RoguePod LiteCast

This week we cover the new (2025) tetris-deckbuilder mashup from Sleepy Mill Studio, Drop Duchy, and add it to the tier list. Is it a puzzle game or a Tetris game? Does it matter?

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On this episode we talk Tetris and David's deep love for it, then try to reconcile how not-Tetris this game is despite the very Tetris-forward presentation of it. If you go into Drop Duchy expecting a roguelite take on Tetris then you're probably in for a bad time, but if you just look at it like a new puzzle roguelite then there is a lot to like here. We talk about the development (it started as a training project then went for a commercial release) and the specifics: different phases, acts, bosses, buildings, factions, and difficulty modifiers.

We found Drop Duchy to be a really unique take on a puzzle game - it's a clever system which brings in some deck-building elements along with a rock-paper-scissors style combat that is influenced by the relative positions of your buildings and terrain that is plopped down onto the board. The metaprogression felt a little tacked on and there's maybe some balancing that should happen at the higher difficulty levels, but we're reviewing this pretty shortly after release and seems the developers will keep supporting in.

Definite recommend if this is your kind of genre!

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This week we cover one of the heavy hitters, the 2016 bullet hell twin stick shooter Enter the Gungeon and add it to the tier list. It's objectively a great game, so why aren't we putting it in S tier?

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On this episode we talk Devolver Digital (just how many games of theirs have we covered already?) and the developer of EtG, the aptly named Dodge Roll Games. We talk guns, enemies, synergies, floors, bosses, items, and all the little things that make EtG one of the most beloved roguelites out there.It's clearly well-made and well polished, but in our heart of hearts we just found it a bit too slow-paced to really be itching to go all the way with this one.

We've both played EtG before starting this podcast and soft-bounced off of it. It's hard to say exactly why but I think a lot of it boils down to the slight down time introduced in walking around large rooms, backtracking, finding secret rooms, and tanky boss fights. Totally understand why people love this game but when you compile all of those things it just starts feeling a little slow. Will we feel the same about The Binding of Isaac when we cover that? We'll have to see!

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This week we cover our first survivors-like, the 2022 game Brotato, and add it to the tier list. We got sucked in, but are survivors-likes good roguelites?

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On this episode we read through the developer's blog posts which were regular up until "May 02: My new game: Brotato". Blobfish's approach to game design was much more practical than a lot of developers we encounter here; he was in pursuit of making games quickly and cheaply enough to bring in enough money to justify doing game development full time. Brotato was put out in the spirit of that project - a relatively simple game that has the potential for a ton of replayability - and ended up being a megahit.

We talk through where Brotato differentiates itself from other survivors-likes (more heavy shop focus, round structure) and have a good discussion on where to put a game on the tier list if it was fun but does not necessarily embody the ideals of roguelites that we are after. This episode established the oft-referenced on later shows "Brotato-model" of run-to-run variance where the only run variance comes from pre-run character selection. Otherwise there's virtually no procedural generation here, so that played a big role int our tier list placement.

Developer's blog: https://www.blobfish.dev/

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This week we cover the city builder (kind of), RTS (also, kind of) roguelite Against the Storm and add it to the tier list. Featuring our guest and now producer Andrew Tertocha.

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On this episode we introduce our casual-gamer friend Andrew who covered Against the Storm with us then give an overview of the developers behind the game. We try to give an overview of the many mechanics which interplay with each other in this game (queen's impatience, different seasons, species satisfaction, hunger, resolve, the list goes on and on) and discuss strategies across increasing difficulty levels.

Against the Storm has one of the most impressive metagame system we've covered - not only is there a giant skill tree, but you have a limited number of runs to make progress before the map resets and you're trying to make progress on the world map as your progression through the game. Despite all of that, we did feel that the actual run-to-run variance was a bit limited in scope: at the end of the day you're trying to do the same thing with every run and the modifiers you're presented with are a bit limited in how much they influence that experience. We still land on the recommend here, for some folks this will definitely click and you can put a lot of time into this game.

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This week we add the 2017 top-down stealth "defenestration game" Heat Signature to the tier list. This is one that blurs the line on "when does a roguelite become not a roguelite" - how will that influence the tier list placement?

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This week we first talk about the developer Suspicious Developments Ltd which describes itself as a company "specializing in sneaky games that let you think of clever plans and/or knock people through windows" then try to wrap our heads around where a Heat Signature run starts and ends. Heat Signature does have a very distinct, and fun, core gameplay loop of breaking into ships and trying to achieve specific objectives. There's also some bigger picture game-level objectives you're working towards, and most of the time a character death doesn't lead to a full reset but rather an ejection into space and some sneaking back into the ship to try again.

You do have permadeath in that individual characters can die and you lose your inventory, but there is a lot of persistence between characters as well as overarching world persistence based on your progress through the game. Our tier list placement for this one ended up being really impacted by this concept of "is this a good roguelite specifically" even though we both felt the core gameplay was fun and engaging (albeit a bit repetitive).

See the developer's blog here: https://www.pentadact.com/

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This week we cover the 2015 precision platformer Downwell and add it to the tier list. Don't make the mistake Danny made and start playing the story-driven adventure game 'Deepwell', you'll end up as confused as he was.

