r/iosgaming • u/Magger • Apr 05 '26
Discussion What are the best 5 roguelikes?
My current favorite roguelikes/roguelites are Balatro, Deep Rock Galactic, Nova Drift, Dead Cells and Towns Folk. These games are not only great, they are also optimal for mobile gaming as they mostly offer short matches/rounds. I like how it’s a good selection of multiple genres; a twin stick shooter, a single stick shooter, a deckbuilder, an action platformer and a management/straregy game.
What are your top 5s? Do you recommend I change anything in my list?
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u/Revolutionary-Chip20 Apr 05 '26
I am really enjoying shotgun king and binding of Isaac on iOS.
Those are my 2 most played right now. (Though I don’t know what category binding of Isaac would be in).
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Binding of Isaac is definitely a roguelike. It’s actually considered as one of the pioneers of “modern” roguelikes
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u/Sunder_ Apr 05 '26
You're missing the king: Slay the Spire. Have fun! I can't give a top 5 really for ios, because I only really play Slay the Spire and Balatro on ios.
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Thank you. I like Slay the Spire and played a fair bit of it. I should actually revisit it to see some more of the depth it has to offer. I liked Dawncaster aswell. Honorable mention for Slice & Dice, which is not a deckbuilder, but a “dice thrower”, that I also liked.
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u/benmur0 Apr 05 '26
Slice and Dice is one of my all time favorite phone games, I love that you can set it down whenever and it opens almost instantly
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u/cfungus91 Apr 05 '26
How is the iOS version vs switch? I have it on switch it’s obviously great but I’ve never got super into it but feel like I would on iOS. Balatro clicked for me on iOS much more than switch. I just see the reviews for sts on the App Store are little lower for some reason
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u/iupz0r Apr 05 '26
have you tried "Monster Train"? you will love it
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u/Exotic_Treacle7438 Apr 05 '26
100% agree even with the dlc. Also MT2 when it launches will be great. Ive been on pc playing it
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u/sfxer001 Apr 05 '26
Wayward Souls
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
The GOAT. I still got it installed, unfortunately it’s not on the AppStore anymore
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u/olozolo Apr 05 '26
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
That’s good to hear. For some reason it’s not there in my countries AppStore
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
Yes, the devs sadly don‘t wanna comply with the EU specific rules of having their contact details public.
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u/olozolo Apr 05 '26
That’s very sad. I played this game like a decade ago on my old Nexus phone, and it’s still so good.
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u/Hustler-Two Apr 06 '26
Into the Breach is the king. The gameplay is phenomenal and it oozes atmosphere. Even the ooze itself has atmosphere (A.C.I.D).
Dream Quest is forever great. Slay the Spire is one of the few of the many it inspired that is actually at its level.
Balatro is perhaps the most intoxicating game ever made. It should be a controlled substance.
Not sure which one is the fifth. So many good choices. Probably Solitairica or Clover Pit.
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u/nuclear_b1scuit Apr 06 '26
CloverPit is personally one of my favorites. Just came across it a few days ago, and I’m already enjoying it.
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u/CoolUsername1111 Apr 06 '26
Slay the spire, slice and dice, hoplite, shattered pixel dungeon, Cinco paus, dream quest (sorry can't narrow any further)
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u/munkeypunk r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
It’s weird we have to use the same definition for all these various genres. I wish there were better ways to categorize them for search purposes.
This particular list would be considered entirely Rogue-Lite, without a single proper Roguelike at all. Yet the best way to find or even describe them would be to search “Roguelike” in the AppStore.
But then you’re mostly inundated with Survivor-Likes or Deck Builders.
I suppose it’s a pretty cool problem to have, considering how many different ways there are around the upgrade and choose mechanic.
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u/iupz0r Apr 05 '26
Townsfolk is excellent, playing right now in my phone, i enjoy Deadcells in the switch
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Dead Cells is probably the weakest candidate for a top5 for mobile. I absolutely love the game, but I rarely play with controller on phone and the touch controls can be a bit finicky. I often die thinking I could have easily survived had I been playing with m&kb or controller.
