OTXO is a top-down third-person roguelite shooter in the style of Hotline Miami and John Wick, created by Lateralis Heavy Industries and published by Super Rare Originals in April of 2023.
In this game, you play as a guy on a train who is left with a mysterious mask by another passenger. Upon putting it on, he loses both his memories and the one he loves, and winds up on a beach overlooking a strange mansion. It quickly becomes apparent that he has become an Otxo (pronounced oh-cho, which is Basque for "Wolf"), a deathless assassin bound to the Mansion with no memories, and with the only way to remove the mask and get the one he loves back being to take up the guns and blast his way through the mansion in search of its Heart, which he needs to destroy. Standing in his way are a veritable army of gun-toting goons, freaky monsters, and the mysterious Red Mask, who does not want him to leave.
OTXO features examples of:
- A.K.A.-47: Most weapons are modelled after real life guns, but their names are different. For example, the Gabriel G1 is a M1 Garand, the Ferula is a FAMAS assault rifle and the Vespucci-12 is a SPAS-12.
- Amnesiac Hero: The titular Otxo, as a result of the Mask robbing him of his memories.
- Anticlimax Boss: Red Mask, who does much to antagonize you throughout the game, fights you in the battle just before the Heart of the Mansion. Considering that you have blown through multiple floors of baddies and bosses to get to this point, he goes down just like any other mook in the game.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Your health refills at the end of each floor, and you get unlimited mags for your gun of choice when you go up against the floor's main boss.
- Assist Character: Some liquors grant you companions to help you in combat:
- Roxy gives you an attack dog that will roam through the level mauling any mook it encounters. Although mooks can kill it, it will respawn in the next level. It also disappears during boss fights.
- Technomancer gives you an attack drone that follows you around shooting any mook in its range. Unlike Roxy it cannot be destroyed and is also active during boss fights.
- The Wanderer gives you a chance to summon a ghost cowboy while using focus that will shoot mooks with his revolver.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: The Otxos in general, the mooks and Red Mask.
- Blackout Basement: The Bottomless Cellar is a literal version. Unless some light source is present, the area will be very dark save for your Player Character's cone of vision.
- Bloodstained Glass Windows: The Colossal Chapel is set inside a church that is somehow inside the Mansion.
- Booze-Based Buff: Every few levels, you get to buy a drink from the Bartender (provided you have the money) that gives you a perk that stays with you for the rest of your run.
- Bullet Time: The Focus mechanic, also a power of the Mask, allows you to slow down time. It is needed due to the very, very, very heavy fire that the Mooks will be directing your way.
- Challenge Run: Beating the game for the first time unlocks a NPC that offers several challenge runs. Completing these unlocks new weapons and drinks.
- Deliberately Monochrome: OTXO uses a deliberately black and white color scheme, with red being the only other color.
- Eldritch Location: The Mansion itself, which prevents people from escaping it, prevents Otxos from taking off their masks, is home to a host of freaky monsters in addition to the mooks, and which can only be escaped by killing the Heart.
- Empty Shell: It's revealed in the lore texts found in Misplaced Chambers that the mooks patrolling the Mansion are former Otxos that failed in their attempt to destroy the Heart and are now soulless husks that mindlessly gun down any interlopers.
- Guns Akimbo: One of the drinks, Chenrezig, allows you to dual-wield one-handed guns, at the cost of being able to vault while firing.
- Here We Go Again!: Upon completing the game, your character heads into a train and leaves his mask behind for another guy to pick up and put on, continuing the cycle.
- Interface Screw: The gimmick of the Untold Bathhouse. Being in the same room as one of the hot jacuzzi pools will damp the screen with steam, obscuring your vision and your HUD.
- I Will Find You: The protagonist Otxo's quest is to find and rescue the one he loves, who was taken by the Mansion as his emotional center along with his memories.
- Joke Weapon: The reward for unlocking all other guns is a Welrod pistol, which only does as much damage as the other pistols while having a extremely low firing rate and poor accuracy.
- Kill Streak: The game rewards you for killing multiple enemies in rapid succession by increasing the amount of coins yielded with every kill. Since coins are needed to buy drinks and power up your character, this is needed.
- Leave No Survivors: To advance to the next level, you must kill everyone in the current level.
- Life Drain: The Animal drink will give you a bit of health every time you hit an enemy.
- Life Meter: Unlike the games which this game is inspired by, your character has a health meter instead of being a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Certain perks give you the ability to splatter your enemies, which earns you more coins.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The Otxos as a whole, as well as the mooks you're tasked with taking down.
- Mundane Made Awesome: The names of the different areas of the mansion. You've got the Infinite Foyer, the Untold Bathhouse, the Boundless Hallways...
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Nintendo Hard: Oh, boy is it ever. While you don't die in one hit like the games that inspired this game, the gunplay of this game can be brutal, and it is very, very easy for your run to end in a deadly hail of bullets. - Non-Human Head: The Deviant, who collects artifacts and is by far the freakiest resident of the Mansion aside from several of the monsters, is a guy with the head of a mantis.
- Noob Cave: The first area in every run is the Infinite Foyer. It only features a relatively modest amount of basic mooks in each level and a easy boss at the end. It serves as a warm up for the much harder areas that await.
- Nun Too Holy: The Nun is apparently an adherent of some kind of cult related to guns, and is your principal dealer of arms, both for you and for your many enemies.
- One Bullet Clips: Averted. Reloading will waste any remaining ammo in your old magazine.
- One-Man Army: By the time you get to the end, you will have killed an entire army of gun-toting assassins.
- Paint the Town Red: By the time you've blasted through your typical level, the place will often be left as a bloody and very red mess.
- Resurrective Immortality: The other power of the Mask aside from Bullet Time. As long as you have the Mask on, you won't die for good. It may also be a property of the Mansion as well.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue and Revenge: The Otxo's entire mission is one of these—Rescue being the rescue of the one he loves, and Revenge being making the Mansion pay for taking away his memories.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: The Impossible difficulty mode multiples damage (both from the player and enemies alike) by 5, making enemies die from a single bullet while your own character can survive only a few shots, changing the health system to be more akin to its Hotline Miami inspiration.
- Roguelite: Each run through the Mansion allows you to unlock more drinks, more guns, and certain Artifacts, but otherwise, it functions like your regular Roguelike.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Should you survive that far, the last area of the Mansion is always the Cosmic Ballroom, which features hordes of every kind of enemy in the game, introduces rocket launcher mooks, and at the end you get to fight the Heart of the Mansion and its true form, the Forsaken Heart.
