Whimsy, grimdark, and gambling? And a roguelike to boot?! In my 2025 indie game? Eh, go on then. It looks neat. The trailer below features a desolate, hellish area called “The Pläins öf Päin” (umlauts mine) inhabited by lone egg idiot named ‘eggo’. A curse on the egg idiot and his cracked shell, and a curse on the world for allowing this kind of tomfoolery to proliferate unchallenged.
Slots & Daggers is by Friedemann, whose previous game was the Katharine-approved tiny townbuilder. Summerhouse. “After my last game, I wanted to make something radically different,” says Friedemann. “Something faster, with numbers, fights and goblins!”. Angry caffeinated math goblins, you say? Here are some other features from Steam.
- Fun slot machine
- Weird fantasy world
- Crude drawings of strange little guys
- Retro visuals
- Crunchy hip hop drum machines
- Addictive arcade gameplay that goes “pling” a lot
- Numbers! Fights! Goblins!
“To make this game I combined a lot of things I deeply love – weird fantasy worlds, crude drawings of strange little guys, old school crunchy hiphop drum machines and addictive arcade games that go “PLING PLING PLING” as they spit out little coins – with classic roguelike mechanics,” says Friedemann. They also warn that this is a solo project, and as such “doesn’t offer 80+ hours of content like games developed by bigger teams.”
As delighted by both the crunchy drum machines and chucklesome weirdos as I am, I do despair a bit that anyone feels the need to avert potential gamer rage by clarifying that their project doesn’t last as long as a CRPG. This isn’t a slight on the developer, of course. Going by a sample of one (me), literally everyone who has ever played a videogame before is a massive idiot, and you can’t be too careful. Can’t wait for the enraged Steam review at exactly 79 hours of playtime.
