Game 8 of our 100th episode spectacular special will focus on an overlooked, but often beloved entry: Omega! Pioneering the idea of a large overworld with multiple cities and dungeons, Omega also adds elaborate guild systems, multiple victory conditions, and neat NPC interactions. Likely the […]

Game 7 of our 100th episode special in July will focus on one of the first coffee break length roguelikes: Larn! A much shorter game than its contemporaries, the main dungeon is only 10 floors, but features 100 levels of difficulty and ... taxes??? Still being updated today and celebrating […]

Game 6 of our 100th episode extravaganza in July will cover the legendary game Hack! Originally developed by high school students, it would become the basis of the still popular and even more legendary Nethack. It’s also one of the few video games listed in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent […]

In development for years, we finally look at the gamified productivity app that asks the question: "what if the game part was actually fun?" Using #slaythespire like mechanics, checking off items gives you bonuses to fight cyber facist oligarchs. Developed by podcast co-host @hardreset, he's […]

Our 100th episode's part 2 will focus on 4 major games that were the first to be properly called "rogue-likes". The first of which will be a deep dive on Moria! An open-source redesign of Rogue, you descend 50 levels to fight the all-powerful Balrog. It pioneered the concept of a starting town […]

For our upcoming 100th episode 3-parter, part 1 will conclude with a deep dive on none other than 1980's Rogue! The one that kicked off this whole fun mess that we're podcasting about, Rogue really was ahead of its time by decades. So many games owe their lineage directly here! […]

Rift Wizard 3 comes out later this month, so for a special bonus episode of the podcast, I sat down with its creator Dylan White to talk details! I had originally budgeted 30 minutes for us to chat, but we happily went over that by twice as much. Lots of great conversation about gamedev and […]

Game 3 of our 9 part mega summer special 100th episode will focus on Colossal Cave Adventure! An inductee into the Video Game Hall of Fame, ADVENT inspired the first adventure games, text-based games, and possibly most of interactive fiction overall! Many modern games owe its lineage to ADVENT […]

Exo Rally Championship (XRC) is a super cool take on procedurally generated racing. Something like the Dakar Rally in space, the environmental design is cool, the futuristic racing gates are fun, and balancing your rig in the air off a 500m jump with gas vents is quite tense! […]

Game 2 in our 9-game, 100th episode special in late July will look at pedit5, aka The Dungeon from the PLATO system in 1975! The first ever computer RPG game translating D&D mechanics to the digital world, it also introduced random encounters in its fixed environs. A direct inspiration for […]

Cats and the internet: a match made even better through the tactical RPG breeding game Mewgenics! The biggest hit by @edmundmcmillen since Binding of Isaac, we scour the sewers, cross the desert, and travel through time with our fluffy kitty buddies. https://grogpod.zone/2026-06-05-mewgenics/ […]

every game can be classified in one of the two categories: first-person shooter or email rimworld is email balatro is a first person shooter despite how it looks, hitman 2 is email

Our 100th episode 3-parter kicks off late July with discussion on game 1 in our 9-game block: Star Trek 1971! A game that predates almost all, its randomly generated galaxy with permadeath combat against the Klingons is an obvious inspiration to the 1980 release of Rogue. Did you play this or […]

@Play: Larn Turns 40 Larn, created by Noah Morgan, may his name be sung by the bards forever, is a venerable classic roguelike game, from the same era as Moria and the first Hacks. It's always been more obscure than the other games but was still popular, and it's still played today. atsb, aka […]

Prophet Margin is a very charming roguelite about building economic trade networks in a cute fantasy world. Your gods demand thread! And tools! And apples! So how are you going to build your supply lines and towns to satisfy them? Lots of crunchy decision making that reminds me of optimizing […]

The Steam Deck has updated its pricing to "priced out of relevance" #SteamDeck

"What is this, a crossover episode???" I recently guest hosted on another podcast that specializes solely on roguelite games: The Roguepod Litecast! We talked about the roguelite that revolutionized the genre: The Binding of Isaac by @edmundmcmillen Danny and David do a great job deep diving […]

