The bar for getting me to write up a new roguelike has never been higher. I don't care how many twists you throw into the formula, developers. I don't care how imaginatively you have reinvented the wheel of permadeath and unlocks. I am tired of this genre/wantonly adhesive cultural phenomenon. I wish for it to die in shame and ignominy. You've made a roguelike in which attacks are performed by assembling a manga page, you say? Well... go on then. Here's a trailer for The Fable: Manga Build Ro...| Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed
En The Rogue Prince of Persia el príncipe debe intentar salvar su pueblo una y otra y otra vez, descubriendo … Sigue leyendo → La entrada The Rogue Prince of Persia. El ciclo de salvar al pueblo aparece primero en Akihabara Blues.| Akihabara Blues
El hit del último Steam Next Fest ya tiene fecha de lanzamiento y por fortuna es pronto. BALL x PIT … Sigue leyendo → La entrada Un nuevo roba vidas se acerca. BALL x PIT tiene fecha de salida aparece primero en Akihabara Blues.| Akihabara Blues
Hades 2 has been in early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store since May of last year. Developer Supergiant Games never actually said when we can expect it to hit 1.0 and launch its full release, but recent patches made it seem like we’re closer than ever. Read more| VG247 Latest Articles Feed
We review Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game, published by Scorpion Masque. Dead Cells is a dungeon-crawler that offers a cooperative rogue-lite experience inspired by the Metroidvania genre.| Board Game Quest
For some reason, I always think of this game as Pocket Knight: Shovel Dungeon. The Pocket Dungeon subtitle doesn’t seem to stick well to the Shovel Knight mainline title? The title of the game doesn’t entirely give away what it’s about: okay, our trusty blue Shovel Knight, but this time in pocket size? No? Puzzles, you say? Why not Puzzle Dungeon then? Anyway. In Pocket Puzzle—ah, dang it!—you’re shoveling away chains of titular Shovel Knight enemies in a 2D Tetris-like grid where...| Nintendo Switch on Jefklak's Codex
I violated my no roguelike buying rule yet again, only this time, I didn’t end up being disappointed, as I received exactly what I expected: a heavy luck-driven poker-based game with huge spikes (and downfalls) in game runs. Everyone knows poker, and everyone knows sometimes that queen needed to turn your disarray of junk into a beautiful straight flush just doesn’t show up. Balatro even ups the luck ante by throwing in crazy jokers and other bonuses, and even that didn’t bother me. Wel...| Nintendo Switch on Jefklak's Codex
With gorgeous artwork and a tale rooted in Eastern mysticism, Bandai Namco aims to break into the roguelite genre with their upcoming Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree, developed by Brownies Inc. During Game Days at Summer Games Fest, I had the privilege of checking out a behind-closed-doors hands-on demo of this upcoming…| Irrational Passions
Shogun Showdown: Samurai Combo Shuffling. In the beginning of this year, I was pleasantly surprised by a little Western-themed gunslinging game called Guncho. In Guncho, you take turns in a hexagonal grid killing everyone on sight before moving on to the next randomized level. Shogun Showdown feels very much like a medieval Japanese version of Guncho: it is very puzzly, has you carefully consider your moves, and one wrong move can screw up the entire battle strategy. And that’s a good thing...| jefklakscodex.com
In the Into the Aether 2024 Game of the Year Spectacular podcast episode, Brendon mentioned a small game in his top 10 that piqued my interested as soon as the words tactical and turn-based were uttered, but I initially had trouble finding it: I thought Brendon kept saying Gun Show instead of Tiny Touch Tales’ Guncho. The game is essentially a three-man job lead by Arnold Rauers who blogs about the progress from prototype (e.g. see this early 2022 video on X) to last year’s sales revenue....| Retro Gaming on Jefklak's Codex
Reignbreaker is a Hades-like brawler with a strong revolutionary bent, and we've played it at Gamescom.| Rock Paper Shotgun
Dicey Dungeons: Roguelike Rolling. In case you were wondering what a combination of dice rolling, deck building, and roguelikes would look like, you can stop wondering now. Terry Cavanagh’s Dicey Dungeons is the result of an interesting set of card game, dice game, and video game mechanics, topped with a dash of roguelike fluff to increase the lifespan of the game. Via Jefklak's Codex| jefklakscodex.com
Dead Cells & Return to Castlevania. With its latest DLC, the world of Dead Cells recently merged with the world of Castlevania, and as a ‘vania nut myself, reading all these glowing reviews, I simply had to take a peek. Unfortunately, I came back disappointed, although to be honest, it’s not entirely the game’s fault, as I my brain simply refused to register the term roguelite on the back of the cover. To me, the genre can very much be hit or miss, and as far as Dead Cells is concerned,...| jefklakscodex.com
Void Bastards: Scrapheap Scrounging. Void Bastards is as weird as the title suggests—but in a delightful way. In it, you board spaceships, shoot stuff, watch “foomp”, “whizz” and “mumble” comic effects, loot even more stuff, and get the hell out of there. Chances are also high of dying from radiation, oxygen shortages, or just a hail of missiles. Not to worry in that case: there’s always another anonymous captive convict (against their will?) waiting in line to rinse and repea...| jefklakscodex.com
Cursed To Golf: Frustrating Roguelike Torment. The thing that probably comes to mind when laying eyes on Cursed To Golf is another retro-inspired 2D Golf game called Golf Story—except that this time, we’re not golfing the conventional top-down way but the 2D side view way. What is less obvious from the screenshots is that Cursed To Golf is a “roguelike” with procedurally generated maps and a particularly tormenting permadeath implementation. If that short description still tickles you...| jefklakscodex.com