Thanks for watching! Please consider liking and subscribing if you enjoy this kind of content, it's free and really helps the channel! If you are a fan of Roguelikes and Roguelies, check out my ROGUELIKE TIER LIST where I rank over 80 different roguelikes/lites. Look forward to a new tier list coming very soon where I review an other 30+ games! th-cam.com/video/5k_-k4X90ao/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xxb5IVzC22dpwbh0
Just wanted to say that this was a splendid, genuinely masterful, thumbnail. I don't typically enjoy these kinds of "lets talk about a genre" videos, but I specifically wanted to compliment you on your graphic design there. Nicely done.
I played Slay the Spire when it originally released but didn't get nearly as hooked as the rest of the internet. I got back into the genre with Balatro which I have over 400 hours in now. Since then, I have become addicted to Slay the Spire, and also really enjoyed Emberward, which combined tower defense with deckbuilding roguelikes. I was a massive fan of tower defense growing up and think its a great twist to the deckbuilding roguelike genre.
The origin of the genre actually didn't originate from a video game, but from deckbuilding Board Games such as Dominion (2008) and Slapshot (1982). In that manner it's similar to RPGs that descended from D&D
As a huge roguelike fan I absolutely love your content and think you have a great way of breaking things down in an interesting way :) keep on being amazing!!
My thoughts exactly, I love and play them all the time so it’s really nice to hear someone else share my passion and express it in ways that exceed any other TH-camr out there
On the topic of deckbuilders and mechanical diversity, a game I don’t see on your list (justifiably given it’s not a roguelike at all) is Library of Ruina. It is an entire sci-fi dystopia RPG with so many disparate influences, built on the back of incredibly tight resource management, deck building, and card pools (each character has 9 total, so there’s incredibly little RNG upfront), so much so that the core challenge of boss battles in the game is constructing a deck that can break through a complex web of one-off mechanics. It can be so complicated and intricate that it can fully break away from the roguelike genre entirely and make deck construction alone the core mechanical conceit of the game.
About theme. Recently tried Into the Breach. It isn't deckbuilding but still a turn-based roguelike. It has a very nice detail of characters commenting events like defeating an enemy. idk maybe after more runs it will become stail because amount of replics is quite small but for now it adds a lot.
This is great! Our game, Attack on Hex Island, started as a game inspired by Tetra Master and Pokémon not knowing it would turn into an introduction to the Deck Builder genre. Now that the story mode is finished and we've gotten a great response to the game, we want to add a roguelike mode. Except, we don't know what to do. This helps a ton! Thanks for the content, and I love the delivery! 😊
Thanks for mentioning the grandfather of deckbuilders called Dream Quest. Its such a goated game. Challenging as hell, but all the great ideas and concepts did start there.
I'm actually working on a deckbuilder roguelike and your videos help me a lot ! Still, it's hard to know if a concept is original enough or not, I feel game like Balatro and Wildfrost are really innovative !
I'd love to hear about the concept. Even if it's been done before, you can look at where the existing games fall short and improve on them, or steal bits that you like to make yours better.
For the love of all that is holy please don't just look at other deck building rougelikes for inspiration entirely Expand your knowledge into things like MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Cardfight Vanguard TBoI 4 Souls Irl TCGs HAVE to be unique or else they just get ignored to look to them and see Why people play these and how they constantly have to create new mechanics/gimmicks that work around the core mechanics the games revolve around. This is why Slay the Spire works. Everything works fully with the base and it's the reason why a lot of the character/deck mods for it don't work or feel that good
In some way, I take inspiration everywhere. I don't like to just copy a concept... Still, it's hard to be unbiaised. I will post something on reddit but I'm not an extrovert guy, so giving news is not natural for me. Still, I'm surprised how much the genre seems to please people !
Rogue Voltage has an interesting way to determine the rarity of the items you would get after each combat: the faster you finish the encounter, the rarer the trophies. take your time, and you will get common items and sometimes in a poor state!
"Games need to have immersive visuals" I would like to disagree, purely by the example of Cube Chaos, where the pixel art is not the main appeal, and the very fact that every cube does in fact not fully evoke the fantasy of the thing is part of the game. For example, one could have a knight lose all abilities, that is, every cube is only differentiated by their abilities, thus, a knight with no abilities would be identical in all but name, picture and hp to a stone.
