SFD : Rogue TRPG

A great little game for fans of the genre.
The only real issue I have with it are the random difficulty spikes (bosses on floor 4 and 8).
It makes want to check out the other game from the developer.

An interesting gem.

It's party tactics in a roguelike formula. The game loop is tight but deep. The really interesting thing is that the developer has found the absolute sweet spot where presentation is just simple enough to never get in the way or bog down but good enough you never lose interest or wish for more.

Really addictive 'just one more room' gameplay. A great find.

Nice quick game. Basic controls, straight forward gameplay. Looking forward to future runs and the next version!

If you are the type of person who loves isometric, sprite based, strategy games like Into the Breach, you are going to like this.
An addictive game with cool tweaks (magic, weapons, etc) for you to find the right way to come as far as you can.
The perfect game for when you wake up with a morning coffee.

7/10

A procedurally generated indie TBS / RPG where you lead a small party of fantasy characters in turn-based battles

Good:
- levels are randomly generated
- fairly classic types of characters, from warrior to cleric to mage (and some more), and the system works fine. Plus you can push enemies into spike traps or explode barrels
- quick travel between already cleared rooms

So-so:
- pixelated graphics are typical for indie games, so it's up to your taste
- sounds are 8-bit - up to your taste

Bad:
- inventory management is somewhat cumbersome because there are no mouse-overs and you can't drag items. I guess they designed this game for mobile and then did a PC build out of Unity engine without changing any of the controls for PC
- a tutorial would actually be helpful. I did get a handle on the minor rules and quirks after about an hour, but it was quite stressful at first, especially because you can't reload
- no music, and it feels cheap and unfinished because of that
- no story. Like, whatsoever. You just walk around randomly generated rooms, leveling up your characters and collecting loot. It feels meaningless after a while. Even in ADOM from 1994 you had some quests, big and small

Overall, it feels pretty much like a mobile game but with 8-bit production values. It kinda works and is fun for sure though I'd probably not play it for long. Maybe an hour or two at a time. Like you would play a mobile game.

[table][tr][th]I'm a Steam curator, you can follow me[/th][/tr][/table]

Great little isometric tactical dungeon crawler. Tons of spells and items, several classes with advanced classes. The pixel art is reminiscent of 16-bit tactical RPGs from Genesis and SNES. The only downside is there's basically no music, but I'll put on things like the Golden Axe or Shining Force soundtracks and it fits the theme quite well. Highly recommend this game.

Very fun tactical RPG. You can hire other characters and upgrade them to a higher tier class. This is pretty bare bones. No story, no music, just ambient noise and monsters to kill. I've yet to beat the game, but what they have here is a pretty fun light version of FF tactics. I saw the announcement that they devs are making another tactical rpg that looks much more fleshed out that this and will likely more interesting. However, getting this game on sale has been a fun excursion into the rpg dungeon. 6.9/10.

The game is cute and the format is inviting. The UI is bare-bones but functional. I found no bugs and it was not hard to understand basic world navigation and combat, inventory, etc. I wish it had a logical control scheme... the massive keyboard mapping for everything you can do, no controller support, etc, shows it was an all an afterthought. The battlefield is missing critical indicators like green/red boxes under friends/foes and, without going into excruciating detail, just a ton of other bits of missing polish. No QoL of any kind. In a way it's a bit miserable to operate. No Fullscreen support. No music. No story. I don't expect the world in a budget game... but there's markers of cut-corner design in many places.

Ultimately I found it very limited in terms of the problem-solving it asks of the player. I started on Normal, failed a few times while I figured things out, then started a proper run and I plowed through a few dungeons and beat some mini-boss fights.

I found myself quite bored after even 30 minutes but I pushed though. The game never really gave me that foothold to feel like it has the depth that makes it worth exploring. It is mechanically too simplistic, and therefore the overall experience is weighted too heavily to RNG, I feel.

