“The thing that I’m really looking forward to seeing is when people start to ‘break’ the game,” Hopper shares. “They feel like they’ve made a build that’s so OP that it shouldn’t be allowed. We probably know that it can happen and we haven’t tried to stop it because it’s fun and rewarding. You become like a real force of destruction throughout the level. That’s a really exciting thing to see.”
More than just providing an underlying narrative premise, the gold-grabbing element to Rogue Fortune is also a major part of its gameplay and the strategy on how to proceed. Players constantly are picking up gold as they progress through dungeons but every major action and setback also costs them gold, taking away from the loot they’ve accumulated so far on a given playthrough. Upon completing a level, players can leave the dungeon with the treasure that they’ve gathered or run the risk of delving deeper to gain even more loot or even spend some of their gold to upgrade their character. This adds another strategic element to the game informing how players proceed.
“The game becomes different because you’re not blitzing about dodging everything,” observes Hopper. “You’ve got to think about how you approach it differently. There is that strategic element that I think is really interesting. Just because you can complete the game on the default character class does not necessarily mean that you’re going to breeze through.”
While so many dungeon-crawlers feel perpetually shrouded in darkness, Rogue Fortune provides players with much more vibrant environments to explore. The classic medieval fantasy tropes are still there, but there is a brighter art design with colorful magic and warmer levels than many fans of the genre may be accustomed to. For Glowmade, this fit right in with the studio’s sensibilities as they were designing and building the game.
“If you saw King of Meat, you know that it was different but also recognizably similar in terms of the art style. Adam Sibbick is our art director and he’s able to put these wonderful things in his head onto paper,” Hopper adds. “To use the skills of the people that we’ve got, we let them build that house style and marry that with the tone of the game. Just because it’s a dungeon, why does it have to be dark? It’s magical, arcane, and mysterious, so how does that manifest itself? With orbs of light, lava, and loads of weird stuff that we haven’t shown yet. All of that stuff is just cool and a slightly different take on it.”
Set for a multiplatform release in 2027, Rogue Fortune is ready to bring a unique twist on the dungeon-crawler genre, one that favors strategy on multiple fronts and promises that no two playthroughs will be alike. Bringing fresh and vibrant fun, the upcoming indie game retains what makes the genre so appealing while subtly redefining what its gameplay can be.
