The dodge roll is so important to Enter the Gungeon, the developers named their studio after it. If you want to survive and get to the final floors, you will have to master the art of precise dodging in order to deal with the storm of bullets coming your way. You become vulnerable as soon as you come out of the roll so try not to dodge into bullets when you are trying get away from a big shot. Rolling in the right direction is almost as important of timing the actual input, as you could roll into an enemy or into a pit full of spikes. You can actually kill or hurt some enemies, like the Rubber Bullets or the smaller Blobulions by rolling into them so save your ammo against the tiny enemies. Certain pits can be crossed over via rolling and you can roll from minecart to minecart in Floor 3, which is invaluable for getting a certain artefact.

Just like how you should always look under the waterfall in any adventure game, always check out that suspicious looking altar or wall when exploring the Gungeon. Secret rooms can be exposed through enemy gunfire so if you see a crack suddenly emerge in a wall during a gunfight, you know something’s behind it. Secret walls can be dispelled by firing off a Blank so if you have a hunch about a room hiding something, just let off a shot and listen for the discovery jingle. There are also secret levels which can be discovered by interacting with certain objects. I know of at least two but I can only access one of them consistently, which is on the first floor. To find this secret level, you need to first put out the fireplace that spawns in random locations. You either need to roll a water barrel into the fireplace, fire a liquid based weapon like the Tearjerker or Mega-Douser at the fire or use the goo trail of a Blobulion to put the flame out. Once you have done so, walk into the fireplace and press the interact button at the back of the chamber. You should hear a click and a secret room should appear on your map. Find the room, use two keys to open the grate and voila, you’ve entered the Oubliette. There are way more secrets to find but that’s one to get you started.

You are in a dungeon, there are bound to be Mimic chests hidden somewhere in the depths so be wary when opening that chest you’ve just found. Give it a quick shot with a gun of your choice just to check it’s safe before you go to unlock it. Just as chests get bigger and contain better loot depending on their size, Mimics get more powerful based on the chest they are copying so be prepared for a decent fight if you come across a red chest Mimic. Chests go from brown to blue to green to red to black, with black chests occasionally containing cursed items which I’ll talk about later. If you are low on keys, you can actually shoot open chests to get the loot inside but this often results in you either getting a piece of junk as the item or the chest exploding in your face. There are also super rare glitch chests which warp you to a special battle area where you fight corrupted bosses. These glitch bosses seem to blend bosses together, with my only glitch encounter seemingly blending the Trigger Twins and the Beholster together to fight Twin Beholsters. I could be wrong but be prepared for a really difficult fight if you open up one of these chests.

Throughout the Gungeon, you may find shrines which offer you benefits if you offer up a gun, part of your health, some money and so on. You know if a shrine is near by the green flame which appears above the door to these special rooms. So far, I have found eight different shrines but there could be more so keep an eye out if you find shrines which aren’t on this list:

• Dice Shrine: At this shrine, you roll a big D20 and gain a random buff or debuff based on the number you get. I’ve had all my ammo replenished at the cost of all my money, increased clip size but reduced health and increased run speed but losing all my weapons. This shrine is the wackiest out of all of the ones I have found, as getting a bad dice roll can just kill your run, especially if you lose all of your good weapons to some horrific RNG.
• Ammo Elemental: This is a fairly normal one, you get full ammo at the cost of some Curse stacks. Curse is similar to Sin in The Binding of Isaac, with certain weapons and items also giving you stacks of Curse. The main downside of Curse is that it spawn red Devil enemies, which deal double damage and have increased health, similar to Black Phantoms in Dark Souls.
• Challenge Shrine: Like Challenge Rooms in Isaac, you agree to the shrine’s challenge and then have to fight about three to four waves of difficult enemies in exchange for a reward.
• Blood Sacrifice: This is another Curse shrine, where you sacrifice one of your hearts for increased damage.
• Blank Offering: If you see this shrine, all you have to do is fire off a Blank in front of it and it drops a brown chest for you. This is probably the most benign shrine out of the ones I have found but the chest rewards aren’t usually spectacular. You do have to talk to the shrine first before you fire off a Blank, or else you’ll end up wasting one.
• Devil Deal: This shrine seems to be a buffed version of the Blood Sacrifice, where losing a heart gets you refilled ammo on your current weapon as well as increased damage, at the cost of more Curse stacks.
• Gun Offering: This is in line with the Blank Offering, where you can offer your equipped weapon to replenish your health by one heart. It only activates if you have more than one gun and are damaged so maybe visit it after a boss fight as your final stop before reaching the next floor.
• Gun Godz Shrine: Any Nuclear Throne fans will recognise this shrine as the statue on it looks like Yung Venuz from Vlambeer’s own gun-centric roguelike. This shrine has you donating money to its idol in exchange for firing extra shots equivalent to the amount you donate. If you donate three times, you will randomly shoot three extra shots at certain intervals. This shrine is best if you have money to burn and you want some extra firepower in times of need.

