplay structure that feels like it adds a little challenge in just the right way compared to contemporaries.

With it's nature as an Early Access game, it has a lot of room to grow and improve in future updates, with the potential for things like reroll/banishes for upgrades, a fire button toggle, more maps, etc. If you like the genre, I think you would be doing yourself a disservice not to add 20 Minutes Till Dawn to your library!