The best Roguelikes of the last decade?

[Drathnoxis]

A lot of Roguelikes came out last decade. What were the best?

I played a bunch, but I'm sure there were some good one's I haven't tried. I think, not in any particular order, my top picks would be:

Death Road to Canada - I never see anyone talk about this game, but I really love it. It has so much personality and a sense of humour that appeals to me so much. And it's just fun looting and killing hordes of zombies and then dying because you got greedy and stayed too late after the sun went down and got overwhelmed.

Don't Starve - I'd be surprised if anybody didn't know about Don't Starve, but it's a great game. Just has so much style, and is one of the few games to make a food meter feel like it matters without being overly tedious. I have a little bit of a problem with it feeling a little directionless once you get basic survival down, and when you do mess up and die to some new boss it just takes soooo loooong to get back to where you were.

FTL - A very unique concept for a roguelike, managing a ship as if you were the captain on Star Trek. It's a blast but there's just a bit too much reliance on randomness to give you the weapons you need at the time you can afford them. Also, a way to speed the game up would be nice when waiting for healing, repairs, or just when the enemies weapons and shields are disabled and victory becomes inevitable and you have to wait for them to finally get around to blowing up.

Into the Breach - Same creator as FTL. I've put the fewest hours into this of anything else on my list, but it was still a lot of fun. It's a great strategy game, and it's really fun to puzzle out what the best moves to take will be. Didn't really hold my interest for more than a couple successful runs though.

The Binding of Isaac - So much variety. Levels, monsters, bosses, items, there's enough there to keep things unique and fresh for hundreds of runs. I also really like how the rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper. You start out and make it to Mom and win the game, but then the next time there's more levels and a new final boss, then you eventually find another boss after that, and then you find a branching path that goes to different levels and a whole new boss, and on and on. The way item synergies work means that every run will feel a little different from the one before. Some will be really easy and some will be quite hard, but there's a couple things included in the game to mitigate some of the randomness if you want so it still feels fair.

Maybe I'll do little write ups for each later, but it's kind of late now.
Edit: Done. The bottom line is, I never see anyone else ever talk about Death Road to Canada and that's a real shame, because more people should give it a try.

 

[meiam]

Best is hard to say, but as far as influential I think FTL is hard to beat, between the success story of early kickstarter to the fact that everything is being refered to as "FTL in --" (I heard crying sun being called "FTL in space") I think it's pretty solid on that.

 

[EvilRoy]

Rougelikes are a personal favorite game type for me. I have a certain love for doing the same thing over and over differently each time. These are the ones that I played in the last year (although most were released over the last few):

Binding of Isaac is a mainstay of mine for a travel game for a long time. The endless combinations and permientations of synergies through different powers really makes the game fun to replay just to see new shit or get crazy OP.

I actually want to throw Rouge Legacy on there as well though. There's a lot of fun to be had in just the weirdness of it all, but moreover it does a good job of not really letting you unlock 'win' buttons. There's cool stuff and neat genetics abilities, but nothing beyond your individual ability will really decide how a run will go.

There's also Dead Cells, which is just COOL. The bosses are challenging and interesting, visually its very beautiful, the story is engaging and the skill/weapon systems synergise into a semi-unique risk/reward system. You have to either let your skill path dictate your weapon options, or vise versa, but both the skills you can potentially get and the weapons that you might find are random - meaning that you might end up as a massive tank with a small fast weapon if that's how your options shake out.

The Guild of Dungeoneering, on the other hand is DIFFERENT. You play through the game sending teams of (card based) minions through various dungeons, increasing your guilds name and attractiveness to better idiots. I still class it as a rougelike because its very easy to crap up a whole run and start back from basically zip, although it has a much more tangible progression than rougelikes more true to the concept.

Nuclear Throne, I don't have a snappy descriptor for. I didn't get far in it, and you could be forgiven for confusing it with Enter the Gungeon, but there's some stuff there. Very skill based, as luck really won't save you (getting a really good weapon might rocket you ahead in a level, but if you can't handle it you'll die just a easy to an enemy or your own splash). Compared against Binding of Isaac, there are similar concepts in play with mutations synergising in interesting ways, but Nuclear Throne is way faster, and open field, meaning that you have to think on your feet without many options to rest your brain between fights.

