Ludokultur

Balatro by @LocalThunk is a poker-based #roguelike where you build sets of "jokers" to maximize the score multiplier on your hands. Easy to get into, but more depth than you might think. Also super polished and juicy in its current demo form already. Keep an eye out for this one! pic.twitter.com/QcOv3Ens6d

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 4, 2023

The year is 2023 and I'm still doing things I've never done before in #SuperAutoPets. pic.twitter.com/ocHPCmKqV1

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 5, 2023

Hey, Behold Battle by @slahserdota is basically WikiArena (i.e. "guess the winner") but with little 2D folks running around in simulated battles (based on their previous game Mage and Monsters). Early demo is on Steam and quite fun already! pic.twitter.com/WNf5Afao0v

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 6, 2023

I guess I finally "get" Isaac, @edmundmcmillen? 😂

(If you're curious, totally carried by "Number Two" for infinite bombs combined with "Pyromaniac", i.e. heal from explosions, resulting in infinite healing.) pic.twitter.com/wTR8QnO87O

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 7, 2023

That Isaac run where my avatar became so small, I turned into an incognito familiar and was suddenly playing @checker's @SpyParty. pic.twitter.com/XkVHCgGW4d

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 11, 2023

"I overscoped." by @nitramiuz is an awesome #GMTKJam entry where you "code" a game through clever puzzle mechanics and, most importantly, draw some of your own art assets. And it shows…

It's charming, short and worth a go: https://t.co/weWUpPn6qK pic.twitter.com/bJPbDO9UxT

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 18, 2023

Alert everyone, great new mobile game! 🚨

Another elegant Arnold design with a high density of crunchy decisions. Also, awesome audiovisuals and free from any predatory practices. Please support this if you like the idea of good, actually worthwhile games existing on mobile! https://t.co/qhHvFWyb4n

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 19, 2023

The purest of #roguelike drafting games, Luck be a Landlord by @TrampolineTales, is out on mobile. Probably my favorite way of playing this one now. Such a great decision to support portrait orientation! 👏

Back to climbing the floors… pic.twitter.com/iRgQ0h8k9w

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 21, 2023

Interesting how Amnesia: The Bunker is almost Tarkov-ish in its structure. You go on risk-vs-reward "supply runs" starting from your safe room, and then dump stuff into your storage when you return. Though it kind of defeats its own purpose with the save / load functionality… pic.twitter.com/2CT6S6y0vD

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) July 31, 2023

Endgame of Devil is a surprisingly competent, polished and elegant drafting #roguelike auto-battler. Think Luck be a Landlord meets Auto Chess. Only reason you haven't heard about it yet is cause it didn't have an English translations (that's also surprisingly okay) before. pic.twitter.com/TttciHJusT

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 1, 2023

Disfigure by @coldbrewent is a horde survival #roguelike built around horror-ish limited vision (you switch between cone and circle visibility). Not many games in the genre have their own unique twist like this one. It's also a free game with optional donations, so check it out! pic.twitter.com/nVglPLMaj4

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 3, 2023

Probably the best single-player Pong-like I've played. https://t.co/FDJYIL6O3R

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 4, 2023

Soul Stalker by @ConradicalGames is out in EA! It takes the free-form #roguelike build creation from Brotato but throws a Spire-like overworld map, active dashing and Paper Mario visuals into the mix.

If you (like myself) 100%ed Brotato and are looking for more, check it out! pic.twitter.com/YJ7tgxZcJ9

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 4, 2023

Geballer by @wombatstuff, @MightyInko and @salkinitzor (the music works insanely well btw) feels like a deconstruction of the bullet hell genre. All you do is move your cursor around to collect little boxes which spawn new bullets that you wiggle your cursor through etc. Fun! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/GWz6dW4bnr

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 7, 2023

Tiny Civilization is a match-3 merging game that feels more like strategy than puzzle. You make your way through eras unlocking abilities to influence the board state, making contact with other civilizations (i.e. new tile types), trying to keep everyone fed. Clever little gem! pic.twitter.com/I07AZGd6TL

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 8, 2023

I don't play too many racers these days. MicroProse's GP 2 in its pre-total-simulation simplicity is probably still my favorite. New Star GP (@newstargames) captures a similar vibe though! More gamey with unlockable perks and a "boost" button, but really fun. Out in EA on Steam! pic.twitter.com/MRLqJnoGc5

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 9, 2023

Molecano by @tommy_ill is probably the coolest twist on "letter carousel" games I've seen so far. You use words to build bridges for a little mole guy to collect fruit! So you e.g. need to hold off on words of a certain length cause you might need them later etc. Out on mobile! pic.twitter.com/mrhukw6rFP

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 10, 2023

You know I like weird game ideas and Clockwork Owl by @fudge_space is certainly one of them. In this "coin pusher #roguelike" you're throwing cogs and bombs around to push as many as possible off the screen to defeat your enemies. It's basically whacky Peglin with owls… 🦉 pic.twitter.com/dKdVlWREmP

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 11, 2023

Nordic Ashes daily challenges are fun @NoxfallStudios! Today's one buffs your area of attack… as you may have guessed from this clip. 😛 pic.twitter.com/bQe6jq9MRg

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 11, 2023

Them? Me? Them? Them? Me?

