Rogue Tower Reviews

Simple and really nice, choose your own difficulty, and enjoy :)

Do you like tower defense games, but hate winning? this is the game for you! I put it on 2 track, and always lose.

its indeed a game. very entertaining i hope further updates bring more tower or a different level design like snow or a desert or something but its not needed.

Includes the basics of the genre. The randomized elements and unlockables for each play through kept the game alive for me longer than I expected. My interest did wane once I had everything unlocked that I wanted. Certainly would have loved for there be a more waves option, and a other playable versions unlocked after everything else got unlock like a freedom mode of sorts, or a mode that offers randomized options of land tiles to place instead of being blindly random. As it stands, it is highly replayable. There is a lot of randomized elements in this, and it will require a bit of skill to succeed consistently.

It's very fun. It's an experience. Thought i have not beaten the 4x lanes it's very fun at 1x lane.

All in all a pretty fun game and good way to kill an afternoon or two. Gets a bit stale quicker than I'd like, and also has some mechanics that just don't seem to work like they should - namely, houses on different levels not counting adjacent tiles on lower or higher levels, mana siphons not being able to extract from crystals, etc. It feels like it could have used a little more time in the oven, but isn't bad by any means.

Great little game for background play while you are doing other things.

No cloud save, if uninstall, you lose progress. UI is terrible. No fastforward. Not able to pause and save the game. Very promising game otherwise, but the lack of Quality of Life features makes this a no no for me.

Rogue Tower is a creative blend of tower defense and roguelike mechanics that offers a fresh and strategic take on both genres. At its core, the game tasks players with building and upgrading towers to defend against waves of increasingly challenging enemies, but it adds a unique twist: players also control the path the enemies follow. As you extend the road tile by tile, the layout of the battlefield shifts, making terrain placement, elevation, and tower positioning crucial to success. Towers placed on higher ground, for instance, gain range and damage advantages, encouraging players to plan ahead and think vertically as well as strategically. Each run begins with a limited set of towers and upgrade cards, but as waves are cleared, new cards become available. These cards can unlock new tower types or enhance existing ones with modifiers like increased range, elemental damage, or improved targeting. There’s an element of randomness in what upgrades are offered, which gives each playthrough a sense of unpredictability. However, this same randomness can sometimes feel restrictive, as important upgrades or tower types may not appear when needed, creating an imbalance that can force early failures regardless of player skill. The game’s long-term progression system is built around a card unlock mechanic, where experience earned in each run unlocks new towers, bonuses, or stat boosts for future attempts. This persistent upgrade loop adds meaningful incentives to keep playing and experimenting with different builds. There are over 400 different cards to collect, creating a wide range of potential combinations and strategies. Towers specialize in countering different enemy types—some are better against armor, others against shields or raw health—so building a balanced defense is key to surviving later waves. As the game progresses, enemies become more diverse and dangerous. Basic attackers quickly give way to foes that sprint, regenerate, or arrive with layered defenses. These challenges force players to adapt their strategies mid-run and experiment with tower placement and synergies. Certain landmarks on the map, like houses or mana sources, provide bonuses when the right towers are placed nearby, adding another layer of depth to placement decisions. These mechanics encourage players to make use of every bit of the map’s topography and features. Visually, the game employs a clean and colorful voxel art style that keeps everything clear and easy to read, even when the screen is filled with enemies and projectiles. The aesthetic is charming, and the music adapts to the pace of the action, adding energy to the gameplay without becoming intrusive. It’s a style that suits the genre well, focusing on function while maintaining a playful atmosphere. Despite its strengths, Rogue Tower is not without flaws. One of the most frequently cited issues is the lack of a fast-forward option. As the game progresses and the path grows longer, enemy waves take increasingly more time to traverse the map, and players often find themselves sitting idle, waiting for the next meaningful moment to interact. Combined with limited control once towers are placed, this can make late-game segments feel sluggish. The user interface can also become cluttered, and some mechanics are not well-explained, which may frustrate newer players trying to grasp the finer points of strategy. Another point of criticism lies in the game’s difficulty balance. Because so much depends on which cards are drawn and when, runs can feel heavily dictated by luck rather than strategy. Missing a crucial upgrade early on can doom a run, regardless of how well the player has planned. While this randomness is typical in roguelike games, in Rogue Tower it sometimes undercuts the satisfaction of building a well-thought-out defense. Even with these drawbacks, Rogue Tower manages to carve out its own space in the tower defense genre. Its innovative path-building mechanic, wide variety of tower types, and layered meta-progression system make it a compelling experience for players who enjoy deep strategy and long-term planning. While pacing issues and balance concerns may deter some, those willing to invest time and patience will find a satisfying and challenging game that rewards creative thinking and careful decision-making. Rating: 8/10

