RoguedexPart 4 (Dec 2025) · #9 of 9 in that tierWatch the moment (0:30:51)
Dome Keeper
- Developed by
- Bippinbits
- Published by
- Raw Fury
$17.99
Defend against waves of alien monsters in this unique roguelike action miner. Dig for resources, collect useful gadgets, and upgrade equipment to increase odds of survival – just hurry back before your dome is destroyed!
Consensus
A77.9/100
Steam players92.3% positiveVery Positive22,506 reviews
Metacritic ↗76/100Users: 7.5/10
OpenCritic ↗78/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈675K copies · ≈$7.6M gross
What creators say
Ranked Jun 2023 · #3 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (0:47:25)
Ranked Apr 2023 · #6 of 42 in that tierWatch the moment (2:03:54)
What players say
A 2D roguelite from Bippinbits (published by Raw Fury) where you dig underground for iron, water and cobalt between monster waves, then rush back to a dome to upgrade it and personally shoot down attackers.
Players like it a lot: about 92% positive on Steam across roughly 22.5k reviews (Very Positive), with a long tail of players logging hundreds of hours. Critics were warmer than lukewarm but more reserved, landing at Metacritic 76 and OpenCritic 78, with a 71% critic-recommend rate and Eurogamer as the one outright no-recommend. The shared verdict is a tight, addictive short-session loop with great atmosphere that is repetitive and thin on content, particularly solo after roughly 10 hours. It is a finished 1.0 game that has kept receiving free updates: a Godot 4 migration with many new gadgets, later co-op multiplayer (local and online), a paid character/content DLC line (Engineer Gear Pack, The Lost Keepers), and an Xbox Series X/S release in December 2025.
Players love
- Risk/reward tension of mining: every second underground is a second away from defending the dome, and players say that pull never goes away
- Simple, readable, low-friction design that works for a quiet 30-minute run and is praised as a Steam Deck fit (clean UI, stable 60 FPS)
- Atmosphere: pixel art, monster design and a sparse, crystalline sound design and soundtrack that reviewers and players both single out
- Replayability from modes, relics, gadgets, multiple domes and keepers, map sizes and modifiers, plus meta-progression and challenges
- Multiplayer/co-op added later is frequently described as a big upgrade and a great family or friends game
- Approachable difficulty that scales, so newcomers and veterans can both find a setting; runs are short
- Runs well on modest hardware and Steam Deck, with native Linux support
- Ongoing developer support with free content updates
Common complaints
- Repetition: runs play out near-identically (dig, return, upgrade, fight), and the same optimal upgrade paths get picked each time (Shacknews, many Steam reviews)
- Limited content at launch price: few unlocks, only two base keepers with more behind paid DLC, and some players report everything unlocked in 10 to 40 hours
- Mining/defense split can feel like each half interrupts the other; Eurogamer said it struggles to make either a success in its own right
- Late-game automation (drones, automated turrets) can make runs trivial, reducing the need to defend manually even on hard difficulties
- Sparse tutorial; many mechanics and early challenges are opaque and players turn to the wiki
- Technical complaints in Steam reviews: crashes on some setups, language-change bugs, a Steam Deck launch failure report, and frame-rate drops in Endless Prestige past about wave 35
- Reports of RNG cave generation producing dense blocks with few resources, which can soft-lock a run or challenge
- Some consider full price ($17.99) high for the content depth
Can feel tedious
- The early game of each run: slow hauling of resources, no meaningful upgrades yet, and a travel-heavy return trip for each wave, described as a chore
- Having to go back to the dome constantly because waves come quickly, which some call more chores than stress
- Progression gating: inter-run progress tied to guild challenges, some of them considered nearly impossible early and frustrating when a loss yields nothing
- Searching blindly for the relic or specific ore; challenge runs like mazes or iron quotas can drag
- Multiplayer tends to split into one tower babysitter and everyone else mining, with chores visible and little variation
What's unique
- Reverses the tower defense formula: no building dozens of towers, you personally operate the dome's laser between digging trips
- Comparisons to Motherload-style mining combined with wave survival and a roguelite meta layer
- Three-resource economy (iron, water, cobalt) with transport by carrying, so logistics and depth decisions drive every run
- Win conditions beyond survival, including relic hunts, scenario modes, guild challenges and endless modes
- Multiple keepers, domes and worlds that each add a twist, plus up to 4 local or 8 online co-op players and cross-platform multiplayer
Players want
- Bigger late game: larger maps, more resource types, more weapons, base mods and artifacts (repeated by critics and testers)
- A way to shorten or vary the opening, such as modifiers or unlocks that start you with basic upgrades or random early tech, since the opening is identical every run
- More run variety and surprises from mining (more randomness, more enemy types) and some balance work on essential-upgrade builds
- Better multiplayer progression: a shared token or upgrade pool and cheaper second gun so one player does not hog resources or babysit the tower
- Free reroll on gadget choices and more forgiving resource generation to cut unlucky runs
- Performance optimization for long Endless/late-wave runs and better onboarding for new players
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
SingleplayerPost-apocalypticRogue-likeActionSci-fiCombatResource ManagementTower DefensePixel GraphicsAtmospheric
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Tier list Part 4 (2025)
Dome Keeper is a niche digging roguelike where each run you land on a planet, mine ore to buy upgrades, and periodically return to defend your dome from monster waves. He calls it a hidden gem that few people talk about and loves its chill-yet-stressful vibe and the way new gadgets and domes keep runs feeling different. The main drawbacks are slow, repetitive early game and runs that drag on when you cannot find the relic. He lands it at a high B for now, hedging toward low A, and says he may revisit it.
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