Be The Danger: E-Lich: Corporate Souls

A bullet-heaven game with personality and skeletons.

‣ E-Lich: Corporate Souls
From: JohnnyR Designs
Platforms: PC
Release: 2024
Steam Page • Demo Video • Developer Site

In bullet-heaven games, you are "the danger".

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They say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. The afterlife certainly doesn't mean an end to corporate bondage, at least not in this game. Fortunately, this particular rat race is less about paperwork and answering emails, and more about mowing down hordes of harassed medieval peasants trying to kill you. 

Yup, it's another Vampire Survivors clone, though I prefer to affectionately call this the bullet-heaven genre, a style of game that is really coming into its own. And while the genre has countless pretenders (many that append "Survivors" to their titles), there are also clear standout gems, like E-Lich: Corporate Souls.

Bullet heaven games are a bit like beauty pageants. You already know the contestants are attractive (or, in the case of this genre, compulsive), so they have to compete with their personalities. Yet most bullet-heaven clones don't get this memo. They studiously copy the most common elements but forget that all their competitors are doing the same. They need to do more to keep players interested.

In a "bullet hell" game, the enemy deploys a World War's worth of firepower, which you dodge with the nimble footwork of a ballerina. In bullet-heaven games, you are like Breaking Bad's Walter White—you are "the danger" doing all the blasting. Your character attacks automatically, building up their deadly arsenal with random upgrades that you unlock as you collect the souls of the fallen.

The enemy has one response: throw everything at you. They come in hordes, at first a trickle of fodder that becomes a deluge of bodies all storming at you in bigger numbers and tougher enemies. Eventually, you face a screen-filling mob of angry characters, only kept alive by your reflexes and calculated buffs. Death, though, is inevitable, since this is a roguelite sub-genre. Fortunately, with each failure comes the chance to buy permanent upgrades that increase your odds on the battlefield.

I can throw a rock at Steam and hit a bullet-heaven game. It will probably rebound and hit a few more. Outside of visual novels, pixel side-scrollers, porn titles, and backroom games, I don't think there is a more cloned genre. So, if you want to stand out, you really need to stand out. Back to our beauty pageant comparison, you need to have some serious personality—maybe a humourous pixel-art take on skeletons working for an afterlife corporation, charged with dodging angry villagers who fear the walking dead.

E-Lich: Corporate Souls has personality. It looks great with a colourful and consistent pixel-art visual style that never feels copied or tired, thanks to a strong style and plenty of little animated touches. Even the game lobby, a corporate office, is visually entertaining, complete with a snarky receptionist. The battlefield (a forest level in the demo) is similarly attractive with nicely-animated enemies and lush-looking buff cards. 

📽 Demo Snapshot: A lotta angry villagers

This attention to detail extends to the characters. In the demo, you can play as one of five different classes, each lovingly rendered with a distinct play style and personality. The main character is an agile sword fighter, the big axe wielder is slower but deadlier, while the warlock, rogue, and archer have ranged attacks and unique abilities. They are enhanced by buffs you can unlock on the battlefield, and there are permanent abilities such as dash and crit damage that you can purchase at the talent witch.

E-Lich: Corporate Souls is a comedic game that doesn't take itself too seriously. But the execution is on par with the standouts of the genre. Sometimes, these games play too slowly, the buffs and classes are unbalanced, or it's hard to track the action through muddled art design. But not in this game.

The action paces well, the controls are responsive, the buffs are interesting and useful, and when I died, I never felt cheated; I only needed more upgrades and maybe faster fingers. These are the selling points of a good bullet-heaven game/Survivors clone.

But calling this a clone is an injustice. E-Lich: Corporate Souls has all the pieces that define the genre, with enough added personality to create an exciting and charming standout game.

E-Lich: Corporate Souls launches in 2024 on Steam.

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Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:

• 📽 00:54 Into the fray!

• 📽 02:50 The corporate lobby

• 📽 07:45 Back to battle

• 📽 17:20 Let's try the archer

• 📽 24:18 Buying some upgrades

• 📽 25:22 Warrior time!

• 📽 29:58 A choice of buffs

• 📽 36:03 Lich Jr time

• 📽 43:03 Daggers to a peasant fight

• 📽 52:58 Let's try the first guy again

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