Scourgebringer was one of the games that fell victim to issues with a Steam update in 2019 that was intended to improve the platform's recommendations but, according to some developers, had the exact opposite effect. Thomas Altenburger of developer Flying Oak Games said at the time that the change was "a catastrophe," and that "our game literally disappeared from most sources of recommendations."

It was a very big bump in the road, but work continued, as it does, and the "fast-paced free-moving roguelite platformer" is now out on Steam Early Access. The game tells the tale of a great, mysterious machine that's brought the Scourge to the world and has resisted all efforts to explore or communicate with it. So, as these things usually go, the job now falls to you, in the guise of Kyhra, the deadliest warrior of her clan, who enters the Scourgebringer with sword and gun to lay a beatdown on everything she sees.

I've played a little bit of the Early Access release and it looks very promising, albeit not something I'm very (or at all) good at. Kyhra packs a rod but melee combat is the real focus. Clicking frantically will get you some distance but players with enough patience to develop the skills will also be able to strategically deal special attacks that will no doubt become increasingly necessary as the game wears on, especially when the promised "giant bosses" show up. Flying Oak expects that Scourgebringer will stay in Early Access for six to eight months, depending on how the player response goes, and content including weapons, skills, enemies, and bosses is expected to roughly double by the time full release happens.

Scourgebringer is available now for ten percent off its regular $15/£12/€15 price, which is expected to increase slightly at full launch. An extra-special bonus is also available, but you'll have to go digging for it a little bit—specifically in the EULA, which nobody ever looks at because, let's be honest, they're boring. So Flying Oak decided to open Scourgebringer's with a recipe for homemade pizza.

So ScourgeBringer's EULA is delightful. And no doubt delicious pic.twitter.com/t3PgEALM5jFebruary 6, 2020

(I wish I could claim to have discovered it myself, but the credit goes to this guy.)

This is the real deal, btw: You're going to make your own dough, and then you're going to make your own fig jam, and while you're at it you might as well look up a recipe for fresh tomato coulis because you're going to need some of that, too. It's basically a hardcore roguelite for your kitchen.

You can find out more (about the game, not the pizza, although I'm definitely interested in knowing more about that too) at scourgebringer.com.