Rogue Wizards

About

In Rogue Wizards, manage your own magical academy and delve into procedurally generated dungeons filled with loot and enemies. Utilize a wide range of spells and abilities to defeat foes and customize your wizard's appearance and skills. Engage in crafting, exploration, and turn-based combat in this addictive blend of RPG and strategy elements.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

80%

Audience ScoreBased on 182 reviews

story9 positive mentions

grinding13 negative mentions

The game features charming graphics and a colorful art style that enhances the overall experience.
The loot system is engaging, with items leveling up and gaining new abilities as they are used, encouraging players to experiment with different gear.
The turn-based combat is strategic, allowing players to plan their moves carefully and utilize a variety of spells and weapons.

The combat can feel repetitive and easy, as enemies often do not pose a significant challenge, leading to a lack of tension.
The game suffers from pacing issues, with slow animations and the tile visibility mechanic causing frustration during exploration.
The storyline is generic and lacks depth, making it less engaging for players who prefer a strong narrative.

story
80 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
84%
5%
The story in the game is generally considered to be simplistic and somewhat clichéd, often described as a typical hero's journey with a focus on grinding rather than deep narrative engagement. While some players appreciate the town-building elements and the ability to replay dungeons, many find the plot uninspiring and repetitive, lacking complexity and memorable characters. Overall, the story serves as a backdrop for gameplay rather than a compelling driving force, appealing mainly to those who enjoy casual RPG mechanics.
- “The story mode is very good with the ability to play endless dungeons afterward or go on the half-hour session of side quests, forever.”
- “It’s suited and long and, though the story is your typical 'you’re-a-hero-now-save-the-world' affair, it does a good job of keeping you engaged run after run.”
- “The story is novel enough to keep me motivated, the monsters come in bizarre combinations of varieties, and you can't predict what you'll be fighting in advance in most of the procedurally generated dungeons, so there is a fair bit of learning what they can do, and applying strategy on the fly.”
- “It quickly turns into a tediously repetitive grind with an eye-rolling story and no new content other than palette swaps.”
- “The story mode gives you a rather hackneyed plot (with plenty of little grammatical errors) and a town with people to talk to and shops to visit between dungeons, while perma-death gauntlet mode does away with all of the extras and just gives you dungeon after dungeon through which you can crawl until you die, or tire of the experience.”
- “Overall it has a lot of potential but the storyline and customization are lagging.”
gameplay
65 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
71%
9%
The gameplay of "Rogue Wizards" is characterized by its turn-based mechanics and a classless build system, allowing for diverse character customization. While the game features engaging graphics and a satisfying loot mechanic, many players find the gameplay repetitive and lacking in depth, with some mechanics feeling frustrating or poorly balanced. Overall, it offers a casual dungeon-crawling experience that may appeal to newcomers but may disappoint those seeking more complexity or challenge.
- “Neat magic mechanic that makes you ration when/what spells you cast.”
- “The classless build system and simple stat/leveling mechanic allow for creating a tanky mage, or sword-and-board spell caster; or anything in between.”
- “While its cartoony appearance may suggest a more casual gameplay experience, Rogue Wizards is a challenge and easily accessible dungeon crawler in which your weapon choice and play style aren’t dictated by character class, but by user preference.”
- “I wanted to like it, but it seems the team worked more on a dozen fancy ways to make tiles appear and disappear than they worked on balancing the gameplay.”
- “The basic gameplay loop is just drab.”
- “Good for casual players, such as myself, but suffers from extremely repetitive gameplay structure and awful, barely serviceable writing.”
graphics
60 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
52%
5%
The graphics of the game are generally described as cute and charming, featuring colorful, cartoonish 2D art that enhances the overall aesthetic. While many players appreciate the visual style and animations, some find the graphics underwhelming compared to modern standards, noting limitations in character customization and occasional performance issues. Overall, the graphics are seen as a strong point that adds to the game's appeal, despite some critiques regarding gameplay engagement.
- “There are many graphical nuances that keep the game interesting.”
- “The graphics are big, bold, sharp, colorful, cartoon-like, and detailed with some lovely animations.”
- “Very polished and charming rogue-like with lots of character and a beautiful art style.”
- “The graphics are underwhelming, but the style and the art itself is not good either: not entertaining nor captivating enough.”
- “If you are looking for all the classic roguelike features with a polished graphical interface, there might be better options.”
- “It's unfortunate that you only have a choice of two character graphics to choose from -- one male and one female -- and the changes to your character as you find and equip different items are very limited.”
music
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
48%
13%
The music in the game is generally well-received, featuring catchy, simple tunes that align with the fantasy dungeon crawler theme, primarily consisting of instrumental medieval-style tracks. While many players appreciate the atmospheric quality of the music, particularly in deeper dungeons, some feel that it lacks variety and fails to enhance the excitement during combat. Overall, the audio and music are considered top-notch, contributing positively to the game's immersive experience.