And finally, Risk of Rain 1. Which is intense, and cool. You build up an arsenal including various powerups, skills and drones to walk with you through the levels. The longer you spend in game the harder the game gets (the final few difficulty levels are "I CAN SEE YOU" "I'M COMING FOR YOU" and "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."). Difficulty is fully time based, so you have to balance the desire to make money and acquire rad goods against spending too much time in any individual level. There's a boss at the end of each level that you have to defeat while charging a teleporter by being in a certain proximity making it hard to cheese, since looking for a cheesy location usually means leaving the proxy and spending more time increasing difficulty. On top of that you lose all your money when you leave each level, so you have to be efficient and directed in collecting and spending money as you search for the port. Different classes have different skills and ideal synergies. There is a sequel, and its 3D instead of being a 2D sikescroller. According to everything I've seen, going 3D only made the game better and that much more hectic. I plan to try it sometime soon here, but I'm a little burnt on shooters at present.

 

[CaitSeith]

The Crypt of the Necrodancer. The rhythm-based gameplay is fun, and the music is awesome.

 

[Trunkage]

Enter the Gungeon hasnt been said. Add votes for Rogue Legacy, FTL, Into the Breach, Risk of Rain and Binding of Isaac

 

[Worgen]

Enter the Gungeon
Binding of Isaac
FTL
Risk of Rain 1/2
Everspace (Despite there being something in it that just doesn't grab me as much as I think it should)
Steredenn (not really a roguelike, but it does have random enemy placement and upgrades so it kinda counts, but a damn good shooter)

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Enter the Gungeon, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Slay the Spire, and if it wasn't actually released in 2008, a long time before The Binding of Isaac Yahtzee, it wasn't influenced by Isaac at all, do your goddamn research!!!, I'd put Spelunky on the list too. I've also had a lot of fun with Monolith, but I don't think even I'd call it 'the best'.

 

[Drathnoxis]

There's also Dead Cells, which is just COOL. The bosses are challenging and interesting, visually its very beautiful, the story is engaging and the skill/weapon systems synergise into a semi-unique risk/reward system. You have to either let your skill path dictate your weapon options, or vise versa, but both the skills you can potentially get and the weapons that you might find are random - meaning that you might end up as a massive tank with a small fast weapon if that's how your options shake out.

The Guild of Dungeoneering, on the other hand is DIFFERENT. You play through the game sending teams of (card based) minions through various dungeons, increasing your guilds name and attractiveness to better idiots. I still class it as a rougelike because its very easy to crap up a whole run and start back from basically zip, although it has a much more tangible progression than rougelikes more true to the concept.

I'll have to give these a try. I've never heard of The Guild of Dungeoneering before, but it sounds interesting.

Nuclear Throne, I don't have a snappy descriptor for. I didn't get far in it, and you could be forgiven for confusing it with Enter the Gungeon, but there's some stuff there. Very skill based, as luck really won't save you (getting a really good weapon might rocket you ahead in a level, but if you can't handle it you'll die just a easy to an enemy or your own splash). Compared against Binding of Isaac, there are similar concepts in play with mutations synergising in interesting ways, but Nuclear Throne is way faster, and open field, meaning that you have to think on your feet without many options to rest your brain between fights.

And finally, Risk of Rain 1. Which is intense, and cool. You build up an arsenal including various powerups, skills and drones to walk with you through the levels. The longer you spend in game the harder the game gets (the final few difficulty levels are "I CAN SEE YOU" "I'M COMING FOR YOU" and "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."). Difficulty is fully time based, so you have to balance the desire to make money and acquire rad goods against spending too much time in any individual level. There's a boss at the end of each level that you have to defeat while charging a teleporter by being in a certain proximity making it hard to cheese, since looking for a cheesy location usually means leaving the proxy and spending more time increasing difficulty. On top of that you lose all your money when you leave each level, so you have to be efficient and directed in collecting and spending money as you search for the port. Different classes have different skills and ideal synergies. There is a sequel, and its 3D instead of being a 2D sikescroller. According to everything I've seen, going 3D only made the game better and that much more hectic. I plan to try it sometime soon here, but I'm a little burnt on shooters at present.