If you want a simple game where it's not too stressful (because decision making is extremely limited) then you could try it at around 80% off. Like, I enjoy tough, mechanically rich games so maybe I'm a bit spoiled on them. This is certainly not a bad game it just didn't seem to grab me, or really be going anywhere. I just can't bring myself to put the thumb's up. I don't want to decide for anybody but I can't think of any of my peers that would like this, so I guess that's my bias.

Everything felt like... pick a few summons to be your party members. Clod your way through pointless dungeon get in fights every 2nd room or so. Barely any room to swing a cat in the battle arena, because I poop you not, they're like 6x6 or 6x5 and no joke 40% of the space is littered with indestructible blocking objects. So if you have more than a few party members... they can't move or hit anything. Everything will always be behind an object or something else making having a party a bit pointless. The moment you recruit your 3rd party member, you'll immediately observe that in all future battles, at least 1 of your characters is so cramped out it becomes nullified. I found a potion that summoned a 4th party member. I think in 20 fights he had opportunity to land maybe 12 strikes. So... you pick most obvious move/attack because it takes no thinking, because there's no room to swing a cat. Hope RNG favors you vs. them. Hope you find something useful in a chest, awesome chance it will be nothing. It all just fell flat for me.

Cool fast little indie tactics procedural generated dungeon crawling game, enjoyed it :)
100% Achievements was fast too, a few days, 20 hours or so for both runs, one on easy and one on normal.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2814616967

I'm giving this a thumbs up; but hesitantly.
Theres some fun parts -- but man the game can e obnoxious.
Most rouge games allow you to unlock new stuff for each new run, so there feels like progression. There is none of that, and the levels are pretty bland.
You will deff scream at the rng allowing your squad to miss over and over again.
If it's on sale give it a shot.

I had fun with the game - it's very simple but fairly addictive. There's a little bit of RNG in the game that can be frustrating at times, but it's mostly manageable with clever play, The tactics are very light, but satisfying enough to hold your attention for a few fun hours. There are a handful of classes with a few fun abilities and it's interesting to see how to mix and match your part with different gear, abilities, and classes. I got 8 hours of gameplay out of this and for the price I paid I feel that I received my money's worth.

This is exactly what I look for in a tactical RPG. For anyone who's already finished the game: do you hire a larger number of characters for action economy or do you keep a small team to ramp up the xp gain per head?

this game has horrible game desing, the biggest example of this is that undead can infintly revive because after they die a 4 turn cooldown start and then they come back with half healt. fun thing is eventually you encounter 'necromancers' who are able to summon these skeletons, infintly.

My last run got softlocked because i encountered a room with 3 necromancers and i wasn't able to kill all the skeletons fast enough before the arbitrary 4 turn timer runs out and the first skeletons revive again. as long as there is 1 skeleton alive you don't win the encounter. And since it's a rouge save (you only get 1 character and no more allies) i simply do not have the action economy to be able to do this.... even though i can wipe out 7 skeletons in a well placed fireball. the necromancers just keep filling the rom more and more....

Wonderful little game that reminds me of all my favourite isometric tactic RPG.
It is different from many of the other roguelike because it has a very old-school feeling both gameplay and graphic wise. The class system is great, the map wonderful and the strategic choices extremely satisfying.

I have read some of the comment and some people say it is too hard, but if you are used to the genre you will find the difficulty alright. I beat the game around 10 hours in and then lost interest since there is not much else to do.

Is this little old school game worth your money? absolutely yes!
But if you are looking for something that will keep you playing for 100 hours maybe you should find something else.

• UI 2/10
  
• Graphics 4/10
  
• Audio 2/10
  
• Gameplay 10/10
  
  
[*] Overall 8/10

I originally bought the game for android years ago and was delighted to see it available on Steam.

SFD is a turned base tactical rogue-like (with emphasis on the LIKE vs LITE) where you control 1 character and (depending on the difficulty you selected) mercenaries that accompany you into battle.

The reason for the emphasis on this being RogueLIKE is that, true to the progenitor of the genre, there is no meta-progression, if you die, you die and start over, there's no shop to sink points into permanent upgrades, things are procedurally generated and although the game sports some difficulty options, there is a true roguelike experience in the form of the Rogue-difficulty which is it's own game-mode where you are the only person on your team, can't hire mercenaries and have the ability to take skills to support your play style that's less about being put into a set character class, and more about picking what suits you best. I will admit, this is my favorite mode even though I suck at it.

