Roguelike games: about the games
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a first-person shooter about heists for 1–4 cooperative players, combining stealthy infiltration with intense shootouts. In the solo roguelike campaign, players take on the role of Travis Baker, assembling their own crew of criminals and working to overthrow the current gang leaders and take control of Rockay City. The game offers the Urban Legends, Shuffle and Rockay Rumble modes, cross-platform multiplayer and a shared progression system across solo and co-op play.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is a fighting action game built around a broad roster of brawlers. It brings in new fighters such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Squidward Tentacles and Jimmy Neutron, and each of them has a distinct move set to master. Animated Supers let you land the finishing blow, whether against friends or in a roguelike single-player campaign. There you fight to stop Danny Phantom archvillain Vlad Plasmius from taking over the Nickelodeon universe.
Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. The player recruits, trains and leads a team of flawed heroes through twisted forests, forgotten warrens, ruined crypts and beyond, facing not only monsters but also stress, famine, disease and the ever-encroaching dark. There are 16 playable hero classes, including the Plague Doctor, the Hellion and even the Leper. Weary, shell-shocked characters can rest in town at the Tavern or the Abbey to keep their stress in check, and the game features character permadeath, procedural dungeons and high replayability.
Don’t Starve is a wilderness survival game that blends science and magic. You control Wilson, a gentleman scientist who is trapped by a demon and transported into a mysterious wild world. To find his way home, he must exploit his surroundings and their inhabitants, gathering resources to craft items and structures. The game offers no instructions or help, so you uncover the secrets of this unknown land yourself, and new randomly generated worlds can be created at any time.
Enter the Gungeon is an action game in which a band of misfits heads into the legendary Gungeon. Playing as one of several heroes — alone or teamed up in co-op — the player fights down floor after floor, shooting, looting, dodge rolling and table-flipping toward the ultimate treasure: the gun that can kill the past. In the way stand the dangerously adorable Gundead and fearsome bosses armed to the teeth, and the fortress raises the stakes and the challenge after every victory. Guns and hidden secrets are found and unlocked along the way, and merchants sell powerful items.
Project Zomboid is an open-ended zombie sandbox built around one question: how will you die? In the towns of the Knox Event Exclusion Zone, survivors loot houses, build defences and delay their inevitable end day by day, relying on cunning, luck and the ability to evade a relentless horde. A hardcore RPG skill system, a vast map loosely based on real-world Kentucky, vehicles, fort building, farming, fishing and crafting are paired with depression, boredom, hunger, thirst and illness. Multiplayer with persistent player-run servers, local split-screen co-op and Lua modding support round it out.
Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends deckbuilding roguelike mechanics, escape-room style puzzles and psychological horror. Players build a deck of woodland creature cards through drafting, surgery and self-mutilation. Secrets lurking behind the walls of Leshy’s cabin, and those inscribed upon the cards themselves, reveal a deeply disturbing story.
Slay the Spire mixes card games with the roguelike genre into a single player deckbuilder. On every climb up the Spire the player crafts a unique deck from hundreds of cards, chooses a risky or a safe route, and faces different enemies and bosses. The layout of the Spire changes with each attempt, so the foes, cards and relics found differ as well. Relics are powerful items that can greatly enhance a deck through their interactions, yet obtaining one may cost more than just gold.
Roguebook is a roguelike deckbuilder from the makers of Faeria and Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering. The player leads a pair of heroes, with the one in front shielding the one behind, swapping their positions to chain powerful combos. Decks are assembled from over 200 cards, upgraded with 30 gems and rounded out by 80 relics with special effects. The Book changes each time it is opened – the map, its mysteries and dangers are procedurally generated, and its hexagonal-tile pages are uncovered with magic inks.
Monster Train is a strategic roguelike deck-building game set on a train bound for hell. The player defends three vertical battlegrounds and shields the last burning pyre from the forces of heaven. Along the way you pick your route for the benefits it offers, upgrade your champion, recruit units, improve cards and even duplicate them. There are five clans with distinct playstyles, more than 220 cards and ten starter decks, plus the Hell Rush mode where eight players compete in real time, and daily challenges.
Have a Nice Death is a 2D action roguelike in which you play an overworked Death whose staff have run wild, throwing the balance of souls — and his holiday plans — out of order. Taking up his scythe, he has to show his employees who is in charge. The game leads through procedurally generated departments of Death Inc., where you meet characters such as his pumpkin-headed assistant Pump Quinn, while fast-paced hack ’n’ slash combat offers over 70 weapons and spells to find and upgrade. Because Death cannot die, a performance review after every run unlocks items and upgrades.
FTL is a spaceship simulation with roguelike elements. You command a ship and its crew on a journey through a randomly generated galaxy where every encounter offers several solutions – reroute power to the engines and try to escape, bring extra weapons online, or send a boarding party against the enemy. Combat can be paused at any point to distribute power, give orders to the crew and choose firing targets. With the help of six distinct alien races you upgrade and unlock ships, hundreds of text-based encounters force tough decisions, and death is permanent, so every action carries weight.