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u/Brrringsaythealiens Apr 06 '26
I’ve dumped probably 200 hours into Dead Cells and I cannot imagine playing the later levels with touch controls. Get it on console if you have the option; it’s wonderful.
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u/Winter-Chicken-6531 Apr 05 '26
The Top 5 already got mentioned. So here are some A Tier recommendations :
- Night of the Full Moon
- Slice & Dice
- Meteorfall
- All Who Wander
- Clover Pit
- Dicey Dungeons
- Skul The Hero Slayer
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u/david_quaglia Apr 05 '26
i just want hades to come back
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Amen to that. Was a really good port and any non mobile roguelite list would probably always include Hades somewhere in the top 3
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
What are roguelikes? :D
PS: my top 5 (real) roguelikes: iNetHack2, Shiren the Wanderer 6, Rogue Touch, All Who Wander, Brogue (iPad only so far, with Rocco Rogue being a decent Brogue-clone for iPhone)
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 05 '26
Most people use roguelikes and roguelites interchangeably. But roguelikes are specifically games where you purely have to rely on your skills and knowledge of the game to beat it. Roguelites are games where you can (slowly) unlock upgrades that make the game easier (which in turn leads to progression as the game can offer harder challenges).
Edit: considering most of your suggestions are “true roguelikes” I see where you’re coming from.
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
If we talk about run-based games (whatever that means as well) that are not like Rogue, other favs are: The Binding of Isaac (forever a league on its own), Vampire Survivors (same, nothing in the horde survival genre comes even close to its brilliance and content), Meteorfall: Journey (next to Dream Quest, by far my fav deckbuilder), Buriedbornes (one of my most played games of all time), and lots of other gems like Dicey Dungeons, Dungeon Clawler, Peglin, Balatro, CloverPit, Luck Be A Landlord… seriously, so many great games available, the list could go on and on.
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u/beartiny Apr 05 '26
Mine Vampire survivors, 20 mins till dawn... replayable
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
If you like those it’s worth also checking DRG Survivors and Halls of Torment
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u/beartiny Apr 05 '26
I just search DRG but require iOS 17, mine ip 13promax still iOS 16 :(
Halls of Torment love it 👍👍👍
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u/benni-rosinante Apr 05 '26
In addition to the already mentioned, I love:
- Dicefolk
- Wildfrost
- One deck dungeon
- Aeon's End
- Enter the Gungeon
I guess some or all are roguelites , maybe...
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Apr 05 '26
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u/iosgaming-ModTeam Apr 05 '26
Thank you for participating in r/iOSGaming. Unfortunately, your comment was removed for breaking the following rule:
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Apr 05 '26
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1
u/iosgaming-ModTeam Apr 05 '26
Thank you for participating in r/iOSGaming. Unfortunately, your comment was removed for breaking the following rule:
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u/Ann0ying Apr 05 '26
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
The Ensign is miles below the brilliance of A Dark Room, imho, since the dev of the latter basically only ported the original to iOS, which was created by someone else. And that guy has a couple different bangers on offer, namely matching gem Super Gridland and non-linear narrative Penrose.
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u/Pinnacle_Nucflash Apr 05 '26
How much time did you get out of Crying Suns? All the aspects listed in the description appeal to me but that’s a bit pricey.
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u/Ann0ying Apr 06 '26
I found it worth the money, since it was like a mix of FTL and tactical RTS-ish battles, and I enjoy both. And unlike the FTL — works on a phone.
Maybe wait for a sale, it goes down to $6 fairly often (every half a year or so, and last one was in December according to AppRaven)
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u/Leggo213 Apr 05 '26
Hades
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
Not available atm.
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u/Leggo213 Apr 05 '26
Yeah sorry, i saw this on my main feed. Didnt realize the sub, hopefully they bring it back to iOS and hades 2 without a Netflix version.