I tried Risk of Rain years ago when it was in early access and got bored after dying a handful of times and decided to drop it until it was finished. Then literally a couple of days ago I remembered it and decided to give it another go and... I still don't get it. The controls feel stiff, I just spend the whole time cycling through the same 3 attacks and dodge occasionally when I remember it and it's also not on cooldown, The items don't feel like a significant power boost, you move so slowly, enemies have enourmous health bars, and everything seems to take so long. I've made it to the third level once, but I just have no idea what kind of strategy I should be using. Should I be going to every level as fast as I can, or should I be hanging around grinding and opening all the chests? It doesn't seem to make any difference on my performance. People say the game is so much fun, but I really don't get why.

Nuclear Throne is another one I've just tried for the first time a couple days ago. It's alright, but I have the same kind of problems I do with Enter the Gungeon. You can only hold two guns, there's a ton of different ones, and I have no idea which one's are better than others. Also it's just very much simply a bullet hell shooter and there's not a whole lot of strategy other than just have better reactions and avoid all the bullets. I didn't play it too much because I don't really want to put the time commitment in like I did with Gungeon only to find I hit a wall 15 minutes into every run where good runs all inevitably end because I come up against a room full of enemies that kill me nearly instantly because I can't dodge a maze of bullets perfectly. In the couple hours I played Nuclear Throne there were far too many times where I went from full health to dead in a matter of seconds and wasn't even really sure what happened. I've even had the one mutation that promises I'll come back to life a bunch of times, but I've never actually been able to tell if it's procced or if it expires after the level or what the heck happens to it.

I guess my problems with these games is I like it when Roguelikes have the potential to tell their own stories. Every game of Nethack feels unique to me depending on what items I find, how the shops spawn, if I run into a powerful monster really early and need to run away and avoid an entire floor until much later in the run. And when I die in Nethack it's always because I did something stupid that I could have avoided. Nine times out of ten it's because I got caught up in the heat of the moment and didn't take time to actually think about what my best course of action would be, and it usually makes a good story regardless. With Gungeon and NT the story always seems the same, I shot a bunch of guys switched guns a couple times without being sure if it was an improvement and then died to a wall of bullets that I couldn't navigate perfectly enough. I don't know, maybe they're just not for me.

Enter the Gungeon, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Slay the Spire, and if it wasn't actually released in 2008, a long time before The Binding of Isaac Yahtzee, it wasn't influenced by Isaac at all, do your goddamn research!!!, I'd put Spelunky on the list too. I've also had a lot of fun with Monolith, but I don't think even I'd call it 'the best'.

Yeah, I looked up Spelunky to check the date too. Spelunky was fun but I felt done with the game after getting the normal end. The true end just seems so stupid hard to get I don't even want to try.

Necrodancer I still want to beat, but I just got kind of discouraged. I made it to zone 4, but I still don't feel like I'm getting a good handle on the controls. I just can't seem to get the hang of keeping track of moving with the beat at the same time as syncing with enemy patterns. Also the worlds are a bit short on their own and make collecting good items feel a little pointless. I guess I could try the all zones mode, though.

I've never heard of Slay the Spire, though, tell me about it.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I've never heard of Slay the Spire, though, tell me about it.

Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding game. As you advance through the dungeon, you add cards to your deck and occasionally remove them in order to get stronger. Of course you can also pick up passive items, but most of what you do in a turn is related to what cards you draw.

Enemies also telegraph what their next actions will be before your turn ends: if they're going to damage you, you'll see exactly how much hurt you're about to take. If they're going to buff themselves or debuff you, you can see that, but not necessarily exactly what they'll stick you with. It can help you determine whether to attack or defend with your hand, or which enemies to prioritize getting rid of.

There's a lot of interesting strategy to it, though I totally understand if it being a card game turns you off. Advice: If you can remove cards, do. Your starting Strikes are always valid to remove, and less cards means you're more likely to draw what you need.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I've never heard of Slay the Spire, though, tell me about it.

Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding game. As you advance through the dungeon, you add cards to your deck and occasionally remove them in order to get stronger. Of course you can also pick up passive items, but most of what you do in a turn is related to what cards you draw.

