I'm playing Duskers in my pitch-black living room, a long chain of mismatched USB cables snaking their way from the TV to the mechanical keyboard resting in my lap. On-screen was a fuzzy, top-down image of one of my drones, Wally. He'd been with me from the beginning.

The angular, red/orange blob leaped in from offscreen, a kind of alien life form I'd never seen before. I flinched, losing valuable time before I was able to pound out the commands to get my little drone out of there — navigate Wally r1; d9 d9 d9

But it was too late. He was gone. I sealed up the hatches behind him, gathered my other little friends together and left him there, alone in an empty ship with that monster. I had to. There was no way to save him without putting everything we'd worked for at risk.

This is what it's been like to live inside of Duskers for the past few weeks, one of the most unusual little roguelikes I've seen in a very long time. At the same time, it's one of the best strategy titles I've played this year and a taut roleplaying experience.

Duskers presents itself entirely in-fiction

Duskers takes elements of the Alien franchise, of the classic Space Hulk board game, of horror films like Event Horizon and even science fiction classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and strains them through a sparse, thematic interface that holds your attention unlike anything else out there. And it's exactly as responsive and flexible as it needs to be to excel at the game.

You begin each game of Duskers with a rickety spaceship and three remote-control drones. You've lost contact with home, with everyone really. Making matters worse, you're low on fuel. The goal is to survive for as long as possible, docking with derelict ships and abandoned space stations, trying to find enough resources to make it to the next system.

But the way Duskers presents itself is entirely in-fiction, as though you've sidled up next to a computer terminal on that rickety old spaceship. The entire interface is driven from a command line. There's no controller support, no need for a mouse. Everything required to run your ship, to maneuver, care for and feed your little robotic "crew," is accessible from the keyboard. That makes it a real treat for lovers of mechanical keyboards like me. So far, I've played it exclusively on a vintage 1984 IBM Model M and it feels so, so right.