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It’s not often that I feel like I need to begin a video game recommendation with a health warning, but Kaz earns one. The ultra-fast indie game I’m about to tell you about can wreak havoc on your wrists if you play it for too long at once. Trust me, I know. I couldn’t pry myself away from it during my first session, and I learned this lesson the hard way. I’m confident that you’ll understand why I got myself into that position once you try it for yourself.
Developed by Kalinarm, Kaz is a new roguelike that’s available on Steam for $7. Its price tag matches its small scope; the elegant arcade game doubles down on a straightforward premise that you’ll feel compelled to dive into over and over again. Just make sure you have a strong keyboard and an ice pack handy.
The goal of Kaz is to survive a deconstructed dungeon crawler as long as you can, slaying enough enemies to get a certain number of points before a timer runs out in each stage. That idea is delivered through the kind of browser game minimalism that powered the Flash game era. Each level simply drops your avatar into a grid made up of squares. Enemies will pop up in those squares, and you only need to defeat them by navigating to their square using WASD or your arrow keys. (It is also compatible with a dance pad, something I would test in a heartbeat if my downstairs neighbors didn’t hate me enough already.)
Easy enough, right? Well, it would be if you didn’t have only 15 seconds to hit the level’s score threshold. Kaz is a lightning-fast game of reflexes. You need to work on instinct and muscle memory to meet the goal before the timer runs out, dodging traps and remembering to take down shielded enemies with two hits. It sounds simple, but that’s what makes Kaz such a great “one more level” game. I couldn’t stop loading up another run even when my wrists were starting to get sore because it was just so satisfying to test my typing speed.
Kalinarm buffs that simple idea up in a few clever ways. For one, Kaz features a Balatro-like roguelike system where you pick up a new perk between each level. The passive effects can give you more points per enemy, extend your combo multiplier, tweak how fast enemies spawn, give your avatar lasers, and more. There’s more build-crafting depth than you’d expect. On one run, I went all in on buffing my combo potential by raising my multiplier limit, extending the time my chain stays active, and spawning in enemies faster to ensure I always had something to hit to keep my score climbing. In another run, I focused on upgrades that spawned secret stars that gave me an extra cache of points. There are tons of buffs to unlock that can create some satisfyingly busted builds.
That’s balanced out by a smart risk layer. If you hit traps, you’ll take curse damage. When your curse meter fills up, you’ll take a negative perk between levels instead. It’s a smart way to force you to think more deliberately in later levels instead of smashing the keys at random, though there can even be a silver lining in that punishment if you play your cards right. In one run, I grabbed perks that made an enemy class that moves away if you try to hit it more valuable. A curse that spawned more of those into my grid ended up being the perfect synergy I needed.
My favorite little detail, though, is that every playable avatar (each one has its own starting perk) actually unlocks a completely different theme for the grid. One character will chase down evil skeletons, while a rabbit chases down carrots and apples instead. It’s a cute trick that makes the repetitive act of navigating a maze feel new each time you try out an unlocked character. I’d love to see modders, or even other game developers, get to work uploading their own themes to keep that energy going.
I don’t imagine I’ll play Kaz for a long time considering the strain it puts on me after 30 minutes, but it’s one that I’m going to keep on standby for a while. It captures the spirit of a great Flash game you’d find on a website like Newgrounds in the early 2000s: It’s easy to learn, but practically dares you to master it by waving your typing stats in front of you between every level. I still feel my restless fingers waiting for another go at it as I write this. I’ll probably just give my wrists another day off before I put them through the wringer again.
