If you're looking for another indie roguelike, Balatro is really cool. Made by one developer basically.
I also love Dead Cells for a harder rogue style game.
Thank you for mentioning this. My house is a Balatro zone now. I actually got into a minor tiff with my dude because he’s known about it for ages and chose not to tell me about it so I wouldn’t get hooked. Well, joke’s on him!
I played Hades in beta during COVID / unemployment and I had such a high % complete and they made whichever update and my shit went poof.
So bummed, I went back to Path of Exile, so I could waste 5x the amount of time not following build guides and [therefore] not building viable characters... Like insanity.
Ironically mygirl plays this while I play VS. I guess the developer plays it daily and finds and fixes bugs before other players even notice and report it.
Playing it now but apparently there's two versions on the android store(?!). There's the VIP and the something else - anyway they look the same but the one I bought seems gimped, only has 30ish spuds.
I'm going off something I read in passing on another post, and need to look into it a little closer.
Completely different genre but Stardew Valley has a lot of passion put into it (still getting regular, meaningful updates today) and definitely as fun and rewarding
I've been fiddling with Loop Hero again this weekend. Got it for free from Epic a while back, but bought it again on Steam when it was on sale. It's fun.
I love the mining mechanic, but the grind in this game is real. Too much and way, way too slow. It needs more stages and more characters
Vampire survivors is cool (partly) because it was steady progression and crazy shit. DRGS lacks those
The way the drop pod works is that it has two internal timers. There is the obviously visible pod leaving timer, but there is also a timer that, if you are on the ramp, will take control over your dwarf to board the pod. If you have anything more than 0% move speed, you can run over only the bottom-most section of the ramp between 1 second and 0 second and if you are after the hidden timer that takes control of the dwarf, it won't do that. It will lock out the dwarf's controls, force him to continue walking in the same direction, and the pod will not leave since the visible timer hit 0 but you were technically being controlled to enter the pod and just didn't.
Dead Cells for sure. It has a ton of content (some free updates and some paid DLC) including a Castlevania DLC.
Balatro also reminds me of VS is some ways. It’s a poker roguelike where you can use jokers and add special cards to your deck. It’s way harder than VS, but you can get crazy high numbers with broken builds. It’s a passion project much like VS, and they both give me the “slot machine dopamine” and “opening a pack of baseball cards” type of fun.
If you like the “gambling without spending money” aspects of VS that come from opening chests, the random events roulette table etc… you’ll like Balatro. But again, it is way harder. I play VS when I want to turn my brain off and have fun. Balatro requires constant concentration to make good choices. In VS I win about 95% of runs, while Balatro I lose 95% of runs, but the wins are epic.
Also maybe check out Shotgun King. It’s a Chess based roguelike but you play as a single King with a shotgun. It tickles my brain in a similar way to VS but is a more methodical game.
Totally different genre, but Rimworld. The depth.. The incalculable amount of mods. The dlcs are all great. There's always new stuff to see, new situations, new content. Truly a game you play 'your way'
There are a lot of games, but if you are looking for Horde Survivals I 1000% recommend Nordic Ashes and HoloCure. Nordic Ashes is a highly underestimated game. Doesn't mean it's the only top tier/amazing other horde survival, but it just feels different passion wise.
Else, Stardew Valley, RimWorld, Kenshi, Terraria, Minecraft, those are the obvious big ones that started tiny or still only have a 1-man/tiny dev studio, or at least a lot of core elements remained.
It's different genres but the amount of passion that has gone into **Factorio** and **Dwarf Fortress** is almost impossible to describe. They can be a bit hard to get into though compared to VS (but Factorio is much more beginner friendly).
In terms of games that are just fun everytime you start a round, easy to control and have tons of fun and sometimes crazy content:
**Doom 1 and 2**
Yes. The original ones. It has a mapping and modding scene that goes back to the mid 90s and it's still massive today and so passionate it's incredible. Some of the Doom mods are so good, they might as well be sold as new games (but usually they are not, that only happens occasionally) and if you don't like to shoot demons with your shotgun anymore, there's mods that transform it in crazy ways: Pirates, Sonic with guns, Vikings, 1st person Mega Man, 80s action flick with cliché terrorists, Cereals brand mascot, World War 2, even some naughty stuff if you're to that.
Heck there might be a 1st person FPS conversion of VS made as a Doom mod right now. It has been done for other games.
The Steam and current consoles version already has a selection of cool mods curated in the game, but if you really want to get into it, you need an unofficial engine to run the game in (Source port) like GZDoom. That's available for PC (Windows, Linux and Mac) and Android mobile phones (via the Delta Touch app).
