Roguelikes of a Tactical, And Sometimes Deck Building, Nature

Roguelikes that give you the time to consider your actions, take stock of your tools, and execute on a strategy… what could be better. An absolute smorgasbord of options in 2022 gives any passing fan of the genre something that tickles their specific fancy.

Quasimorphosis: Exordium

Free, prologue

Exordium is technically a free prologue/demo for the full as-yet unreleased Quasimorphosis, but honestly the hours and hours of fun you can have with just this is enough to be a full game in itself. An intriguing “time moves when you do” tactics game about exploring a space station with a survival horror tint.

Undergrave

Small tactical maps make for a puzzle-esque tactics game in Undergrave. Clearing a room full of enemies, and doing it quickly, hits a high level of satisfaction.

Immortal Tactics: War of the Eternals

Early access

With a fast pace to it’s turn based system, Immortal Tactics is kind of like Heroes of Might and Magic, but with the focus solely on the hex based grid battles.

Vactics

Early access, has demo

Build out your own little mech to take on the “chess-like combat” challenges generated for you each time you play. Reminiscent of the wonderful Hoplite.

Sandwalkers: The 14th Caravan

Free prologue/demo

Another prologue that is essentially a full game in itself, The 14th Caravan focuses on exploration across a hex based grid with turn based battles playing out through encounters across the land. At least 2 play-throughs worth of content available here.

Alina of the Arena

Has demo

A deck builder with Slay The Spire and Into The Breach inspirations, hitting 1.0 release this year. Build up diverse strategies while fighting in a gladiatorial arena, this is easily on of those “sink dozens, if not hundreds of hours into” style experiences.

FORWARD: Escape the Fold - Ultimate Edition

A stripped down roguelike card game designed for quick hits. Every turn gives you up to 3 choices of how to proceed, always progressing forward each and every turn. One turn, one decision, one step forward. A mobile version is also on it’s way, which will likely be the perfect platform for this type of experience.

Soulash

Has demo

Hewing closer to traditional rogue - to the point of having optional ascii art, should you be inclined - in which you’re more focused on being a vengeful god than a hero. Quite an array of customisability on every run.

For The Warp

A Space exploration roguelike with deck building and turn based battles. Inspirations in FTL are clear, but with enough of it’s own identity to stand on it’s own.

Baby Goat Billy

A story driven deckbuilding RPG with some roguelite elements thrown in. With a battle system visually reminiscent of Pokemon, this is a great short, inexpensive game to snuggle up with for a few sittings.

Trigon: Space Story

A very pretty FTL. Trigon wears it’s influence on it’s sleeve, and given how old FTL now is and that we’re likely not to ever see a sequel… that’s not a bad thing!

Out There: Oceans of Time

While the sparse save system hasn’t gone over all that well with players - compounded by some players having crash issues, losing progress - there’s a nugget of cool and interesting space exploration in this roguelike. Work continues on the game, with a decent free expansion/overhaul hitting in mid October - fingers crossed the issues get smoothed out and this game becomes the best it can be.