This traditional roguelike review post by @Toma is an absolute gold mine for old (and new!) school dungeon crawling permadeath goodness. Seeing Cogmind in SSS tier makes my hacking suite go brrrr 🤖 https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-played-100-roguelikes-so-you-dont-have-to.1324564 #roguelike […]

For our upcoming 100th episode, we are doing a massive three-parter! Part one will focus on a selection of games from the 1970s that inspired the design and development of the 1980 release of Rogue. Part two will focus on the first roguelikes of the 1980s that coined the term and the kickoff […]

A growing trend is AAA games having roguelite modes as side content. So this week we cross the Void Warp into Warhammer 40K Darktide! Featuring two ... sort of ... roguelite game modes with Expeditions and Mortis Trials, we put our Ogryns and Psykers to the test and see how many Muties can […]

A year and a half ago one of my friends quit his soul-sucking insurance job to finally build a game/app hybrid he's been planning for at least 5 years. Well today Hard Reset hits 1.0: the game powered by your life https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hard-reset/id6745568849 A to-do list meets Slay […]

Frackin toasters! I had the opportunity to playtest an early version of this Battlestar roguelite months ago and really enjoyed it. It releases today! It's got a great art and music style and feels very Stellaris-inspiried. Fighting the Cylons feels super intense, just like the show. So say we […]

This Nethack demake for the Pico8 is kind of genius. There’s so many systems and keybinds that make Nethack a famously inaccessible nightmare to comprehend, but this feels like a great way to introduce people to ASCII games in a friendlier manner https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=189426 […]

Ready your blaster! This week we cover just 7 roguelikes from UFO 50: one of the most ambitious gaming collections ever! A huge endeavor by 8 developers including Spelunky dev Derek Yu and board game designer Jon Perry, we touch on games ranging from the tight and tactical, to a flying walrus […]

UFO 50 offers some of the toughest and most brutal roguelike games out there. Oh and a Walrus golfing game for good measure. I had about a 6 month head start over my cohosts for our upcoming recording on it, and even then JUST got my first victory in […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]

Another deckbuilder sale fest on Steam and no discount price on Dream Quest 😔 #dreamquest #roguelike #deckbuilder #steam #gaming #indiedev #indiegame

Playing games with a cat can be an arm-numbing experience #calico #cats #gaming

How I feel briefing my podcast cohosts this weekend on our next episode: UFO 50 Surely two weeks is enough time to play through the likes of Bug Hunter, Velgress, Planet Zoldath, Waldorf's Journey, Party House, Overbold, and Campanella 2...right? […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]

You wouldn't download a handbag! This week we're jacking in to the 2012 puzzle zugzwang simulator 868-HACK by Michael Brough @smestorp You are a smiley face siphoning points from the mainframe while daemons, viruses, cryptogs, and glitches hunt you pacman style. How far can you go before you […]

Spellmasons is a fun romp into the world of chained magic spells. It reminds me a lot between Noita and Rift Wizard, while being more accessible than both of them. The spell combos are fun, the art style is great, and it's quite satisfying to explode a bunch of monsters with chained spells […]

Our next episode is on 868-HACK, the beautifully minimalist yet super grungy puzzle roguelike by equally enigmatic developer Michael Brough @smestorp Been watching a lot of his talks lately and this one was really good, so reposting it here 13 years after the fact https://youtu.be/_4iswqa8r-Q […]

Big plans for our 100th episode coming... Watch this space! #grogpod100

How do you do, fellow skateboard riding skeletons? This week we open up the meme-packed roguelite Megabonk, developed by now reclusive youtuber Danidev Following in the tradition of his audience-based challenges, the Vampire Survivors x Risk of Rain 2 mashup set the world on fire after the 2025 […]

How doth the hero, strong and brave, a celestial path in the heavens pave #nasa #artemis