[b]6/10[/b] The game isn't bad, but there's quite a bit of QoL features missing, and there's not enough content to justify the price. [h2]Content issues[/h2] The game lacks content. While there's technically four modes with four modifiers, they don't really add much. The four modes are a variant of each other, with the only difference being how many paths you have to defend from (one path, two paths, three paths, and four paths respectively). Out of the four modifiers, one is an April Fools joke, and the other three don't do much beyond some very minor game play changes. One adds a new mechanic, but it's just an additional card group which makes the game more difficult. There's also only one map, which relies heavily on procedural generation to keep it feeling unique; which gets old fast. I saw a lot of complaints about the game being too RNG, but I didn't really have that issue. Especially once you get down the upgrade paths, you can make do with practically any tower. [h2]QoL issues[/h2] The game lacks quite a bit of QoL features that you'd typically expect in tower defense games. Fortunately, the community provides mods to solve these problems. [h3]Game speed[/h3] The game doesn't come with a built in speed control. There's a mod by [i]Jdewi[/i] called [url=https://thunderstore.io/c/rogue-tower/p/Jdewi/SpeedControls/]SpeedControls[/url] which adds this. [h3]Restarting games[/h3] To restart a match, you have to quick to the main menu, go through the loading screen, re-select your mode, and [i]then[/i] you can start a new match. [i]AgusBut[/i] has a mod called [url=https://thunderstore.io/c/rogue-tower/p/AgusBut/BetterPauseMenu/]BetterPauseMenu[/url] which adds a restart button to the pause menu, which helps solve this problem. [h3]Tower range[/h3] When building a tower, it doesn't show the actual range that tower will have; you have to build it, then re-select it to see the range. [i]Theirown[/i] and [i]RustyDios[/i] have a mod called [url=https://thunderstore.io/c/rogue-tower/p/RustyDios/QoLChangesPastePatch/]QoLChanges[/url] which shows the range of towers while building them, alongside various other QoL related fixes. [h3]Keybinds[/h3] There's no keybinds for selecting towers and cards-- meaning you have to manually click each tower and card (and in the case of cards, it takes [i]two[/i] clicks) to select them. I was surprised to find that there wasn't a mod for this already, as it was a constant source of pain for me while grinding achievements. I went ahead and created my own mod that does exactly that; adds keybinds for selecting towers and cards. You can find it under [i]daymxn[/i] with the name [url=https://thunderstore.io/c/rogue-tower/p/daymxn/SlotKeybinds/]SlotKeybinds[/url]. [h3]Banishing[/h3] Less of a QoL issue, but I felt it worth noting. Once you've maxed out your upgrade tree, there can be a lot of cards in the draw pool. This can make achievement hunting a bit RNG. [i]AgusBut[/i] has a mod called [url=https://thunderstore.io/c/rogue-tower/p/AgusBut/BanishCards/]BanishCards[/url] which gives you three banishes per run (configurable). This made achievement hunting so much smoother, so I highly recommend it. [h2]Conclusion[/h2] All in all, It's an alright tower defense game, with a small dash of rogue-like elements. I don't think it's worth the full $20, probably closer to $5 maybe $10.