That’s cool, though, because the combat is pretty good without it. It’s there as a tantalising fallback option, rather than the core of combat. Your minions’ health bars swoosh back up to full after every fight, so it only makes sense to mess about with devil mode when you truly feel your troops can’t hack it. That’s undeniably clever, and certainly welcome, but it’s not game-defining. Every time you invoke your true demonic prowess, you move a little closer to death. That’s the big stinking pile of demonic essence you can see in the top left corner of the screen, and it’s this pool that also powers your ability to cheat.

You go into every run with your choice of three disciples, each of which have two separate health bars that are in fact merely buffers for your actual health pool. Sometimes, but only sometimes, it makes sense to do that by cheating. It’s about peering into a battlefield of numbers and puzzling out how to make the good ones bigger and the bad ones go away. Technically in this case you’re the big bad, but look, this is still very much the sort of game where framing plays second (demonic) fiddle to ACTION, and by action I mean carefully and often painstakingly mulling over how best to spend your turn’s action points and the order in which your minions should activate their abilities. Pick yer path through a series of encounters, build power as you go, biff the big bad at the end. There are no cards, but there are abilities that sort of may as well be cards, and the broader format is spookily familiar.

Let’s say it upfront: if you’re looking for another roguelike that nudges you into the same comfortable, pleasantly melty brain space evoked by Slay The Spire, Monster Train and (to a lesser extent) Roguebook, then Rogue Lords will probably do the trick. Of course, that doesn’t wind up mattering nearly as much as you think it might. Rogue Lords is a roguelike where the rules and UI elements are old Nick’s playthings, and you’re the lucky devil in charge of all his toys.

If this sounds unfair, that’s because it is - though fortunately, you’re not actually that side of the pentagram. Pop, he mouths, as he recharges Bloody Mary’s stabbing skill and sends her in for the kill. Pffft, he scoffs, as he flicks a shield from your bounty hunter to his succubus. Schwoop, Evil says, as he waves away most of your priest’s health bar. You think you’ve got one of his minions cornered and then bam, down (up?) comes the hand of evil incarnate.

Developer: Leikir Studio, Cyanide Studioįighting against Satan must be miserable.

An initially delightful roguelike, held back from greatness by rough edges and stingy unlocks.

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