That is a very fair argument. "Need to have" may have been a bit of a strong word there. I still believe it tends to be an important component to deckbuilding roguelikes but as you bring up, there are some exceptions.
they do still need to have immersive visuals if it weren't for a content creator i watch both cube chaos and one of my most loved games, circadian dice, would have completely been ignored by me cube chaos needs its simple (and fairly ugly) graphics because of the complexity in its mechanics, but if i hadnt understood this i would not have ever bought it circadian dice just has an artstyle that isnt ugly so to speak, but the designs of the characters just look really goofy sometimes you need graphics as a hook more than anything, balatro wouldnt have been as loved as it is if the visuals didnt reel people in, its very satisfying to look at, hear, and play its why the dungeons and degenerate gamblers demos are still fairly underground they just dont have the hooks that the balatro demos do (and a content issue as well) and its even led some people to call it a game profitijg off of balatros success, despite having its first demo come out before balatro its not a bad thing to want good graphics, nor is it a bad thing to have those graphics be a reason you like or dislike a game, its just the scale that changes a good take from a bad one
My current addictive rougelike is Astrea. It's a dice deckbuilding game. Not only do you build a deck made of dice but as it's usual for dice they have 6 sides which effectively means 6 effects. It might sound extremely rng based but the devs found a way to almost perfectly balance rng and strategy
Someone already commented that there are of course physical games that have a lot of these mechanics, but even looking at videogames your video shows footage from Hand of Fate which predates Slay the Spire. And even Magic the Gathering: Shandalar (1997) is essentially a deck building roguelike version of MTG
Note that the scaling in endless mode is tetrational, proportional to x^x^x. At the moment, there isn’t a way to scale one’s hand at O(x^x^x), but this problem is obscured by the Ante 39 naneinf glitch.
I just released my own roguelike deckbuilder on Steam today and watched the entire video. It really highlights some important truths about the genre. Here are my additional thoughts: 1. Slay the Spire was like an iPhone moment for the genre-it was already great when it launched and only got better. It’s tough to improve on something like that. 2. Many Slay the Spire clones have added unique mechanics, but often with unnecessary complexity. While this may offer more content for advanced players, it can make the game less accessible to beginners. 3. For example, I find the pathing system in Slay the Spire somewhat "boring" because it’s just a linear choice without much synergy. In my game, I removed the pathing system and focused on creating more combos during battles. However, I see many games keeping the pathing system without innovating it much. 4. I believe new mechanics can be created by adding more variations to the "board." In Slay the Spire, the board is simple, and the cards already exploit most possible mechanics. By making the board like a grid or multi-layered like in Monster Train, you can offer unique experiences while preserving solid card mechanics. Ultimately, my game, Food Fight Fiesta: Multi-Use Cards, features food cards that can either be eaten to heal or thrown at enemies to deal damage. It also introduces a grid system that makes players choose between card advantage and board positioning. The first median play time of 500 people after 9 hour of release is 18 minutes, which is not bad imo.
Great video! What I love about deckbuilders is what I get out of physical TCGs and monster battlers like Pokémon - the ability to express yourself creatively through your build choices. For Roguelikes there's a limitation on this - you don't get full control over the cards you receive - but I think the best ones give you enough tools early on to be both reactive to what you're given and expressive with how you use those cards. If a game is best played by building the same core strategy as everyone else playing, that's an issue.
LOVED megaman battle network early on (not a rougelike, and linear story RPG so you assemble it more linearly over time) but then... recently played Inscryption and LOVE it... Love that you get to make your own cards via combining existing ones and that's part of the progression in the roguelike sense. Looking for game with mechanics like that .. ?
You should check out One Step From Eden and it's PvP follow up Duelists of Eden. If you are a fan of Megaman Battle Network and deckbuilder roguelikes you are in great hands with that game!
After playing a few of these games before, I got the strong urge to make my own version. But delving deeper (and watching this video too), I realized that basically every mechanic I though of that I thought would be original is already found somewhere else. While the game I have designed (on paper only for now) would be by all accounts a unique mix, I think it would still come across as derivative, given all the common designs. While I think I'd have a lot to offer on the story and art side, I'm not sure if I should even bother?