Enemies also telegraph what their next actions will be before your turn ends: if they're going to damage you, you'll see exactly how much hurt you're about to take. If they're going to buff themselves or debuff you, you can see that, but not necessarily exactly what they'll stick you with. It can help you determine whether to attack or defend with your hand, or which enemies to prioritize getting rid of.

There's a lot of interesting strategy to it, though I totally understand if it being a card game turns you off. Advice: If you can remove cards, do. Your starting Strikes are always valid to remove, and less cards means you're more likely to draw what you need.

Sounds interesting, I like card games.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Does Darkest Dungeon count? If so that's my vote, if not I'll go for Rogue Lecacy.

 

[Dansen]

And finally, Risk of Rain 1. Which is intense, and cool. You build up an arsenal including various powerups, skills and drones to walk with you through the levels. The longer you spend in game the harder the game gets (the final few difficulty levels are "I CAN SEE YOU" "I'M COMING FOR YOU" and "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."). Difficulty is fully time based, so you have to balance the desire to make money and acquire rad goods against spending too much time in any individual level. There's a boss at the end of each level that you have to defeat while charging a teleporter by being in a certain proximity making it hard to cheese, since looking for a cheesy location usually means leaving the proxy and spending more time increasing difficulty. On top of that you lose all your money when you leave each level, so you have to be efficient and directed in collecting and spending money as you search for the port. Different classes have different skills and ideal synergies. There is a sequel, and its 3D instead of being a 2D sikescroller. According to everything I've seen, going 3D only made the game better and that much more hectic. I plan to try it sometime soon here, but I'm a little burnt on shooters at present.

Coming from someone who hasn't played the first, RoR2 in early access was a lot of simple fun. There are a bunch of fun viable items, the only issue I had with it was the limited amount of stages and lack of boss variety. They are all hand crafted with no procedural generation so you can easily see them all within three runs. For sure get it when you feel a craving.

 

[EvilRoy]

I tried Risk of Rain years ago when it was in early access and got bored after dying a handful of times and decided to drop it until it was finished. Then literally a couple of days ago I remembered it and decided to give it another go and... I still don't get it. The controls feel stiff, I just spend the whole time cycling through the same 3 attacks and dodge occasionally when I remember it and it's also not on cooldown, The items don't feel like a significant power boost, you move so slowly, enemies have enourmous health bars, and everything seems to take so long. I've made it to the third level once, but I just have no idea what kind of strategy I should be using. Should I be going to every level as fast as I can, or should I be hanging around grinding and opening all the chests? It doesn't seem to make any difference on my performance. People say the game is so much fun, but I really don't get why.

Individual powerups definitely don't have the same kind of effect they have in BoI for example - some are definitely better than others, and there are appropriate powerups to aim for or avoid depending on your build, but ultimately the issue is how fast you collect them. Because difficulty is always going up, the very first powerup you get will feel very effective when on easy, but you have to keep up with the difficulty climb. Basically, its rapid collection quantity wise rather than seeking individual powerful items. You absolutely feel slow and stiff, until you get enough crap to feel fast - its absolutely a problem with early game feeling sluggish and awful after just having gotten a ways into the game and having to start over.

Coming from someone who hasn't played the first, RoR2 in early access was a lot of simple fun. There are a bunch of fun viable items, the only issue I had with it was the limited amount of stages and lack of boss variety. They are all hand crafted with no procedural generation so you can easily see them all within three runs. For sure get it when you feel a craving.

I'm definitely interested, and it sounds like they've updated recently, but I'm so burnt on shooters. I started playing OW a bunch again and ended up just not wanting to deal with it like a week later. Too much energy investment after a long day.

 

[meiam]

I've never heard of Slay the Spire, though, tell me about it.

Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding game. As you advance through the dungeon, you add cards to your deck and occasionally remove them in order to get stronger. Of course you can also pick up passive items, but most of what you do in a turn is related to what cards you draw.

Enemies also telegraph what their next actions will be before your turn ends: if they're going to damage you, you'll see exactly how much hurt you're about to take. If they're going to buff themselves or debuff you, you can see that, but not necessarily exactly what they'll stick you with. It can help you determine whether to attack or defend with your hand, or which enemies to prioritize getting rid of.

