You Should Play Rounds

George: I’ve been racking my brain for a good way to summarise Rounds. A way to encapsulate the genius of this multiplayer 2D shooter. It’s tricky, because Rounds is a really simple game. It looks like the flash games you played on the school computers – well, after a bit of a glow-up perhaps, but like great food, it combines humble ingredients to create something incredible. And the dish that Landfall have cooked up here is extremely moreish.

Move, shoot, jump, block. That’s the game. Or at least that’s how the game begins. Over five rounds of Rounds things will get incresingly funky. Every time you lose a round (each round is a best of 3 games), you get to choose one of five random perks cards to add to your build. While you both start out as belligerent peas shooting slow bullets at each other, by the end of the match you’ll each be a chaotic ball of lethality (hopefully lethal for your opponent). Increase your bullet speed, now make them bounce, a splash of timed explosive and maybe a little poison for good measure. Give up on guns entirely and turn your block into a deadly area effect weapon combining the ability to slow your opponent with a circular saw.

Growing your build over the course of a Rounds match is exciting, there’s ton of novelty in discovering new cards and seeing how they work in combo with each other. As you’re given five to choose from at random, you can’t pre-plan an optimised build, instead you’re pushed into experimentation. Sure, if you play enough you’ll become familiar with most of the cards and the sorts of combos to look out for. I hope Landfall will expand the card pool further just to extend the length of time in which new cards and combos continue to be a fun novelty.

(Hello – checking in 3 years after I first drafted this article and while there haven’t been any content updates Landfall have released Rounds on Xbox. I cling to the hope of more cards)

Gav: I’m not as qualified to talk about Rounds, as I’ve only played it a couple of times with George and have never been invited to the official Rounds discord (George: My only ever public online game ended with a discord invite – the cult of Rounds is strong). What I did play was kinetic, exciting and socially interesting. It’s maybe not the sort of game I’d be interested in playing with randoms online, but as a couch game or one with friends it’s immensely enjoyable. Intense 1-on-1 competition, a little bit of shouting, and a simple formula that encourages variance and experimentation.

Discovering the little combinations and messing around with them leads to the development of microcosmic metagames between you and your adversaries. Rapid-fire pick and counterpick as the needle swings one way or the other. You either change your strategy on the fly, or just double down on one – in my case, picking tons of health cards, and in George’s case, choosing semi-suicidal ricochet ones. The moment-to-moment platform shooting gameplay is solid enough, but it’s the skill selection that makes this game shine. It’s no surprise that the game’s main ‘gimmick’ is what makes it special, but it’s the little pseudo-social aspect, rather than simply min-maxing your choices, that makes it stand out to me.

George: That “homing + richochet + bullet speed” combo was this close to greatness. Even if the bullets did bounce back and home in on me most of the time. Rounds is a game that’s easy to fall in love with and I’d love to….

Older George: Not sure where that sentence was going to end when I closed this draft several years ago but as mentioned Rounds is now releasing on Xbox and I look forward to more people joining the cult. It will be right at home on console. It’s a game I can’t stop wanting to show people people – it’s a game out of time. If Rounds had launched in 2004 we’d be remembering it alongside the other local multiplayer greats like Smash Bros and Goldeneye (Look I’m not that old, I’d personally go Nightfire).

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If you want more chaotic dueling then you like the cut and thrust of our Hellish Quart Impressions. Gav’s been rounding up pocket sized monsters and putting them to work – check out his thoughts on Palworld.

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