The meat of the game is combat and as such, it's a little funky getting used to the controls, but nothing game breaking, and, tbh, it's more me being nit-picky than anything else. Most actions are performed by either pre-defined hot keys or clicking on something, and tbh, it's not that difficult, everything is intuitive unlike the original Rogue which has about 50 billion different buttons that aren't easy to rebind lest you have auto-hotkey or one of the many itch.io overhaul ports but, I digress.

As mentioned previously, the meat of the game is combat and though simple to grasp, there is a lot of depth to it. You can absolutely power through melee-ing everything that's in your line of sight if you want to, however, there's definitely some nuance that can only help improve your odds of surviving if you're so inclined to it as the tactical implications are massive. I.e. Positioning your character behing a choke-point spike trap and using a chain ability to grab an enemy that's in your LoS and drag it onto said spike trap, or noticing that an enemy is in front of a flamethrower trap and the pressure plate that enemy is easily traveled to during your turn so you walk over to it and roast the enemy.

I would love to give more examples, but I don't want to lose sight of why I'm reviewing this game. I'm reviewing it because it's a hidden gem and if you're a fan of tactical turn-based, no frills pixely sort of game that cuts the bs and goes straight to the gameplay, ESPECIALLY if you're in need of or want an actual roguelike, this game is well worth the asking price and will not disappoint. It's a shame that the game has sparse reviews on YouTube, and doesn't get mentioned that much, almost criminal as to how little this game gets mentioned directly.

TL;DR - If you're looking to scratch the Roguelike itch and are looking for a simple yet intricate game with cohesive game-mechanics, point blank, get this game. Give it a try, if you don't like it, I can guarantee you'll know if this game is up your alley well before the 2 hour refund window. 10/10, can't recommend the game enough.

Good game, but I think it could've been better.

What I find really cool is that different units have different job paths, allowing you to create diverse teams and therefore giving SFD huge replay value.

What I loved most about SFD is the importance of positioning
- Different attacks has different ranges
- Units can push enemies or allies to reposition into traps or safety. Pushing can also deal damage if it collides with a wall or another unit
- Using allies to body block
- Bonus backstab damage if you are attacking or attacked from behind. You can prevent your units from being backstabbed by having your back against the wall or using other units to body block
- Destructible debris that may provide more points of attack

Despite my love for this game, this game can be incredibly frustrating; blocking, dodging, and resisting attacks. This is more of a personal problem though :'(
A lot of the time, the game just bullshits me and enemies decide to avoid my attacks despite attacking them from the sides which results in an unfair game over. It would be nice to know the probability of successfully landing my attacks and how to increase that probability.

I have mixed feelings about this game.

The pros:
+ The evolution of units (or "change job" feature) is awesome. Definitely have a dopamine rush when I get to do it.
+ The pushing mechanic is awesome. Being able to use traps to your advantage by pushing enemies is a really neat idea. Not to mention to push enemies away from you or into another enemy.
+ The spells are diverse and powerful in their own way.
+ There is a lot of potential behind it. I saw it picked many good mechanisms from other games such as XCOM, Into the Breach, dungeon crawlers in general, etc.