There's a lot of interesting strategy to it, though I totally understand if it being a card game turns you off. Advice: If you can remove cards, do. Your starting Strikes are always valid to remove, and less cards means you're more likely to draw what you need.

Love slay the spire, but I gotta say I think the RNG is a bit too much in it. You collect artifact that give you random power and these go from completely worthless to broken. So it always feel like your run are more based on how lucky you are than on doing the best with what you're given. This is especially bad when some of them work best when you build your character with certain spec in mind. Like for example one of the character can specialize in poison ability, if you don't get the right artifact it's pretty meh, but if you do it'll let you reach the last boss without any trouble.

On top of that some artifact have downside which can royaly screw you over, but you sometime don't really have a choice but to take them. Some artifact let you do more action every turn, all of them have downside, but some of them the downside is trivial and others might as well just game over you right away. But to progress you pretty much need some of them, so sometime your forced to take the terrible one.

 

[Worgen]

I'm going to go ahead and add Fission Superstar X onto here since it really does deserve more love.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Love slay the spire, but I gotta say I think the RNG is a bit too much in it. You collect artifact that give you random power and these go from completely worthless to broken. So it always feel like your run are more based on how lucky you are than on doing the best with what you're given. This is especially bad when some of them work best when you build your character with certain spec in mind. Like for example one of the character can specialize in poison ability, if you don't get the right artifact it's pretty meh, but if you do it'll let you reach the last boss without any trouble.

On top of that some artifact have downside which can royaly screw you over, but you sometime don't really have a choice but to take them. Some artifact let you do more action every turn, all of them have downside, but some of them the downside is trivial and others might as well just game over you right away. But to progress you pretty much need some of them, so sometime your forced to take the terrible one.

I'll admit that there's a lot of RNG in which cards and relics you get offered, but in my opinion, there's no such thing as a broken or cheese strategy in StS, only stuff that works and stuff that doesn't work. On that topic, learning which relics and cards are which, and in which situations, is part of the learning process. Metagame aspects aren't just in unlocking features, but in learning how to make use of them, and that goes for any roguelike.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Individual powerups definitely don't have the same kind of effect they have in BoI for example - some are definitely better than others, and there are appropriate powerups to aim for or avoid depending on your build, but ultimately the issue is how fast you collect them. Because difficulty is always going up, the very first powerup you get will feel very effective when on easy, but you have to keep up with the difficulty climb. Basically, its rapid collection quantity wise rather than seeking individual powerful items. You absolutely feel slow and stiff, until you get enough crap to feel fast - its absolutely a problem with early game feeling sluggish and awful after just having gotten a ways into the game and having to start over.

Ok, I beat the game. Artifacts completely break the game. I had never made it past the fourth level and then I turned the Artifact of Glass on and was unstoppable and beat the game on the next attempt. Enemies just melted away, the difficulty bar became meaningless, and I had so much extra money I was actually leveling up at the end of levels. I did die to the final boss the second run because of a dumb mistake, but for 95% of the run there was no challenge. It's basically like unlocking cheat codes, especially with Command too. They aren't even that hard to unlock except for the fact that some characters just can't break the required walls, annoyingly.

The story definitely could have use a tiny bit more buildup though. After going through it all I have no idea what it was about. Somebody going postal in the space shipping industry it seems? I don't know.

I'm still not in love with the game, it's at the same time a little too random and not random enough. It's too hard to unlock other characters until you break the game with artifacts and then it's trivial. I really think there should have been a few more characters to choose from to begin with, though. Oh well, I guess I started having a bit of fun with it, but I'm definitely done with it now.

 

[Nedoras]

Tales of Maj'Eyal would be at the top of my list of the decade. It's incredibly good and I can't recommend it enough. Get it, get the expansions, and then forget what other games are for a few months.

Caves of Qud I would tie with Maj'Eyal if it were finished but it's not. But it's basically right up there with it for being my favorite of the decade and what's there is incredible. It's also mostly done at this point, with the full release being set for this year. It's not like it's in limbo, so it's well worth checking out.

Synthetik has been a bit slept on, but I'd throw it up there too. It topped Enter the Gungeon for being my favorite "shooter" rogue-like. It's an incredibly intense game and I had a blast with it.

