Please send help. I can’t stop playing these roguelikes.

The sequel plays more like the first game, but with smart updates that make everything run smoother. This is one of my favorite games of the year and I highly recommend it to any fan of tactical card games.

Dead Zone Rogue

Dead Zone Rogue instantly joins a pantheon of roguelike first-person shooter looters that includes perennial favorites Shooting is reborn And Roboquest (I haven't played them yet, but brand new Abyss And Void/Destroyer also cause a lot of noise).

Where Roboquest excellent at entertainment Rock-like movement and colorful environment, Dead Zone Rogue it's all about shooting. The game has the best gunplay of any FPS roguelike I've played, and the random weapons, armor, and upgrades you get give each playthrough a feeling of personality.

The music, voice acting and lore of the game are best ignored, but the sound design is pleasant and energetic. It's not a game you'll play for 100 hours, but sometimes it's just fun to shoot a gun in a video game, and Dead Zone Rogue understands this simple formula correctly.

9 kings

Look, I'm going to cheat here, and I'm not ashamed of it. This is true-9 kings not fully released. But I can't help but talk about it. I initially wrote the game off when it went into Early Access in July, thinking it looked too simple. This is simple, but that's his merit.

The idea is easy to explain: build a small kingdom on a 3 by 3 grid of squares. Play a card to build or upgrade a building or unit in your kingdom. After this, the neighboring kingdom will attack, and your units will automatically enter the battle, protecting your home. After the battle, you draw a card from the defeated kingdom and add it to your hand.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can expand your kingdom beyond the original nine squares, and unlockable perks will change the way you play as each king. Several enemies are randomly selected from the nine, meaning the maps you can make in each run will be different.

Creating failed builds and working your way up the difficulty levels is extremely fun; there was a week where the “one more run” curse hit me and I did little but play the game.