Speaking of money, many of the NPCs you find in Enter the Gungeon are all about making fat stacks. Most of these shopkeepers are found after you free them from jail cells which start to appear from Floor 2 onward. The first people you find in a jail cell are Ox and Cadence, who return to the Breach to run the Acquisition Shop and sell you additional items and weapons to go into the item pool. The majority of shopkeepers return to the Breach where they will sell items that get added to the item pool. These shopkeepers trade in Credits, which you get from killing bosses or completing hunts for Frifle and Grey Mauser, who are also trapped in a cell in the Gungeon. Other shopkeepers like the elderly Blank or the talking lock start to appear in the Gungeon by themselves, either in their own rooms or in the Shop on every floor. Do note that apart from Ox and Cadence who you always find first, discovering jail cells is randomised and you may not find another NPC to free for several runs.

The ultimate goal of Enter the Gungeon is to find a gun that will kill the past. In order to fire that gun, you are going to first need a bullet. You find the four pieces of this legendary bullet on every floor past Floor 1, with them appearing either in Shops or in special puzzle rooms that you need to solve. If you can collect these consistent parts and bring them to a special NPC on Floor 5, you can forge this amazing bullet. Don’t worry about getting all the bullet pieces in a single go, the pieces stay with the NPC once you hand them over and you can craft this artefact over multiple playthroughs.

You wouldn’t go into a kitchen shop, buy a knife and then test it out by stabbing a staff member, so don’t do the same when you buy a new gun. Firing off shots will quite rightly annoy the shopkeeper, who will first double the prices of all of his inventory, before pulling out his own mega shotgun and filling his room with hot lead. If you survive this hail of bullets, the shopkeeper will disappear from the Gungeon and you will not be able to buy stuff from him for the rest of the run. So, be courteous and wait till you get outside before testing out that brand new gun which shoots the word ‘BULLET!’ instead of actual bullets.

Just as you are looting anything you can get your hands on, there are certain nefarious characters who will loot your stuff if you leave it lying around in the Gungeon. If you leave either a gun, an item or some ammo unattended and leave your current room for long enough, a rat faced crook will warp in, steal your treasure and replace it with a cheeky note. You can interrupt this theft by running back into the room and firing off some warning shots to scare the bugger off, but he’ll always try again if you let him. The only things you can leave to pick up later are keys, armour and hearts so feel free to let them sit for a bit if you are in a hurry to fight the floor boss.

Tables are meant to be flipped in Enter the Gungeon, so don’t resist the urge to kick over any furniture you find lying around. This includes explosive barrels you can kick into enemies, braziers which can set people on fire or coffins which can spill acid all over the floor. Using the environment to your advantage is incredibly useful, especially when you are in massive firefights between loads of enemies. Be aware of how items react to each other, like the ability to ignite oil with explosive or flame weaponry or how you can cause rocks to drop from the ceiling by shooting a detonator. Use weapon combinations to your benefit as well like the Gungeon Ant’s ability to shoot oil puddles from its arse which can then be lit on fire with its face. There are some items which actually buff you upon flipping a table so go nuts and knock over everything in sight.

I hope these tips should help your first excursions into the Gungeon and have you killing the Past in no time at all. You can read our review of Enter the Gungeon right here, as well as an interview with the team at Dodge Roll Games, way back when Enter the Gungeon was first announced.