Super Auto Pets weekly is wild… pic.twitter.com/X5QF6jowvE

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 16, 2023

Million Monster Militia by @Dejobaan is a Luck be a Landlord type game with a whacky "Kaiju meets creature collector" theme and PS1-ish graphics. Unit and draft complexity is quite high compared to other genre entries, but therefore pulling off an effective build feels great! pic.twitter.com/bSIPiPQkkd

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 18, 2023

Remember how in Isaac you're always looking for that "one broken run"? Well in Paper Planet by @Willops68 (publisher: @2_left_thumbs) almost every run is a bonkers #roguelike synergy extravaganza. It often gets so wacky you can barely see a thing but it's also super juicy fun! 😀 pic.twitter.com/xVuloqL7kv

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 21, 2023

Turn *25*… felt like this weekly run took a week. 😂 pic.twitter.com/ngFAAchsHC

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 23, 2023

Let's go @PlayInkbound season 2 is out! New pew-pew class, new encounters, daily modifiers, even fairer monetization, great improvements all-around. And "quick dive" lets you do a full run in just above 20 minutes! 🤩

Seriously the patch notes are insane: https://t.co/SGSGTQ3Nqx pic.twitter.com/BV4AKC4TTu

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 24, 2023

Playing more of @skylegames' lexagons. I like the almost "risk vs. reward" factor it has when you try to build words that may or may not exist.

Of course the one "rarest" I get is one of those weird German ones… 😝 pic.twitter.com/AxytXZDMAG

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) August 30, 2023

Super Auto Pets replays now show full runs and every action you took. Amazing job @TeamWoodGames! 🤩

Also new 1v1 ranked versus mode! I foresee quite a few satisfying scorpion re-orders such as this one… 🦂 pic.twitter.com/X4HQBK8O3q

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 5, 2023

A Survivor-like where you buy your enemies just to kill them for loot to buy even more? This is Snake Farm by @HTHRFLWRS which puts its own core gameplay twist on a genre that's too often played safe. I can see this one influencing quite a few future game designs! 🐍 pic.twitter.com/tkeAO9mfKw

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 7, 2023

God of Weapons by @ArchmageGames is a more polished Knight Overloaded, i.e. the "Brotato + Backpack Hero" idea. This by default makes it one of the more interesting survivor games. Room for improvement though, e.g. builds feel samey (flavors of "maximize damage + attack speed"). pic.twitter.com/MfGOR36u5z

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 13, 2023

Heretic's Fork (@play_heretics) has the trappings of a roguelike deckbuilder. The card fusion is a cool way to develop a deck. After all though, gameplay ends up mostly as (run-based) idle "numbers go brrr". Also full runs feel ~30% too long. Still an interesting beast! 🤔 pic.twitter.com/pyoGlDWU66

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 14, 2023

Had the chance to play this before release and can safely say it's my favorite Landlord-like! Lots of depth and decisions not just via drafting but in managing limited storage. One of the indie highlights of the year so far! 👌

Also had the pleasure of providing a card idea! 😊 https://t.co/3iO1ziCMC7 pic.twitter.com/0azDTm77wI

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 15, 2023

Schism is a game to watch out for! It's kind of a mechanical detail about it, but I haven't really seen the "dodge" mechanism it uses. You're not dashing to trigger iframes as usual, but instead switch between two colors and are always immune to projectiles of your current color. https://t.co/pNjN3lfyMH pic.twitter.com/9i3lghpE6M

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 15, 2023

Tales & Tactics devs @table9studio just know what makes me happy… pic.twitter.com/NvgvP0Ty1C

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 16, 2023

Spell Disk by @SunpeakGames is an arena action #roguelike where you craft your build from trigger conditions and actions, e.g. "on dash -> create spinning swords". Each spell can fuel the mana of another one (or its own). Worth checking out if you liked Bio Prototype or Noita! pic.twitter.com/uHDfxnJ0Vs

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 19, 2023

Porcupine is eating good this weekly? pic.twitter.com/Q6Ynp9uqlb

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 20, 2023

Kill The Crows is an arcade game that kind of feels like John Wick gone Wild West. Every enemy is a one-shot kill (if you hit), but so are you. Also has one of the more fun boss fights I've played recently (partially because it's "just" a duel without super special extra rules). pic.twitter.com/ptDrwSZ6Pr

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 20, 2023

Started @TheAstroCrew's Witchfire. Early game is rough. Imagine Tarkov in super rat mode, just creeping around the map hoping to collect a bit of currency. Still liking the extraction-based game loop a lot though and am starting to progress. Will stick with this one for a while! pic.twitter.com/roY6EPqDUg

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 21, 2023

New Balatro demo out from @LocalThunk and it's way too fun! This is a lesson in turn-based game feel! pic.twitter.com/Cb80cEEmwB

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 21, 2023

Becoming more powerful in Witchfire, but it keeps adding new challenges! 😮

If "Tarkov meets Souls-like by original Painkiller devs" sounds at all interesting to you, keep an eye on the (Epic-exclusive) early access. @TheAstroCrew are on top of things over on the Discord too! pic.twitter.com/zFUfBJ3rj6

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 22, 2023

Probably not enough yet to justify the price, but Witchfire's foundation has the potential to become one of the top roguelikes of the next years. It draws good lessons from Tarkov- and Souls-likes and fuses them with spicy randomization. Excited to follow the patch notes! 🤓 pic.twitter.com/rOLpskJBHE

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 26, 2023

Very good game now very gooder, and on mobile! https://t.co/ns1DPkWj7j

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 26, 2023

Started another playthrough of @OjiroFumoto's POINPY today! So fun and timeless! 🤩

Here's last year's thread about its design again. It indeed ended up being my personal GOTY! https://t.co/IiStTAQWU1

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 29, 2023

Demo of @Spellrogue is out on Steam! This is basically Slay the Spire with dice, has a similar feeling of clarity, tooltips explaining everything you wonder about, just a very polished and smooth #roguelike experience! pic.twitter.com/QjFWsciMjS

— Fabian Fischer 🎱 Rack and Slay (@Ludokultur) September 29, 2023