- “The music and graphics are very pleasing to both the ear and the eye.”
- “Music is quite nice, and exactly what you'd expect from a fantasy dungeon crawler: mainly instrumental medieval-style tunes.”
- “This track has a pulsating heartbeat sound accompanied by an eerie music track which gives the game more atmosphere, especially when going into deeper and more challenging dungeons.”
- “The music for the main menu is maybe the weakest, as you are more interested in getting into the game and you bypass it quickly.”
- “Music is something of a non-entity.”
- “The ambient music that you hear throughout the dungeon doesn't do a great job of making the combat exciting.”
grinding
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The grinding aspect of the game is widely criticized for being tedious and repetitive, with many players feeling that it detracts from the overall experience. While some appreciate the variety of items and the potential for unlimited grinding, the lack of meaningful progression and the monotony of combat lead to frustration. Overall, the game is seen as a mindless dungeon crawler that quickly becomes a chore rather than an engaging adventure.
- “It quickly turns into a tediously repetitive grind with an eye-rolling story and no new content other than palette swaps.”
- “Dungeon crawling is extremely tedious.”
- “For a game that is primarily focused on dungeon grinding, this single flaw is enough to kill the game.”
replayability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
75%
The game offers replayability through its story mode, allowing players to enhance their spell points, and features dual modes that further increase replay value. However, some players express a desire for greater character variety and additional abilities or classes to enhance the replay experience.
- “The story mode is replayable, allowing players to better improve the only true RPG element: the spell points.”
- “The dual modes significantly increase replayability.”
- “I wish there were more character abilities or classes, which could enhance the replayability.”
- “I wish there were more character abilities or classes which might lend to more replayability.”
- “Story mode is replayable to better improve the only true RPG element, the spell points.”
- “I wish I had a bit more playable character variety other than a white guy or a black woman, but indie games usually don't have the budget to expand on stuff like that, especially when the existing characters look so good.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
The game's atmosphere is heavily influenced by titles like Bastion and Torchlight, featuring immersive environments filled with diverse monsters and loot, alongside extensive character customization. The combination of eerie music and a pulsating heartbeat sound enhances the tension, particularly in deeper dungeons, making the turn-based combat feel more engaging despite its slower pace. Overall, the atmosphere is described as exciting and richly layered, contributing significantly to the gameplay experience.
- “Very exciting immersion drenched atmosphere with a lot of monster and loot variety along with plenty of character customization similar to Torchlight and Diablo.”
- “This track has a pulsating heartbeat sound accompanied by an eerie music track which gives the game more atmosphere, especially when going into deeper and more challenging dungeons.”
- “So going turn-based may make the game feel slower, but it cranks up the tension and atmosphere in the dungeons.”
- “Very exciting immersion-drenched atmosphere with a lot of monster and loot variety along with plenty of character customization, similar to Torchlight and Diablo.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is characterized by a mix of cute and funny death animations for creatures, as well as amusing special abilities that can be both entertaining and occasionally frustrating during battles. Overall, the humor adds a charming layer to the gameplay experience without detracting from its clean interface and effective game mechanics.
- “The death animation of the creatures ranges from cute to funny to surprising.”
- “The special ability that each creature has so far (only seen a few) again ranges from very funny to amusing or even frustrating when you're in battle, but that is part of the charm.”
stability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is marred by notable glitches, particularly with helms that fail to activate their ability-procs when hit, despite player investment in the spell. This issue draws comparisons to "Book of Demons," where players also struggle with enemy stuns and freezes, suggesting a frustrating experience in gameplay mechanics.
- “The only known glitches involve helms when hit; the ability proc does not seem to work even if you invest in the spell.”
- “It reminds me of 'Book of Demons'; the whole game consists of you trying to escape from enemy stuns or freezes.”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization strategy of the game primarily revolves around ad-based rewards, allowing players to watch ads for additional content, which some users liken to a "cow clicker" experience. Notably, the game does not include any in-game purchases, focusing solely on ad engagement for monetization.
- “One of the tips in the game during a loading screen mentioned watching ads for extra rewards.”
- “It's as close to a cow clicker as you can get without having any in-game purchases.”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is well-optimized, running smoothly on a variety of systems, including older hardware like the GTX 970, with no graphical performance issues reported. However, its turn-based nature contributes to a slower gameplay experience. Resolution support up to 4K+ is a notable feature.
- “I didn't experience any graphical performance issues, but the game is turn-based and quite slow to play.”
- “Resolution scales up to 4K+ and I had no issues with performance on a 970; it should run on a range of systems.”