While they're by no means the "best", I'd also like to mention Tangledeep and Cryptark. They're both great games and have been completely ignored.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Sunless Sea - One of the most interesting aspects of roguelike games which I think isn't often talked about is the emphasis on developing player knowledge through repeated playthroughs as a major part, or even the entire point, of the game. Sunless Sea is fascinating because it takes that emphasis and builds a whole narrative game around it. There is combat and trade and lots of things you'd expect in a video game but it's kind of bad, generally pretty easy and not really the focus. The real focus is on stories, exploration and discovery, taking risks and then dying but coming back with a new understanding of the odds and maybe seeing stuff your previous character didn't. The writing really shines as well. If you're going to play it, my only recommendation is not to use a wiki, at least not initially.. maybe later on if you really can't figure something out. But generally, figuring out the stuff you'll get from a wiki is the game and you're spoiling it for yourself if you look too much of it up.

My main criticism is that there's a lot of RNG, and while failure generally isn't disasterous, some rolls can essentially lock you out of particular stories or paths with the character you're currently playing. You can always come back with a new character, but if you're the kind of person who gets annoyed by RNG (in which case, why are you playing roguelikes?) this might be mildly irritating.

I haven't played the sequel yet. I hear it's pretty good.

Cultist Simulator - Yeah, it's kinda cheating to put this one in because it is also a narrative game with the same writer as Sunless Sea, and also because I don't think I'd class it as a roguelike at all if I hadn't played sunless sea and seen the evolution. Anyway, naturally the writing is great. But it also takes all the stuff I just said about Sunless Sea and pushes it to 11 in a way that is either going to turn you off or be genuinely engaging.

It's presented as a card game where you put cards representing nouns into slots representing verbs, triggering different effects. But literally the entire game is about figuring out how to play this card game. Again, if you wiki this one you are genuinely ruining it for yourself and will probably beat it easily, you have to challenge yourself to get there on your own.

The point where I realised I loved this game was about an hour in when I starting thinking about the symbols on some of the cards, so I grabbed a piece of paper and sketched out some of the symbols to show the interactions I'd figured out between these cards. Another hour later, that paper looked like the scrawlings of an insane person. I feel like the game put me in the mindset of a lovecraftian occultist in a way I've never seen before. The game is about trying to map something abstract and that doesn't seem to make sense initially, and I won't lie, that makes for an often very frustrating game, but one which is thematically so perfect and will probably work for you if you like this kind of thing. A lot of things which seem random or unfair in this game are not, you just have to figure them out.

 

[EvilRoy]

Individual powerups definitely don't have the same kind of effect they have in BoI for example - some are definitely better than others, and there are appropriate powerups to aim for or avoid depending on your build, but ultimately the issue is how fast you collect them. Because difficulty is always going up, the very first powerup you get will feel very effective when on easy, but you have to keep up with the difficulty climb. Basically, its rapid collection quantity wise rather than seeking individual powerful items. You absolutely feel slow and stiff, until you get enough crap to feel fast - its absolutely a problem with early game feeling sluggish and awful after just having gotten a ways into the game and having to start over.

Ok, I beat the game. Artifacts completely break the game. I had never made it past the fourth level and then I turned the Artifact of Glass on and was unstoppable and beat the game on the next attempt. Enemies just melted away, the difficulty bar became meaningless, and I had so much extra money I was actually leveling up at the end of levels. I did die to the final boss the second run because of a dumb mistake, but for 95% of the run there was no challenge. It's basically like unlocking cheat codes, especially with Command too. They aren't even that hard to unlock except for the fact that some characters just can't break the required walls, annoyingly.

The story definitely could have use a tiny bit more buildup though. After going through it all I have no idea what it was about. Somebody going postal in the space shipping industry it seems? I don't know.

I'm still not in love with the game, it's at the same time a little too random and not random enough. It's too hard to unlock other characters until you break the game with artifacts and then it's trivial. I really think there should have been a few more characters to choose from to begin with, though. Oh well, I guess I started having a bit of fun with it, but I'm definitely done with it now.

Fair enough, although to be honest with you I don't remember what the artifacts even do - its been a little too long since I played the game I guess, ha. Oddly I do remember the game always being crushingly difficult, I wonder if the artifacts were something added after I played and moved on or if I just never unlocked them (or realized I could use them).