This was a great video on the subject. To me one of the most important things for any roguelike is the ability to make meaningful decisions. Basically, I put more value on that 20%. Also, saw in the video. Assuming its your own profile, Cobalt Core is on that Wishlist. That game is so good and I was shocked to not see it on the part of gimmicks. When it comes to card based roguelikes its my top, even over slay the spire.
Thanks for the comment! Indeed, I am sad I just didn’t have the time to try Cobalt Core prior to having finished the script… I only just started playing it recently and I am a big fan!
This! I have been trying to describe the monolithic nature of Slay the Spire to the genre but couldn’t figure the words out! But yes, THIS 😂 Also i have been playing Wildfrost at work and didn’t realize there weren’t rarities and couldn’t understand why runs felt so random 😭
Arcanium, huh. Had to pause the moment Arcanium was mentioned to go and download it, I've been looking for something exactly like this, but Arcanium has somehow slipped beneath my radar.
I really loved wildfrost and always thought its lanes and repositioning of units added a very unique “gimmick”, these were almost the most important element to master, upping the strategy aspect by a fair bit. Unfortunately that was also why many players bounced of hard from the 1.0 release - the game was not necessary hard, but very punishing! One small misplay could wreck a run without any change of comeback.
Roguelikes is like playing league of legends but as a jungler, you just keep farming and farming, when you die you just queue up again try a different character and build. Not only that roguelikes are the only times where I like seeing numbers and doing math, and every calculation just results to destruction.
Call me crazy, I may be mistaken. But, I didn't buy balatro, due to the changes between demos. It seemed like this newest demo, the game changes QUITE a bit from prior demos. I do plan to get the game eventually, I just have been a bit put off by some changes. However, I love Monster Train and Loop Hero. I was never able to get into Across the Obelisk the way I hoped I would. Oh well. I have been trying out Dungeon Clawler lately. It's a fun demo it isn't a deck builder, but the claw game mechanic is really fun.
Damn you video made me remember arcanium, such a shame... It started great then the devs decided to remove all the fun from the game. I haven't even tried the 1.0
I’m really surprised no one has mentioned Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. Idk if it’s just because it’s not considered a “rogue like” but it definitely was the first game I had ever seen that required deck building and it preceded all these games
I like your reviews a lot! Do you play mobile games also? I only play ln mobile (lack of time.. I know pc gaming is superior). I played three roguelikes. Two of them deck builders. Void Tyrant Dicry elementalisy Shattered pixel dungeon Did yoy play any of them?
Hey! For any buisness inquiries or if you’d like to possibly feature your game on our new "Finding the Next Big Roguelike" series, feel free to email us at pepperheadgaming@gmail.com 🌶️
I disagree. I dislike randomness very much. I stick to collectible card games rather than deck builders but having a chance to do something beneficial to me is like having a chance to poison or cause an enemy to fall asleep in an rpg. I always go with moves with the least amount of randomness. I need my turns to count in both rpg's and ccg's. The same goes with random card openings. I dont want to buy boxes and boxes of cards just to get something good.
Thanks for watching! Please consider liking and subscribing if you enjoy this kind of content, it's free and really helps the channel! If you are a fan of Roguelikes and Roguelies, check out my ROGUELIKE TIER LIST where I rank over 80 different roguelikes/lites. Look forward to a new tier list coming very soon where I review an other 30+ games!
th-cam.com/video/5k_-k4X90ao/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xxb5IVzC22dpwbh0
Just wanted to say that this was a splendid, genuinely masterful, thumbnail. I don't typically enjoy these kinds of "lets talk about a genre" videos, but I specifically wanted to compliment you on your graphic design there. Nicely done.
I played Slay the Spire when it originally released but didn't get nearly as hooked as the rest of the internet. I got back into the genre with Balatro which I have over 400 hours in now. Since then, I have become addicted to Slay the Spire, and also really enjoyed Emberward, which combined tower defense with deckbuilding roguelikes. I was a massive fan of tower defense growing up and think its a great twist to the deckbuilding roguelike genre.
The origin of the genre actually didn't originate from a video game, but from deckbuilding Board Games such as Dominion (2008) and Slapshot (1982).