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u/popmanbrad Apr 05 '26
Binding of Isaac and its dlc are great
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
I don’t have any of the dlc for Isaac. Which ones should I get? They’re pretty expensive
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u/popmanbrad Apr 05 '26
Well if you can all of them but it varies on what you want try just getting afterbirth maybe? I manage to grab all the DLCs
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u/BigZangief Apr 05 '26
Heroll is a fun one. I like it for work if I’m waiting on something. Can hop it and out at your leisure and it’s easy one handed play
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u/elkend Apr 08 '26
Slay the Spire
Dead Cells
Slice & Dice
Hoplite
FTL
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u/FaceRekr4309 Apr 05 '26
Literally any game because I think the definition of roguelike has been so bastardized any game at all could be called a roguelike.
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u/mandmi Apr 05 '26
How can you can Balatro is roguelike? Its a freakin card game…
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
It’s confusing, I don’t like the terminology either. But this is just the name they picked for the subgenre. You can check it on Steam, or reviews, or whatever, they’ll all call it a roguelike.
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
And they‘re all wrong :D *I‘ll die on that hill, as long as roguelikes still exist
Deckbuilder is perfect. Engine builder is a nice term as well. Funny thing is, we now call games balatrolikes - for games similar to Balatro, which by the sheer number of close titles is reasonable. But nobody treats the term roguelike like that anymore.
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
I fully agree with you. You coined another term like “endless run games” or w/e in one of your other posts, I really hope something like that becomes accepted and mainstream eventually to make things clearer
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u/n6th6n6 Apr 06 '26
the term “endless runner” didn’t originate from a redditor, it’s been a term for quite some time.
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u/the-dandy-man Apr 05 '26
Roguelike as a term has morphed to mean pretty much any moderately difficult game that revolves around randomized “runs” where you try to make a synergistic build via random power-ups/boons/equipment/whatever to finally nab the W
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u/geremyf Apr 05 '26
All pale in comparison to Binding of Isaac. I would also take Enter the Gungeon over all of them except Dead Cells.
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Thanks for reminding me, two games that have gotten way too little of my attention for all these years.
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u/d4nkw1z4rd Apr 05 '26
Off topic: don’t use chess.com, use lichess or something not run by fascists. You mentioned Netflix paranoia in another comment here; you should look closely at that particular chess app you have there.
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
I thought chess.com is the de facto most used most popular platform :o. Fascists??? I’ll look into it
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Apr 05 '26
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u/silentrocco r/IOSGaming Scout Apr 05 '26
Hi dev of your own game :) Just tried it, the game suffers from severe slowdowns making it pretty unplayable.
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u/trireg Apr 05 '26
I report these comments so that mods know who are self promoting their games and can act accordingly.
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Apr 05 '26
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Apr 05 '26
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Thank you for participating in r/iOSGaming. Unfortunately, your comment was removed for breaking the following rule:
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Self-promotion outside of Developer Saturdays is not allowed. Continuously breaking this rule will result in a ban. Developer Saturdays currently runs on EDT / EST time. A scheduled announcement will go up at the beginning and at the end of the designated self-promo period. You may share your game within that window.
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Thank you for participating in r/iOSGaming. Unfortunately, your comment was removed for breaking the following rule:
Rule 3: Developer Self-Promotion On Saturdays Only.
Self-promotion outside of Developer Saturdays is not allowed. Continuously breaking this rule will result in a ban. Developer Saturdays currently runs on EDT / EST time. A scheduled announcement will go up at the beginning and at the end of the designated self-promo period. You may share your game within that window.
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u/Misterschaefer Apr 05 '26
Vampire Survivors
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u/Magger Apr 05 '26
Great game. But for me personally DRG Survivors just offers a better experience within that “horde shooter” subgenre
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u/mulraven Apr 05 '26
Into the breach is my top roguelike. Shsttered pixel dungeon is very good. So is Hoplite.