The cons:
- I know that I may get the usual "get good" comment from this, but the difficulty is extreme even in easy mode because of how unforgivable this game is. Sometimes, it is inevitable: one party member will die (even in one shot sometimes). When it happens, there is no recovery from that. All of its equipment is lost. All the units for sell are so underpowered that they barely can kill any normal enemy and, therefore, gains significantly less xp. The difficulty only gets tougher. In fact, it is so unforgiving that starting a new game would be the most viable option in those circumstances, and that is infuriating when a single run can last about 12 hours by itself.
- I hate how slow the level-up system of this game is. I know that the more people in the party, the less exp/unit is gained, but when it is needed to clear every single room to possibly level-up a single time, it just feels like grinding is the only way to go about this.
- I absolutely HATE how so many things are not explained from the start and how little information there is online about these mechanics. I've spent so much time backtracking until I realized that the map was also used to teleport to rooms immediately. I was raging so hard at how much the enemies were dodging my attacks before I understood that there was a flanking and backstab mechanic to this game. There is no tutorial to explain this kind of mechanics clearly, just some pointers on where to find stuff on the UI.
- Some abilities have no effect on some enemies and there is no way to know about it besides testing it. The game performs the action and then says that it's not applicable, making you lose a precious action for your unit. For example, you cannot steal from a boss, nor steal gold from slimes.
- The stats screen is poorly explained. Sometimes, some stats (like dodge) has a number, but no matter how high it is, there is no way to know what dodge % it gives you.
- I feel like it was intended to have more jobs than that. Many spells requires the unit to have some stats levels like holy, unholy and elemental. However, these stats only change when a unit changes jobs and some spells just ends up only being able to be used by a specific type of unit (ex: only necromancers have unholy 3, which is required for the spell "mute"). I would love to have more job options for the units.
- Unlike XCOM, the game does not tell you the probabilities of hitting/critting/missing. You just have to guess and hope for the best. For a game with so many chance-oriented stats (accuracy stats on weapons and abilities, dodge, crit, move resist, magic resist and block stats), it would really prefer to know if I would have the slightest chance of hitting my opponent BEFORE spending my precious unit actions.
- The soundtrack is terrible. A single track of Minecraft cave sounds playing continuously.

In conclusion, I don't think it is a bad game, but I think it still needs some polishing to make it an enjoyable experience for me and, therefore, I cannot recommend this game to all dungeon crawler fans...

Okay, I think I've played this game enough to warrant a review finally.

The short of it is:

The long of it is:

Del_Duio! We the Steam populace demand to know more!

Final Thoughts

I finally beat the final level/final boss, and it only took me 45 hours. I still haven't even tried out the Archer, Elementalist, or Gunner classes.

Pros:
Nu-Xcom style (you get two actions, they get two actions. Repeat.) turned based tactics in a dungeon crawler. Hell yes.

Excellent turn based tactics with a heavy emphasis on manuvering your units, and repositioning your enemies—into traps, explosions, poison, each other, or the wall. Warning, they do it to you too. Make do with what you have available, and build an adventuring party with different abilities and strengths each time. Die a lot. Steal your enemies sword out of his own hand, and kill him with it. Spells are cool: Meteor blows up half the map. Grave hands holds a bunch of enemies in place and dissolves them.

SFD is deceptively simple looking, but combat contains a vast array of options to get your self in trouble with.

Cons:
Its hard to get all of the nuances and rules. There is no cohesive write up of the mechanics of the game and some of the terminology is a bit opaque. It took me a while to figure out what "Restrict" resistance meant on items(it means abilities that move creatures around) and pro-tip: cast healing spells on the undead.

I recommend this for anyone who likes punishing turn based tactics, with heavy randomization (Xcom 2, Battle Brothers, Darkest Dungeon, etc).

Fantastic roguelik! Great turnbased party control that offers unique complexity. I found attract and scatter ability combined with localized traps create opportunities to help turn the tables in difficult combat situations, Lots of variety in loot and tactical approach here. Very well developed retro graphics and the ui is attractive and unique. I feel like i'm understating my appreciation for the efforts put forth here in this game. I've played a lot of roguelikes and this is a VERY good one. Would love to see it grow and develop further.

***Please don't take the following short con list as a negative overall commentary on this game.

The only CONS i've discovered are technical issues. Right off the bat the "fullscreen" option kills the client.(perhaps a hardware/software issue on my end?) I have only been able to expand the window to fill the desktop. This non-full screen issue may also be contributing to the over sized UI elements blocking my view of the play field. My main player has 3 rows of skill bars at level 7 and they are impeding my ability to see or select the party when they enter from the south or west in to a room. The other problem i've discovered involves a corrupted save on level 6 that has made all the vendors crash my client. Would be great if there was a save archieve so one might be able to go back to a potientially good save.