In that manner it's similar to RPGs that descended from D&D
As a huge roguelike fan I absolutely love your content and think you have a great way of breaking things down in an interesting way :) keep on being amazing!!
My thoughts exactly, I love and play them all the time so it’s really nice to hear someone else share my passion and express it in ways that exceed any other TH-camr out there
On the topic of deckbuilders and mechanical diversity, a game I don’t see on your list (justifiably given it’s not a roguelike at all) is Library of Ruina. It is an entire sci-fi dystopia RPG with so many disparate influences, built on the back of incredibly tight resource management, deck building, and card pools (each character has 9 total, so there’s incredibly little RNG upfront), so much so that the core challenge of boss battles in the game is constructing a deck that can break through a complex web of one-off mechanics.
It can be so complicated and intricate that it can fully break away from the roguelike genre entirely and make deck construction alone the core mechanical conceit of the game.
About theme. Recently tried Into the Breach. It isn't deckbuilding but still a turn-based roguelike. It has a very nice detail of characters commenting events like defeating an enemy. idk maybe after more runs it will become stail because amount of replics is quite small but for now it adds a lot.
This is great! Our game, Attack on Hex Island, started as a game inspired by Tetra Master and Pokémon not knowing it would turn into an introduction to the Deck Builder genre.
Now that the story mode is finished and we've gotten a great response to the game, we want to add a roguelike mode.
Except, we don't know what to do. This helps a ton! Thanks for the content, and I love the delivery! 😊
control randomness is fun when you play a solo player deck building, but loosing to someone using control randomness is not fun at all....
Thanks for mentioning the grandfather of deckbuilders called Dream Quest. Its such a goated game. Challenging as hell, but all the great ideas and concepts did start there.
I'm actually working on a deckbuilder roguelike and your videos help me a lot !
Still, it's hard to know if a concept is original enough or not, I feel game like Balatro and Wildfrost are really innovative !
I commend you. & I definitely feel you, finding originality is difficult in an age of ubiquitous games. 🎉 Keep up the good work. 😊
I'd love to hear about the concept. Even if it's been done before, you can look at where the existing games fall short and improve on them, or steal bits that you like to make yours better.
For the love of all that is holy please don't just look at other deck building rougelikes for inspiration entirely
Expand your knowledge into things like MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Cardfight Vanguard
TBoI 4 Souls
Irl TCGs HAVE to be unique or else they just get ignored to look to them and see Why people play these and how they constantly have to create new mechanics/gimmicks that work around the core mechanics the games revolve around. This is why Slay the Spire works. Everything works fully with the base and it's the reason why a lot of the character/deck mods for it don't work or feel that good
In some way, I take inspiration everywhere. I don't like to just copy a concept... Still, it's hard to be unbiaised.
I will post something on reddit but I'm not an extrovert guy, so giving news is not natural for me. Still, I'm surprised how much the genre seems to please people !
Rogue Voltage has an interesting way to determine the rarity of the items you would get after each combat: the faster you finish the encounter, the rarer the trophies. take your time, and you will get common items and sometimes in a poor state!
Thank you for putting every single game showcased here in the description. I will be investigating each and every one.
Good stuff brother.
Love and blessings!
"Games need to have immersive visuals"
I would like to disagree, purely by the example of Cube Chaos, where the pixel art is not the main appeal, and the very fact that every cube does in fact not fully evoke the fantasy of the thing is part of the game.
For example, one could have a knight lose all abilities, that is, every cube is only differentiated by their abilities, thus, a knight with no abilities would be identical in all but name, picture and hp to a stone.
That is a very fair argument. "Need to have" may have been a bit of a strong word there. I still believe it tends to be an important component to deckbuilding roguelikes but as you bring up, there are some exceptions.
