Mr. Sun's Hatbox is a slapstick roguelike with a heavy dose of Metal Gear Solid 5
Build a Mother Base and retrieve a lost delivery this month
Have you ever been waiting for a delivery, only to have it never arrive? Ever wondered where it went? How does the courier even begin to track a lost item? Mr. Sun’s Hatbox answers all of those questions (very seriously) in a genre-blending comedy. When I say genre-blending, I mean this is a platforming roguelike with extensive base-building, shooting, whacking, stealthing, and a heavy dose of Metal Gear Solid 5. Seriously. It launches on April 20th.
Your mission is to deliver Mr. Sun’s hatbox parcel. Simple. But when a gang steals that hatbox, the company’s Delivery Guarantee Team Insurance Policy means you're obligated to build a giant HQ underneath Mr. Sun’s shop, recruit a partially voluntary army, and jump-and-gun to retrieve the parcel. That’s what happens when your deliveries go missing.
The rules are more or less the same as most roguelikes. You’ll be jumping around and shooting hatbox thieves across pixelated labyrinths; occasionally, you’ll find and keep new weapons and hats with their own unique properties, such as a snake hat that munches nearby enemies. The fun twist comes with your underground, perpetually growing base of operations, which is also where those MGS5 vibes set in. If you find more hats and weapons than you can carry, there’s only one option: put your Big Boss gloves on, attach a balloon to the items, and watch them float away. They'll be waiting for you back at base.
Happily, you can kidnap - I mean recruit new playable characters this way too. Each character has their unique quirks. The one highlighted in the trailer is a melee expert, for example, but he’s also a lifelong thief, meaning he’ll pocket any gold you find for himself. Mix in different weapons and hats with their own properties, and you can see the character-building options take shape, or web out wildly. You can play the game in co-op, and there'll be PvP modes available, in case you want to share the fun.
Mr. Sun’s Hatbox comes from solo dev Kenny Sun and it's launching on April 20th on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch. The free demo is still available and was one of RPS' highlights from this year's Steam Next Fest.
