The classic webcomic Sabrina Online has the character, early on in its run, visit an Amiga conference. Sabrina famously preferred the Amiga platform right up until it fell so far out of favor that it was unviable. She described the conference as being “my kind of place” before taking pride in the fact that the conference has “as much Microsoft bashing as a Windows developers’ conference.” Needless to say, the strip sparked a love of Amiga for me as well, AND IT WAS THE BETTER PLATFORM! I wasn’t aware, but apparently the Amiga still gets love from developers, with releases like Roguecraft, which was released on the Commodore Amiga back in 2024.
Roguecraft DX is an enhanced, slightly expanded version of this game, though it mostly retains the original charm of a roguelike that feels reminiscent of classic dark fantasy titles that are meant to invoke a bygone age in gaming. Did I mention it was originally released for the far superior Amiga platform you should all bow before? It just feels like something important you need to know. The experience brings you back to when there were no save states, just a looping challenge where improvement was marked by more forward progress than the last time.
The game has three modes that offer what is essentially the same thing. The standard mode has you playing the game with one of three characters. This mode has 15 levels, with five of those being part of the expanded DX offerings. Another one of these modes is endless, allowing you to avoid the pesky stage limit but ultimately having more challenge the deeper you get into Roguecraft DX. These modes, for all intents and purposes, play the same, so one feels more like an entry point for the other, not that this is a bad thing.
Exploration is tiny, giving you these small areas to explore with enemies or treasure to be found. The goal is to wander from screen to screen, attempting to find a key and a door because, by their powers combined, you can move on to the next level. These stages are beautiful, feeling like a Lovecraftian D&D campaign from the 80s with a highly detailed dungeon you keep sinking into, getting shockingly more detail as you progress. All of this is set to a retro chiptune soundtrack that grows on you as the repetition takes hold.
Now, the game is technically turn-based, but the best comparison I can make is to something like Shogun Assassin, in that the turns revolve around movement on the grid, with every other enemy taking their turns on the same move. I happen to like games like this, as you do get the strategy of control as you move. Further progress deeper into the dungeon will unlock room traps, so guiding enemies into them through clever planning can make fighting them easier or completely avoidable, which is rewarding to accomplish. The monsters and the traps also have a quality to the design that can really feel engrossing as fights start.
Where the game lost me a little was the actual combat, which involves running into an enemy and moving into them to attack. Roguecraft DX relies on a random number generator for combat, meaning that it can be frustratingly inconsistent. Some rooms you clear enemies without a single hit to your character; other times you get hit twice before you even land a hit. A few times, I was standing there with two enemies going at me while attacking one, and we all still burned maybe 40 attacks before a hit landed at all. Your character will only have a few hits before death when you begin, so yeah, that many attacks is saying something.
There are stats that your character has that partially add to the other part of playing strategically. Finding the key and door allows you to progress, but there are many rooms to go through. Every fight is a risk, but you can grab health increases or strength buffs to make later stages easier if you put in the work. You also have a limited inventory where you can keep spells that mix things up further. The repellent was great when I had two hearts and was looking for healing items while running through rooms, keeping the enemies at bay. There is also one for invisibility that I found very useful, though you need to use it at the right time for the best effects, as all of these items last a set number of turns.
Where this becomes a tad obnoxious is that you can find the door within your first few locations and then have a pathway that leads into oblivion that you follow because there might be useful items that way. You will find them for sure if you go that route, but it can be very annoying to backtrack 6 or 7 rooms, one space at a time, until you get to the door. By the nature of the beast, this will happen way more than one time, so they start to wear on you. This is compounded a bit with how easy it can be to lose your sense of direction in movement, accidentally going left when you want to go straight.
This brings us to the final mode that the game has to offer: chicken run! I spent way more time in this mode than I was expecting, too, which was more shocking given it was a more challenging mode than the others. Chickens are the weakest enemies in the game, and you can rack up 100 kills on them rapidly. So here is a mode that lets you play as one with almost no health or strength, running around like a chicken with its head cut off to progress.
This mode is basically like the rest, except for the fact that the items are changed to eggs, giving the player literal cosmic horror powers to turn the tide of battle. However, never enough to make battle the most prudent move. Everything blends since the game mostly just twists what you expect across the multiple modes, but I was surprised by how they could suck me in.
Steam Deck:
If you are looking for a great game to play on the go via a Steam Deck or any other PC mobile device, look no further than Roguecraft DX. The title is not system-heavy and has previously been released on the Game Boy Color, crazy as that sounds, so it runs great. It also plays slightly better (at least for me) with a controller anyway. The mouse allows for faster movement, but the controller offers more precise movement. The screen size also doesn’t shrink, so you can enjoy it even on the go the way it is meant to be. The only complaint is that the boot-up can be slightly long
Verdict
Roguecraft DX is the most simplistic, unbridled version of fun you can have. There are no between-run unlocks and nothing that complicates the loop. You just boot up the mode you want to play and play away. Each time you outwit an enemy into the fire, or cleverly combine the potions at your disposal for easy kills, you feel craftier, more clever. As you figure out how to survive each stage, you feel prouder. The deeper into the forgotten horrors of the dungeon you explore, the more you can’t wait to do it again. Until the next run takes you to the end.
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Reviewed for Steam, also available on Commodore Amiga, Game Boy Color, MEGA65, and Evercade
*A code for Roguecraft DX was provided by Badger Punch Games for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Badger Punch Games
Publisher: Thalamus Digital
Release Date: September 10, 2026
Pros
+Great retro inspired art direction, music and world
+Clever Turn-based twist
+Strategies that evolve with each passing run
+Chicken run mode is my jam
Cons
-RNG can be frustrating
-Movement can easy to lose track of which direction is which, especially on keyboard.
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Roguecraft DX
