5 underrated Roguelikes I can't stop playing

Roguelikes, games where you are expected to die, have become a huge genre in the last decade. These run-based games often feel like modern versions of classic arcade games, in the sense that you are always trying to have your best run yet, but implement permanent upgrades to create some overall progression. Because the framework is so wide, the genre is home to a large variety of games that feel drastically different from each other, but are also easy to recognize. Some of the best are indie games that feel innovative and are often only available on PC, sometimes in early access, like the massive Hades 2. While games like that have broken out into mainstream hits, tons of incredible roguelikes also go under the radar, despite being incredible games that you could play endlessly if you wanted to.

5 Shogun Showdown

Intense strategy combat

Shogun Showdown is a 2D tactical turn-based roguelike. The way it works is that enemies spawn in waves, and every action you take, moving, loading up an attack, changing directions, counts as a turn. This means you must manage not only to attack enemies and avoid attacks, but you have to always plan ahead based on what the enemies do each time you do an action. What I like the most, outside the incredibly engaging combat, is the upgrades. You can always power up your attack tiles, but it typically increases the cooldown of the attack. This means you could load up on overly powerful attacks, but you would have to do a ton of dodging while those attacks cool down. This encouraged me to keep some weak, but low cooldown attacks, to really maximize my turns. There are multiple characters, harder difficulty runs, and plenty of unlocks to keep your repeated runs fresh.

4 Nubby's Number Factory

Like Peggle, but the late 90s internet

Nubby's Number Factory is the kind of game that needs to be played to be understood, but it's sort of Peggle wrapped in a late 90s website design. There is a distinct look to it that feels incredibly dated while also clearly modern, and the power-ups you find in each run are unique. It's also the kind of game that encourages you to break it. For example, I got an item that applied many points when Nubby died, meaning my ball fell through the bottom. This was meant to be a big bonus at the end of a round, but I got another item that would trigger an item every 1.5 seconds. This meant that early in the game, I was getting a ton of extra points, which let me increase the number on my pegs quickly, resulting in a great run. It's funny, it has a ton of variety in the characters you play and the items available, and it's only $5.

Platforms:

• Steam

3 Diceomancer

A mind-blowing, unique feature

Diceomancer is a deck-building roguelike, like Slay the Spire and Monster Train. It's a sub-genre filled with different games, and while the cartoon art-style helps make it stand out, its unique gameplay mechanic is what makes it special. In Diceomancer, you have an item called the One Die, which gains charges as you play the game. When you use the One Die, you can reroll any number on screen. This really does mean any number. You can change status effects, health, attack, mana charges, and even the text of cards. While there are some gameplay mechanics to keep this from totally breaking the game, like splitting enemy health bars into multiple chunks. The One Die starts as a six-sided die, but you can also upgrade this during a run to have more sides, increasing the amount of chaos you can cause with it. If you have ever enjoyed a deck-building roguelike, this is one you need to play, and a personal favorite of mine.

2 SuperTaxCity

A city-building roguelike with tons of strategy

SuperTaxCity is a city-builder roguelike, where you have to construct a city using three options presented to you to generate the most amount of money possible to advance to the next round. Depending on the city you are choosing to use, it will specialize in different building types. For example, you could build a chicken factory that produces food resources after enough use. After that, you could build a restaurant of some kind, which would use the meat resources to generate more money. That's the simple version, which can be way more complicated as you have multiple different buildings feeding into a similar loop. It is a roguelike, so your building options are random, but once you have an understanding of how SuperTaxCity flows, you can start to build out synergies, even if it feels like you are getting multiple bad rolls in a row. I always love a game that appears simple at face value, but has a ton of depth if you want to explore it, and SuperTaxCity scratches that itch.

Platforms:

• Steam

1 Peglin

What about a second Peggle roguelike?

Yes, there was already a Peggle-inspired roguelike on this list, but Peglin is vastly different from Nubby's Number Factory. Peglin is a bit more of an actual Peggle-like, where you need to score points by hitting as many pegs as possible in a layout. These points are used to attack incoming enemies in turn-based combat. Of course, both your scoring and the actual attacks are changed drastically by your balls, which can vary widely. Some go through pegs, others don't earn points but spawn bombs to score points on the next shot, and others pierce enemies. Like all great roguelikes, you can create some pretty busted combinations of balls and relics, with relics offering special passive powers. I love how accurate the physics of the bouncing balls feels, as it makes it extremely easy to calculate the early bounces on a shot. There are multiple characters to unlock, tons of items and secrets to discover, and it uses one of the most satisfying gameplay loops ever designed.

Platforms:

• Steam
• PlayStation 4 and 5
• Xbox One and Series X|S
• Nintendo Switch

Tons of great Roguelikes to discover

This list is by no means comprehensive, as tons of amazing roguelikes have come out on Steam and on consoles. Some of them are the breakout hits you likely know, like Slay the Spire and Hades, but there are so many underappreciated games that are absolutely worth your time. The good news is, and I can say this from personal experience, that if you play enough of these on Steam, the store will start recommending you some true underrated gems.