I’ve played plenty of roguelike games in my time. The last decade or so has seen a real explosion of them, and while I’d usually cover card-based roguelikes over on Card Gamer, as a fan of the genre in general I like to check out titles which don’t fall under Card Gamer’s remit too.

Flick Shot Rogues is one of those games. Though it has many familiar elements, such as taking on enemies, all while progressing across a randomly generated map with branching paths, buying more equipment and upgrades as you go, on your quest to complete a run, it’s also built around a rather unique mechanic for a roguelike game.

You see, Flick Shot Rogues is a pseudo-tabletop experience, in which you flick your little character around an arena, with your character, the enemies and even the arena feeling like tangible objects.

It’s got a lovely aesthetic, feels great and it’s pretty accessible too. There’s always plenty of visual cues as to where your character will end up when you flick them (done with a few mouse clicks or the touchscreen on a Steam deck, for example).

Additionally, there are various effects you can use on each character, such as fire or other types of elemental damage, as well as that being used by certain enemies too. There’s a certain satisfaction in turning this against your foes, lining them up so their own fire attacks, for example, end up hurting their allies.

It’s cool when you have a big boss character to deal with, who’ll have a gold base on their figure.

Get rid of them and the rest of the arena will be cleared, but there’s often a bit of weighing up to do as to whether or not you need to rid yourself of smaller, faster enemies or just chip away harder at the boss!

It’s all great fun, and there’s plenty to see, do and unlock. The central mechanic of Flick Shot Rogues, of flicking your character and seeing the physics play out from that, is such a tactile joy that just never seems to get old.

Flick Shot Rogues is available now on Steam. Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a game key for review purposes.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!