Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Year 3! Our 5th game of 2024 is Brotato. The target completion date is March 11, 2024.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Does Brotato have spoilers? Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after March 11, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Brotato?

It's a "bullet heaven" Vampire Survivorslike where you play an armed potato killing enemies. Run-based with somewhat limited progression it's all about the build and the arcade style action all controlled with one thumbstick.

How long is Brotato?

It's as long as you want it to be, because it's run based. A successful run is about 20 minutes.

I really really like this game. I've been playing it since it came out on Xbox and it's probably my second favorite Vampire Survivorslike after...Vampire Survivors. And I've played a bunch of them at this point! It doesn't have that game's depth or complexity but the straightforward simplicity lends itself to "one more run" and the variety of Brotatos you can unlock lend themselves to different builds and experimentation.

There's something extremely satisfying about seeing a build come together and the tension of trying to survive the end of a wave when your health is low and the timer is ticking down. They also did a really good job of balancing risk vs reward in terms of grabbing currency or health pickups.

It's not the best looking game, the best balanced game, or the best game in any specific way, but the overall package is just a lot of fun in short bursts.

Played 26 minutes and did a couple runs. Felt like my first run was pretty good, died on wave 15, but I'm pretty sure I'm just not aware of what completing a run entails. The enclosed space gives a little less maneuverability than Vampire Survivors which adds to the tension. You have pretty good speed from the start(I picked the vanilla brotato for my first run) and was able to escape through groups of enemies relatively unscathed, so it doesn't quite feel like your first VS run where the enemies quickly overwhelm you before you can weave through tight creases.

I'm just starting to get the hang of the weapon system. Being able to upgrade weapons of the same level to make a stronger weapon to open up slots for other weapons is a nice touch. It took me some expertimenting to see that just having two of the same type of weapon didn't open up the combine option. But it's nice that the game is forgiving enough to give you a recycle option to discard items if you find something you'd rather have.

I'm gonna go back into it later for sure.

Discussion is now fully open! Disclose your favorite builds and strategies!

I really like this game. I haven't beaten level 6 yet but I came very close with the knight. Mostly I've been grinding all the brotatoes to open up items but to be honest most of them are pretty meh, so the brogression isn't great, but I enjoy the runs so much and they're so reasonably timed that I keep coming back.

Finally managed to win a run on danger level 5. I used the knight and a combination of high armor and dodge along with a very high HP regen. That took a lot of tries and required a lot of luck. Don't think I'll be doing DL 5 again but I'm glad I did it once.