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On this episode we talk about the developer "Moppin" and how Downwell spawned out of his 'game a week' project. Moppin was obsessed with Spelunky and Downwell came from him wondering what a mobile phone game with similar gameplay would be. We definitely did not see the Spelunky inspiration at first but as we talked through it more we started getting it - the core gameplay is fundamentally different but there's some overlap in item sensibilities and the "always be playing mentality".

We've found on this show that we really love these arcade-style games and Downwell is one of the greats of that. You can hop in and immediately be in the action trying to maintain your combo. For how ultimately simple it is we didn't find the UI to be particularly intuitive and the game didn't connect until we started really understanding the combo system, but once it did it was an absolute joy to play. Danny runs some simulations to try to figure out when to take the "apple" item in a run and we marvel at how much fun we had for a game that cost $3.

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This week we add the 2018 foundational tactics game Into the Breach to the tier list. Is it a puzzle or a tactics game? Does that matter at all since the game slaps?

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On this episode we talk through the legendary developers Subset Games. Particularly legendary in that they've only released this one and FTL, but that's enough! The same way that Slay the Spire laid the foundation for all roguelite deckbuilders, Into the Breach set the standard for all roguelite tactics games. It remains to this day maybe the best tactic roguelite out there, though 2026's Mewgenics might have some words.

We attempt to explain the enemy generation algorithm and discuss how impressive it is that, with a relatively limited set of rules, the developers were able to implement difficulty that pushes the edges of "hard" without crossing into "unsolvable". We also discuss the unique metagame system of allowing players to end a run earlier or later and just how good the game feels. Lots of discussion about whether the game belongs in S or A tier, either way it's a banger.

Link to the referenced doc from the developers about the enemy AI: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OPRNzAVQNgPtP35HzhV2ZzEqE1eCdXbWA7lEZXDdMHQ/edit?tab=t.0

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This week we cover one of the GOATs, the 2017 deck-builder godfather Slay the Spire! Is it the best roguelite ever made?

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Least surprising take: Slay the Spire is a banger! On this episode we go into our personal history with Slay the Spire and talk through the impressive lengths the developers went through to make sure the game was well-balanced. We talk a lot about deck-builders writ-large and how Slay the Spire really kicked off an entire subgenre of games modeled after it and for good reason. We try to work through the specific mechanics that make this game work so well while generally glazing how fun it is to play.

There is a very good case that Slay the Spire is the greatest roguelite of all time - I don't think anyone would bat an eye at that take. No ragebait here, we are fully on board with STS and it's one of both of our most played roguelites of all time. David has beat A20 with all (original) characters and Danny called it after one A20 heart win. Despite the hundreds of hours of playtime, neither of us think that we are particularly good at the game because we see folks who are legitimately great at it. That speaks to how much skill expression there is and how much room there is to master this game to the point where you can overcome the procedural generation and win-streak even at the highest difficulty.

What a game!

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This week we add the 2022 Pachinko deckbuilder roguelite Peglin to the tier list. Danny played this one while waiting in the hospital for his daughter to be born (while everyone was sleeping, it's okay!) - will that influence the tier list placement?

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On this episode we discuss our experience with Pachinko games and discuss the covid-fueled origins of Peglin, concieved in a 48-hour game jam where the event's theme was "fall". Peglin is one of the more well-known of the ever-growing Pachinko subgenre of roguelites, which we think traces back to 2020's Roundguard. Since this episode's recording we have Nubby's Number Factory, Peganomics, Pegfinity, Ballionaire, Pegfinity, the list goes on. What is it about Pachinko games that lends itself to roguelitification?

While we both enjoyed the casual nature of this game, there wasn't quite enough meat on the bone (read: run-to-run variance) to move this high up the tier list. It works well as a pretty casual pick up and play game but we both burned out on it pretty quick and weren't itching to keep going. David was supremely charmed by the "world building and immersion" (you can tell who's writing these show notes) but at the end of the day we just didn't feel motivated to keep at it.

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This week we cover the 2022 (early access) bullet hell Tiny Rogues and add it to the tier list! What happens when Danny and David disagree on tier list placement?

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On this episode we go through the background that led to Tiny Rogues: the developer says he "sucked at Gungeon and had a dire wish to level up in the game and get some stats like in Path of Exile and brute force through [his] way through the game without needing to dodge things". Therein lies the whole thing Danny bumped on in this game - it presents itself as a bullet-hell but you can quickly get so overpowered that you never actually engage in the boss patterns or systems. Perhaps though that was user-error since he didn't understand the endgame difficulty system!

Tiny Rogues is a fantastic new entry to the roguelite canon - we've always felt that Diablo 2 is the GOAT in terms of loot and it's really fun to see that system ported in to a new roguelite. We realized while recording this episode that the early-access of it all makes it a bit hard to add to the tier list and we vowed to revisit the game when it gets a 1.0 release. That may also address a lot of the small quibbles with the game. Tiny Rogues didn't quite have the legs to get it into A tier but we'll see what it looks like in a few years!

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