RoguedexPart 3 (Apr 2025) · #17 of 17 in that tierWatch the moment (0:42:52)
Crown Trick
- Developed by
- NEXT Studios
- Published by
- Team17, NEXT Studios
$4.99
Enter a labyrinth that moves as you move, where mastering the elements is key to defeating enemies and uncovering the mysteries of this underground world. With a new experience awaiting every time you enter the dungeon, let the power bestowed by the crown guide you in this challenging adventure!
Consensus
C70/100
Steam players85.3% positiveVery Positive5,395 reviews
Metacritic ↗83/100Users: 6.7/10
OpenCritic ↗81/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈162K copies · ≈$2.2M gross
What creators say
Ranked Jun 2023 · #7 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (0:47:25)
Ranked Apr 2023 · #1 of 11 in that tierWatch the moment (2:03:54)
What players say
A turn-based, Mystery Dungeon-style roguelite by NEXT Studios (published by Team17) in which the dungeon only moves when you do, with elemental magic, a limited teleport (Blink) and monster Familiars as the core toolkit.
Crown Trick is received as a good-to-very-good tactical roguelite: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 85% of roughly 5,400 reviews), Metacritic PC is 83 and OpenCritic is 81 from 37 critic reviews. Critics and players praise the pace-flexible turn-based combat, cute pixel art and build variety, while the most common complaints are opaque UI and tooltips, uneven item and boss balance, punishing curses and repetitive dungeon layouts. The user Metacritic score is lower at 6.7 (only 35 ratings), and a few critics found it derivative. Several recent Steam reviewers say the developer has stopped updating the game, leaving long-standing readability and translation issues unfixed. It launched on Switch, PS4 and Xbox in 2020-2021 and reached Steam later; the Steam price is now about $4.99.
Players love
- Turn-based combat where time only advances when you act lets you rush through trash rooms and slow down for bosses
- Blink (teleport) and the Break/stun mechanic reward positioning and planning over reflexes
- Elemental magic and debuff combos, plus a large pool of weapons, relics and spells, give lots of build variety
- Mid-boss Familiars grant inheritable abilities, swappable between runs, which gives a satisfying sense of progression
- Charming, colourful pixel art and funny enemies; the chessboard-style tile layout keeps the grid readable
- Approachable for newcomers to roguelikes, with a gentle entry and plenty of unlockables (blueprints, soul shard upgrades)
- Magic resources reset each room, which encourages actually using tools instead of hoarding them
Common complaints
- Poor information design: many keywords lack tooltips, there is no icon glossary, and elemental debuffs are explained only in wiki footnotes
- Hard to tell which enemy is starting an AOE attack, since only the danger area on the floor is shown
- Item balance is swingy: a few items carry a run while others ruin it, and level-up choices are sometimes all weak
- Boss fights can demand specific builds, run long, and sometimes end a run with an instant-cast skill
- Curses are effectively unavoidable and the downsides often outweigh the upside; one curse can destroy gems needed for permanent upgrades
- Translation and skill wording are confusing (for example what 'shield absorption' means), and some relics read as nonsense
- Enemy variety is limited, with stronger versions of the same foes, and dungeon layouts feel samey
- Busy turns with many simultaneous triggered events make it hard to follow why you won or lost
- Hard to read what is happening on your tile depending on camera angle, per a helpful negative review
Can feel tedious
- Intrusive tutorial prompts and the talking crown NPC interrupting play to explain things
- Slow start and some grinding for soul shard/meta unlocks; 100% achievements need the free DLC and hard-mode boss clears
- Controller inputs can be dropped while animations finish, causing accidental wrong-direction attacks that throw runs
- Slot machines, cursed chests and curse deals widely seen as poor risk/reward, making chunks of each floor feel skippable
- Long boss fights and repetitive room structure once you have seen what the game offers
- Weak, generic story and dialogue per several critics
What's unique
- Mystery Dungeon/classic-roguelike style synchronized turns where every action, even attacking, is its own step
- Blink teleport that does not cost a turn and recharges on room entry or after breaking enemies
- Labyrinth that shifts as you move and a chessboard grid, described as a more accessible modern take on Brogue or Tangledeep-like design
- Elemental system with debuffs and cross-element synergy as the main build axis
- Mid-boss Familiars whose abilities you absorb and carry into later runs
- Pace control: a turn-based game you can play fast or slow depending on the room
Players want
- Add tooltips for keywords, a proper icon glossary and real numeric values for items and skills
- Show which enemy is causing each AOE telegraph
- Let players decline or skip the intrusive tutorial pop-ups that cover half the screen
- Rebalance items, curses and boss design so more build types are viable, and tame overpowered combos like the ice familiar stun
- Make hub/meta upgrades and gold use more impactful and clearer about what gold is for
- Fix Steam Deck/Windows launch problems, improve the translation, and vary audio and music more
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Rogue-likeTurn-Based CombatRPGDungeon CrawlerPerma DeathRogue-liteStrategyAdventureTurn-BasedFemale Protagonist
Similar games
More runs with shared subgenres and Steam tags.
Tier list Part 3 (2025)
Crown Trick is a turn-based, board-style roguelike where a sleeping princess explores a dream fantasy world, beats a realm boss, and returns for light meta progression. He loves its sense of grand adventure, with varied biomes, bosses and monsters that are hard to achieve in an indie game. The gameplay undercuts it: the free blink is so strong that most fights collapse into the same dodge-and-hit loop. Inconsistent enemy attack telegraphing led to deaths that felt unfair during long runs, and he never finished it. He places it at low B, saying it could have been a high A with some tweaks.
Liked
Disliked