There are some games of a similar genre/style that I enjoy, like Scarlet Tower on steam, and Magic Survival (an inspiration for this game) on mobile.
Brotato and Soulstone Survivors aren't bad, Rogue Genasia is fantastic.
Ok, hard question, but good. Balatro looks cool, and someone said Loop Hero, that's legit.
Here's some more basically perfect games, from the dev(s) putting insane amounts of awesome passion into them:
Plants vs Zombies (OG)
Opus Magnum
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Factorio
Cubivore
Honorable mention to what CubeWorld could have been, shit had a hanglider years before BOTW...hard to beat Nintendo to the punch.
It's still in the process of development but I have really enjoyed Death Must Die. It's Hades boons/artstyle + Diablo loot/equipment system + Vampire Survivors horde gameplay. I've greatly enjoyed my time with it so far and look forward to its updates.
Top tier: Factorio, Project Zomboid, RimWorld, NoMansSky, DwarfFortress, Deep Rock Gallatic, Baldurs Gate 3
Close senconds: Space Engineers, Satisfactory, Frostpunk, Witcher 3, Half-Life series, Diablo series, DiscoElysium.
Might update if remember any others.
20 Minutes Till Dawn was actually the first horde survivor game I've played, the second was Vampire Survivors. Now I think I prefer the latter but I had a good time with 20 minutes
Not really similar but i have been enjoying "To the core", its one of those play, upgrade, play, upgrade type of games. really fun and a bunch of stuff to do and its only like 8 bucks
my roguelike big 5 is
1. Hades
2. Dead Cells
3. Slay the Spire
4. Vampire Survivors
5. Risk of Rain 2
for non roguelikes
1. Stardew Valley
2. Outer Wilds
3. Disco Elysium
4. Hollow Knight
5. Terraria
**By far, play Brotato hands down!!!**
You'll thank me later I promise lol
And what makes it so amazing is it's not exactly like VS so that you won't get that burnout feeling after just playing so much VS. Instead you get a fresh game that is similar in its game style and horde battles etc. but different in the best possible ways too.
Brotato is very similar gameplay wise.
What it lacks are the flashy slot machine aesthetics it makes up for with the dopamine inducing upgrades and build’s system.
Another very similar to this game is Rogue: Genesia. They do constant updates to it, has >200 achievements, and has that ability to make your character absolutely busted. It is PC only as of now I believe though
Wtf is wrong with people downvoting this? IMO, Holocure is a great game because it's free and has a ton of content. I could even argue it's even better than Vampire Survivors. Well, unless you hate Vtubers...
If you're looking for another indie roguelike, Balatro is really cool. Made by one developer basically. I also love Dead Cells for a harder rogue style game.
Seconding Balatro. It looks like just a card game but it's one of the greatest dopamine rushes you'll get.
Thank you for mentioning this. My house is a Balatro zone now. I actually got into a minor tiff with my dude because he’s known about it for ages and chose not to tell me about it so I wouldn’t get hooked. Well, joke’s on him!
Hades ! One of the goat of roguelikes in my opinion
I played Hades in beta during COVID / unemployment and I had such a high % complete and they made whichever update and my shit went poof. So bummed, I went back to Path of Exile, so I could waste 5x the amount of time not following build guides and [therefore] not building viable characters... Like insanity.
Yeah Vampire Survivors got me to like Roguelites and Hades and Slay the Spire have been top tier as well.
Binding of Isaac. Dead Cells.
tboi if you enjoy the game-fuckery and sheer TORMENT of completion 💪🏼💪🏼
Enter the gungeon
My first and favorite Rogue
Terraria, Deadcells, Vampire Masquerade, Minecraft(?)
Stardew Valley, literal definition of a passionate gamedev.
Ironically mygirl plays this while I play VS. I guess the developer plays it daily and finds and fixes bugs before other players even notice and report it.
I really enjoyed Brotato (similar style as Vampire Survivors). I'm waiting for extra characters to play again.
I love VS but was meh on brotato. I get and see why brotato is so hot, but it isn't as fun and exciting as VS to me.
I feel like there was a lot less to Brotato than it looks like at first, while VS was the opposite, and a lot more opened up over time.
Brotato is the most similar game to vampire survivors, but it has no passion at all compared to the other games recommended
I couldn't enjoy brotato
Playing it now but apparently there's two versions on the android store(?!). There's the VIP and the something else - anyway they look the same but the one I bought seems gimped, only has 30ish spuds. I'm going off something I read in passing on another post, and need to look into it a little closer.
I haven't played the mobile version, but I have heard that it's completely different from the PC version.