they do still need to have immersive visuals
if it weren't for a content creator i watch
both cube chaos and one of my most loved games, circadian dice, would have completely been ignored by me
cube chaos needs its simple (and fairly ugly) graphics because of the complexity in its mechanics, but if i hadnt understood this i would not have ever bought it
circadian dice just has an artstyle that isnt ugly so to speak, but the designs of the characters just look really goofy
sometimes you need graphics as a hook more than anything, balatro wouldnt have been as loved as it is if the visuals didnt reel people in, its very satisfying to look at, hear, and play
its why the dungeons and degenerate gamblers demos are still fairly underground
they just dont have the hooks that the balatro demos do (and a content issue as well) and its even led some people to call it a game profitijg off of balatros success, despite having its first demo come out before balatro
its not a bad thing to want good graphics, nor is it a bad thing to have those graphics be a reason you like or dislike a game, its just the scale that changes a good take from a bad one
My current addictive rougelike is Astrea. It's a dice deckbuilding game. Not only do you build a deck made of dice but as it's usual for dice they have 6 sides which effectively means 6 effects. It might sound extremely rng based but the devs found a way to almost perfectly balance rng and strategy
Mmm, love the Astrea music in the beginning. More people need to give that one a shot.
Nice video, too :)
So glad you shouted out Dream Quest. People always overlook it.
ASTREA MENTIONED!! I get so excited about that game ❤
Someone already commented that there are of course physical games that have a lot of these mechanics, but even looking at videogames your video shows footage from Hand of Fate which predates Slay the Spire. And even Magic the Gathering: Shandalar (1997) is essentially a deck building roguelike version of MTG
Note that the scaling in endless mode is tetrational, proportional to x^x^x. At the moment, there isn’t a way to scale one’s hand at O(x^x^x), but this problem is obscured by the Ante 39 naneinf glitch.
I just released my own roguelike deckbuilder on Steam today and watched the entire video. It really highlights some important truths about the genre. Here are my additional thoughts:
1. Slay the Spire was like an iPhone moment for the genre-it was already great when it launched and only got better. It’s tough to improve on something like that.
2. Many Slay the Spire clones have added unique mechanics, but often with unnecessary complexity. While this may offer more content for advanced players, it can make the game less accessible to beginners.
3. For example, I find the pathing system in Slay the Spire somewhat "boring" because it’s just a linear choice without much synergy. In my game, I removed the pathing system and focused on creating more combos during battles. However, I see many games keeping the pathing system without innovating it much.
4. I believe new mechanics can be created by adding more variations to the "board." In Slay the Spire, the board is simple, and the cards already exploit most possible mechanics. By making the board like a grid or multi-layered like in Monster Train, you can offer unique experiences while preserving solid card mechanics.
Ultimately, my game, Food Fight Fiesta: Multi-Use Cards, features food cards that can either be eaten to heal or thrown at enemies to deal damage. It also introduces a grid system that makes players choose between card advantage and board positioning.
The first median play time of 500 people after 9 hour of release is 18 minutes, which is not bad imo.
Subscribed don’t know why maybe I like the straight way to the point thing in ur video lol
This game desing videos are gold, thanks and keep it up
*These
Such a great video Marc! I've been loving running back Slay the spire in my free time and you make me want to try others now too
Love the video. Great content, and I really like when the description have all the games featured on the video.
Great video! What I love about deckbuilders is what I get out of physical TCGs and monster battlers like Pokémon - the ability to express yourself creatively through your build choices.
For Roguelikes there's a limitation on this - you don't get full control over the cards you receive - but I think the best ones give you enough tools early on to be both reactive to what you're given and expressive with how you use those cards.
If a game is best played by building the same core strategy as everyone else playing, that's an issue.
LOVED megaman battle network early on (not a rougelike, and linear story RPG so you assemble it more linearly over time) but then... recently played Inscryption and LOVE it... Love that you get to make your own cards via combining existing ones and that's part of the progression in the roguelike sense. Looking for game with mechanics like that .. ?
You should check out One Step From Eden and it's PvP follow up Duelists of Eden. If you are a fan of Megaman Battle Network and deckbuilder roguelikes you are in great hands with that game!
Shocked to see Dicey Dungeons not mentioned. It's a fantastic game.
After playing a few of these games before, I got the strong urge to make my own version. But delving deeper (and watching this video too), I realized that basically every mechanic I though of that I thought would be original is already found somewhere else. While the game I have designed (on paper only for now) would be by all accounts a unique mix, I think it would still come across as derivative, given all the common designs. While I think I'd have a lot to offer on the story and art side, I'm not sure if I should even bother?
This was a great video on the subject. To me one of the most important things for any roguelike is the ability to make meaningful decisions. Basically, I put more value on that 20%. Also, saw in the video. Assuming its your own profile, Cobalt Core is on that Wishlist. That game is so good and I was shocked to not see it on the part of gimmicks. When it comes to card based roguelikes its my top, even over slay the spire.