The difficulty with writing substantive things about many true roguelikes is that they're so BIG. And it often takes many plays before you feel like you can do a good job of discussing them, because there's angles to the game that only become evident once you've won multiple times. It's the old […]

Releasing in 1.0 today is the Dark Souls-inspired traditional roguelike Lost Flame! Been following this one a long time and I regret not getting into it sooner. Very smooth and user-friendly interface, nice gritty sound and clear visual style. Did I mention souls-like online parallel world […]

The biggest roguelike release of all time is here! A sequel to one of the highest rated games ever Meteor Crashes Steam and lands with 2 new characters and 4-player co-op! We had to hold back one co-host with chains from him rating it an 11/10 […]

To celebrate our Slay the Spire 2 episode coming on Friday, after 4 years we finally have a podcast theme song from Balatro composer LouisF! https://louisfmusic.com Developed as part of a suite of multiple recordings, it's a tune that will evolve over time, so keep an ear out and don't […]

Slay the Spire 2 is our upcoming listener requested episode. What should we cover next? Our previous rogue games covered and our irrefutable numerical ratings attached can be found here: https://grogpod.zone/rankings/ #slaythespire2 #roguelike #roguelite #gaming #podcast #steam #xbox […]

"I said Hop in!" This week we revisit the mobile game sphere of roguelike games with Hoplite: the quick-playing, brain-burning chess-lite puzzle tactics roguelike! A blast from the past, this 2013 classic is simple on the surface but as deep as the 10,000+ puzzles it offers. Save the Golden […]

Another mini-review this time for Alchemist's Alcove! A charming and approachable traditional roguelike similar to Rift Wizard but with neat and thoughtful crafting mechanics. Cool art style and design as well! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3568090/Alchemists_Alcove/ #grogpodminis […]

pacing around my room frantically waiting for STS2 to drop #slaythespire

Podcast co-host and friend of mine for 20 years quit his job to build his dream app: a hybrid mix of a cyberpunk-themed Slay the Spire and a productivity app! *VERY* interesting and insightful interview that he and his co-founder did about the game/app's design, history, and philosophy for the […]

Working through my mini-review backlog Terra Randoma is a neat dungeon crawler with a cute aesthetic. The low-poly hero/token idea is nice and works well with the tabletop-inspired system the main game runs. it's a fun way to play a bite-sized DND campaign if you're lacking party members in […]

Sony CEO, I know you follow this account so let’s make a deal. You release Saros on PC first and THEN you can keep all the first party PlayStation games walled off. Glad we could come to this agreement 🤝 #saros #returnal #playstation #steam #gaming #roguelite #roguelike

This week the brainless podcast hosts talk Project Zomboid! Fora game that’s not markted as a roguelite it sure plays like one. The ever looming threat of a bite, the hordes of undead, and country music radio make for an unparalleled triple threat of horror. Can you survive in suburban […]

Steam NextFest is off to a great start so far, with one of my most anticiapted roguelike games 868-Back finally having a playable demo! The hacker grunge aesthetic works great with the low-fi drum&bass audio. Lots of new mechanics to spire up the gameplay from the original 868-Hack, as well! […]

Time for another mini review! This time for the very cool puzzle hacking puzzle game NET.CRAWL It’s something like a cross between Slay the Spire, 868-Hack, and Hexcells. Very interesting decisions to be made with movement mechanics and activated abilities. Great presentation and unique takes […]

Big screen, 2-player Bug Hunter from UFO 50 A super interesting puzzle roguelike game, somewhat similar to Into the Breach or 868-Hack. And that's just 1 out of 7 other fascinating rogue games in the enormous, incredible collection! #UFO50 #roguelike […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]

Celebrating the Switch release of Caves of Qud at Silver Lake Park in Washington State! I know it's a Steam Deck, but folks with a Switch looking for a sci-fi epic of untold proportions are in for a treat from our 2025 GOTY! #QudintheWild #CavesOfQud […] [Original post on mastodon.gamedev.place]