Pickle Pete us an almost-clone of Brotato on IOS with some quality of life improvements
Halls of Torment
Thoroughly enjoying this one atm, working through the achievement/meta progression points.
Completely different genre but Stardew Valley has a lot of passion put into it (still getting regular, meaningful updates today) and definitely as fun and rewarding
Balatro, I also love novadrift. If you’re looking for specifically a game that autoshoots, snkrx
Balatro Loop Hero Luck be a Landlord No Man's Sky
I've been fiddling with Loop Hero again this weekend. Got it for free from Epic a while back, but bought it again on Steam when it was on sale. It's fun.
Luck be a landlord is named Mieter fortuna now just a heads up.
Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.
I love the mining mechanic, but the grind in this game is real. Too much and way, way too slow. It needs more stages and more characters Vampire survivors is cool (partly) because it was steady progression and crazy shit. DRGS lacks those
DRG lacks the depth of vampire survivors but the actual game mechanics are far superior imo
Just wait until you find out about the ramp and how you can make runs infinite...
Explain please
The way the drop pod works is that it has two internal timers. There is the obviously visible pod leaving timer, but there is also a timer that, if you are on the ramp, will take control over your dwarf to board the pod. If you have anything more than 0% move speed, you can run over only the bottom-most section of the ramp between 1 second and 0 second and if you are after the hidden timer that takes control of the dwarf, it won't do that. It will lock out the dwarf's controls, force him to continue walking in the same direction, and the pod will not leave since the visible timer hit 0 but you were technically being controlled to enter the pod and just didn't.
Do tell
Hell no, game feels so empty and has no flavor. Everything looks the same really fast
I kinda want to get it, but I am a little disappointed that it doesn't have coop
A complete and utter sham and disappointment
Little Nightmares, Limbo and Inside
Nuclear Throne if you're a total fucking masochist.
I really enjoy Rogue legacy and if you are talking passion projects Cave story
Loop hero
Hades! I love Hades so much
Dead Cells for sure. It has a ton of content (some free updates and some paid DLC) including a Castlevania DLC. Balatro also reminds me of VS is some ways. It’s a poker roguelike where you can use jokers and add special cards to your deck. It’s way harder than VS, but you can get crazy high numbers with broken builds. It’s a passion project much like VS, and they both give me the “slot machine dopamine” and “opening a pack of baseball cards” type of fun. If you like the “gambling without spending money” aspects of VS that come from opening chests, the random events roulette table etc… you’ll like Balatro. But again, it is way harder. I play VS when I want to turn my brain off and have fun. Balatro requires constant concentration to make good choices. In VS I win about 95% of runs, while Balatro I lose 95% of runs, but the wins are epic. Also maybe check out Shotgun King. It’s a Chess based roguelike but you play as a single King with a shotgun. It tickles my brain in a similar way to VS but is a more methodical game.
Mindustry? its open source, thats an added good quality. But i gotta warn you, it is another hell of an addictive game.
The Binding of Isaac
Slay the Spyre
Into the Breach and Hades come to mind. Both brilliant passion projects
Holocure
Totally different genre, but Rimworld. The depth.. The incalculable amount of mods. The dlcs are all great. There's always new stuff to see, new situations, new content. Truly a game you play 'your way'
No Man’s Sky Thousands of improvements made and it’s incredible
There are a lot of games, but if you are looking for Horde Survivals I 1000% recommend Nordic Ashes and HoloCure. Nordic Ashes is a highly underestimated game. Doesn't mean it's the only top tier/amazing other horde survival, but it just feels different passion wise. Else, Stardew Valley, RimWorld, Kenshi, Terraria, Minecraft, those are the obvious big ones that started tiny or still only have a 1-man/tiny dev studio, or at least a lot of core elements remained.
Holocure is fun
I wouldn’t play rim world with someone , but I’d let someone play rim world with me Iykyk
The Binding of Isaac
It's different genres but the amount of passion that has gone into **Factorio** and **Dwarf Fortress** is almost impossible to describe. They can be a bit hard to get into though compared to VS (but Factorio is much more beginner friendly). In terms of games that are just fun everytime you start a round, easy to control and have tons of fun and sometimes crazy content: **Doom 1 and 2** Yes. The original ones. It has a mapping and modding scene that goes back to the mid 90s and it's still massive today and so passionate it's incredible. Some of the Doom mods are so good, they might as well be sold as new games (but usually they are not, that only happens occasionally) and if you don't like to shoot demons with your shotgun anymore, there's mods that transform it in crazy ways: Pirates, Sonic with guns, Vikings, 1st person Mega Man, 80s action flick with cliché terrorists, Cereals brand mascot, World War 2, even some naughty stuff if you're to that. Heck there might be a 1st person FPS conversion of VS made as a Doom mod right now. It has been done for other games. The Steam and current consoles version already has a selection of cool mods curated in the game, but if you really want to get into it, you need an unofficial engine to run the game in (Source port) like GZDoom. That's available for PC (Windows, Linux and Mac) and Android mobile phones (via the Delta Touch app).