Thanks for the comment! Indeed, I am sad I just didn’t have the time to try Cobalt Core prior to having finished the script… I only just started playing it recently and I am a big fan!
Not a lot of views on this video, but it's amazingly done. I don't comment often on videos but I just wanted to say : keep up the good work!
There is a deck building game on mobile called Dawncaster which is also so good. I trully love this genre.
Mandatory shout-out to the grandaddy 'dream quest', still goated in my opinion
This! I have been trying to describe the monolithic nature of Slay the Spire to the genre but couldn’t figure the words out! But yes, THIS 😂
Also i have been playing Wildfrost at work and didn’t realize there weren’t rarities and couldn’t understand why runs felt so random 😭
Inscryption is my favorite one, because it’s not really a deck building roguelike. I just like story games more lol.
I recommend 'Black Book' for its visual design and Slavic mythology
Arcanium, huh. Had to pause the moment Arcanium was mentioned to go and download it, I've been looking for something exactly like this, but Arcanium has somehow slipped beneath my radar.
Ever play dicey dungeon?? Not sure what exactly you’d classify that as
I really loved wildfrost and always thought its lanes and repositioning of units added a very unique “gimmick”, these were almost the most important element to master, upping the strategy aspect by a fair bit. Unfortunately that was also why many players bounced of hard from the 1.0 release - the game was not necessary hard, but very punishing! One small misplay could wreck a run without any change of comeback.
Check out Shandalar, it predates Dream Quest if I'm not mistaken
Play Cobalt Core and let me know what you think.
Roguelikes is like playing league of legends but as a jungler, you just keep farming and farming, when you die you just queue up again try a different character and build. Not only that roguelikes are the only times where I like seeing numbers and doing math, and every calculation just results to destruction.
Scarlet rose is a good rougelike "card" game. (Is it a card building deck game if you dont actually draw the cards?)
Great video !
Call me crazy, I may be mistaken. But, I didn't buy balatro, due to the changes between demos. It seemed like this newest demo, the game changes QUITE a bit from prior demos. I do plan to get the game eventually, I just have been a bit put off by some changes. However, I love Monster Train and Loop Hero. I was never able to get into Across the Obelisk the way I hoped I would. Oh well. I have been trying out Dungeon Clawler lately. It's a fun demo it isn't a deck builder, but the claw game mechanic is really fun.
Huhhhh? Maybe Im forgetting something, but I feel like this is a crazy take. What changes are you talking about?
What makes a good turn based roguelike
Wildfrost music! :D
Damn you video made me remember arcanium, such a shame... It started great then the devs decided to remove all the fun from the game. I haven't even tried the 1.0
Oh I know what makes a good deck building roguelike: Mega Crit.
Erannorth Chronicles
you should make a roguelike deckbuilder tierlist
I’m really surprised no one has mentioned Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. Idk if it’s just because it’s not considered a “rogue like” but it definitely was the first game I had ever seen that required deck building and it preceded all these games
I like your reviews a lot!
Do you play mobile games also?
I only play ln mobile (lack of time.. I know pc gaming is superior).
I played three roguelikes.
Two of them deck builders.
Void Tyrant
Dicry elementalisy
Shattered pixel dungeon
Did yoy play any of them?
19:12 _manüëpulated_
This video is a crime because it does not include a single card from slay the spire,The father of roguelike deck building.
5:27 hans of fate lol
Hey i'm making a roguelike deckbuilder, you down to playtest it?
Hey! For any buisness inquiries or if you’d like to possibly feature your game on our new "Finding the Next Big Roguelike" series, feel free to email us at pepperheadgaming@gmail.com 🌶️
Yummy in my tummy
Yu-Gi-Oh roguelikes, haha (Yes, I had to)
I disagree. I dislike randomness very much. I stick to collectible card games rather than deck builders but having a chance to do something beneficial to me is like having a chance to poison or cause an enemy to fall asleep in an rpg.
I always go with moves with the least amount of randomness. I need my turns to count in both rpg's and ccg's. The same goes with random card openings. I dont want to buy boxes and boxes of cards just to get something good.
inscryption is so garbage