Meatballs

Meatballs is a fast, top-down bullet-hell roguelike about a meatball trying to escape The Grinder at the bottom of the universe. You fight through 10 levels of escalating enemy waves, mini-bosses and multi-phase bosses, collecting XP, gold, weapons and items to build your strength. The more you carry, the more weight you put on your frame: exceed your structural integrity and you begin to fall apart, taking damage over time.

Play as a meatball

There are 18 playable meatballs, each with a unique passive and starting loadout. You begin as Classic and unlock the others by surviving. You can also cook a custom meatball in The Kitchen, using ingredients stocked from past runs; each custom meatball gets one run, and is eaten if it dies. You can earn 30 hats to dress your meatballs in.

The available meatballs include Classic, Spicy, Frozen, Golden, Shadow, Electric, Toxic, Cosmic and Inferno. Their abilities include burning nearby enemies, slowing the arena, attracting luck and gold, dashing into invisibility, chaining lightning, leaving poison clouds and stretching bullet-time. Inferno deals apocalyptic damage but has very little health.

Build your arsenal

You collect and upgrade weapons, combine duplicates and pursue tier drops. Maxed weapons can evolve into one of 47 ultimate forms. The 55 weapons include 7 grenade types and cover ranged and melee attacks, beams, orbitals, summons, mortars, mines and chain lightning. Examples include the Pea Shooter, Boomstick, Mincegun, Rail Skewer, Sizzle Beam, Orbiting Olives and Excalimeat.

There are 131 items across 5 rarity tiers, along with 40 item synergies and 5 item sets. Pairing gear can create combinations such as Blood Frenzy, Deadeye, Armageddon and Time Lord. You also have a separate Signature Dish slot for 7 utensil abilities that you activate on command.

You can block to reduce incoming damage, then time a block on the front arc to riposte or bat a bullet back at its source. Other combat features include dashes, kill-streak bullet-time, melee, boss weak points and status effects.

Face the kitchen's enemies

Each level ends with a multi-phase boss, with its own fighting style, signature attacks, destructible arena props and tenderisable weak points. The named bosses include THE PREP COOK, THE BUTCHER, OL' SIZZLER, MAMA MEATBALL, BLINKWURST, GENERAL GRILLSWORTH, THE NECRO-CHEF, THE SAUCE KING, MIRROR MAITRE D' and THE MEATRIX. Replays can feature alternate bosses, and there is also a final diner nobody talks about.

Runs also include 33 mini-bosses and 51 enemy types, including healers, spawners, magnets, freezers and necromancers. Some enemies appear as elite variants with dangerous affixes.

Prepare between runs

The Kitchen lets you make custom meatballs by grinding, pan-frying and plating ingredients from your pantry; seasoning them correctly gives them a passive. At Nonna's house, you spend lifetime stars on daily specials and permanent utensils. Between waves, you can visit her cart and renovate it to improve its stock.

At L'Atelier, you earn and equip cosmetic hats. You can also pin optional Order Up! side-orders to a run, with 40 goals that pay out when completed. After beating a boss, you can wield its relic as an active power; coin-operated machines and charge-up shrines in the arena accept gold, health or both.

Choose how to play

You can set runs to one of four doneness levels: Rare, Medium, Well Done or Congratulations. Fifteen mutators, including Glass Cannon, Horde, Swarm Lord, Big Game, Happy Hour and Blackout, change the conditions of a run. Daily and Weekly Runs use one shared seed, giving everyone the same run and a place to compete on the global board.

Other modes include Boss Rush, Endless with an Ascension ladder, 18 Trials, one-life Iron Chef and Custom Runs that you can share using a recipe code.

Play with others

Online co-op and PvP support up to 4 players. You can invite friends from the lobby over Steam or play over LAN or direct IP. Co-op scales loot and power-ups to the number of players, while PvP supports free-for-all and team play.