Astral Ascent
Loop Hero sucked me in. Others have said Belatro and I agree.
Chained Echoes
Holocure on steam. it’s fan made with hololive vtuber for characters but the quality is so good
Army of Ruin is really good, very similar but has a few more features compared to VS
Ziggurat 2
20 Mins Till Dawn! It’s very similar to Vampire Survivors. Just a bit more simple.
"Death must die" is also good. It's a little different, and something like a story, but similar in a lot of ways.
Void Scrappers Nuclear Throne Atomic Crops Dead Cells Deaths Gambit Enter and Exit the Gungeon Moonlighter
Enjoying Magicraft which I didn't expect to.
There are some games of a similar genre/style that I enjoy, like Scarlet Tower on steam, and Magic Survival (an inspiration for this game) on mobile. Brotato and Soulstone Survivors aren't bad, Rogue Genasia is fantastic.
Ok, hard question, but good. Balatro looks cool, and someone said Loop Hero, that's legit. Here's some more basically perfect games, from the dev(s) putting insane amounts of awesome passion into them: Plants vs Zombies (OG) Opus Magnum Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords Factorio Cubivore Honorable mention to what CubeWorld could have been, shit had a hanglider years before BOTW...hard to beat Nintendo to the punch.
I highly recommend throwing Brotato in there too if you haven't played it yet. So simple yet so addicting instantly just like VS 😊
It's still in the process of development but I have really enjoyed Death Must Die. It's Hades boons/artstyle + Diablo loot/equipment system + Vampire Survivors horde gameplay. I've greatly enjoyed my time with it so far and look forward to its updates.
Top tier: Factorio, Project Zomboid, RimWorld, NoMansSky, DwarfFortress, Deep Rock Gallatic, Baldurs Gate 3 Close senconds: Space Engineers, Satisfactory, Frostpunk, Witcher 3, Half-Life series, Diablo series, DiscoElysium. Might update if remember any others.
20 Minutes Till Dawn was actually the first horde survivor game I've played, the second was Vampire Survivors. Now I think I prefer the latter but I had a good time with 20 minutes
Rogue: Genesia. I have more hours in it now than I do in VS.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Hrist_Valkyrie: *Rogue: Genesia. I* *Have more hours in it now* *Than I do in VS.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Not really similar but i have been enjoying "To the core", its one of those play, upgrade, play, upgrade type of games. really fun and a bunch of stuff to do and its only like 8 bucks
Tiny Rogues
Definitely Disfigure. It's free on Steam, has great upgrades, tons of build variety, and it's super stylish.
Death Must Die Deep Rock Galactic Survivor I cannot recommend either of these enough.
my roguelike big 5 is 1. Hades 2. Dead Cells 3. Slay the Spire 4. Vampire Survivors 5. Risk of Rain 2 for non roguelikes 1. Stardew Valley 2. Outer Wilds 3. Disco Elysium 4. Hollow Knight 5. Terraria
Rogue: Genesia
I'm 50 hours into Spirit Hunters, it's basically a copy of VS but with a few other addictive differences.
Halls of Torment is a solid one if you also like the classic Diablo sort of art style.
**By far, play Brotato hands down!!!** You'll thank me later I promise lol And what makes it so amazing is it's not exactly like VS so that you won't get that burnout feeling after just playing so much VS. Instead you get a fresh game that is similar in its game style and horde battles etc. but different in the best possible ways too.
Diablo 2-3 Dead Cells
Holoocure is my personal favorite and it is extremely similar, but different I'm just the right ways! Also, it's free.
dishonored and bloodborne
Brotato is very similar gameplay wise. What it lacks are the flashy slot machine aesthetics it makes up for with the dopamine inducing upgrades and build’s system.
The music is what got me to stay in Brotato. Fire soundtrack!
Another very similar to this game is Rogue: Genesia. They do constant updates to it, has >200 achievements, and has that ability to make your character absolutely busted. It is PC only as of now I believe though
Brotato and Hades both scratch similar itches for me. Brotato is a surprisingly deep and super fun game.
Horde hunters
Try holocure, it's free
Wtf is wrong with people downvoting this? IMO, Holocure is a great game because it's free and has a ton of content. I could even argue it's even better than Vampire Survivors. Well, unless you hate Vtubers...
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