Swipey Rogue Review

Developer: First-Order Games
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 01.00.07
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

Graphics / Sound Rating:
Gameplay Rating:
Playtime Rating:
Replay Value Rating:

Overall Rating:

Swipey Rogue is a game that imagines what it would be like to turn a rougelike into an endless runner/puzzler. Yes, I know, that sounds a lot like a combination all of the most played out genres in mobile games today, but the weird thing is that Swipey Rogue turns out to feel pretty fresh - though it does have a few rough edges.

When playing Swipey Rogue, players are in control of a dual axe-wielding dwarf that cannot stop running. It's up to them to swipe the screen to control the direction in which the character is moving so as to avoid obstacles, kill enemies, and pick up loot and gold.

There are two primary game modes in Swipey Rogue. The first is a puzzle-type affair that has players trying to run through levels to complete specific objectives for gems, while the second is an endless dungeon crawler where they try to survive for as long as possible. Of these two modes the endless one seems to have more legs, though players have to tough it out through puzzle levels to unlock new environments for it.

Aesthetically, Swipey Rogue is unfortunately pretty hard to look at - to the point that it's sometimes hard to tell what's going on. Most of this has to do with color choices and weird interface decisions that make it hard to determine collision spacing. This is a pretty significant problem for a game featuring a character that's constantly running around dungeons with lava pits, fire cannons, and other one-hit kill hazards.

Because Swipey Rogue is free-to-play, it's easy enough for players to decide if the aesthetics thrown them off as much as they did me. If not, they can also pay $0.99 to get rid of ads and have a good old time careening through dungeons. Otherwise they might want to try to get their endless itch scratched elsewhere.