Part 5 (Jul 2026) · #8 of 10 in that tierWatch the moment (2:36:33)
Slots & Daggers
- Developed by
- Friedemann
- Published by
- Future Friends Games
$7.99
A retro mini-roguelike inside a slot machine. Steady your blade - and spin!
Consensus
B73.7/100
Steam players94% positiveVery Positive7,627 reviews
Metacritic ↗73/100Users: 7.3/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈255K copies · ≈$1.3M gross
What creators say
What players say
A solo-dev retro mini-roguelite in which every attack is resolved by spinning a slot machine whose reels you fill with weapons, items and symbols, set in a grimy dark-fantasy dungeon.
Players and critics agree on the same two things: the presentation and core slot-combat loop are excellent and very juicy, but the game is short (roughly 3-10 hours, many report finishing or 100%-ing it in 1-3 hours) and its builds collapse onto a few dominant strategies. Steam sits at Very Positive (about 94% of roughly 7,600 reviews), helped by the low price (around $5-8), while the negative reviews are almost entirely 'good but too little content' rather than complaints about quality. Critics are more split (Metacritic 73 from 6 reviews, scores from 50 to 90), with the lower scores citing replayability and balance. The game launched Oct 24, 2025 as a complete release (not early access) after a popular Next Fest demo; the dev pushed several balance patches in the first weeks, a Steam announcement marks 100K copies sold, and some players feel post-launch content never materialised.
Players love
- Extremely juicy, tactile feedback: lights, coin sounds, big-number payoffs and satisfying reel spins are repeatedly called a masterclass in game feel
- Strong visual identity: crude, grimy hand-drawn pixel art, 1990s arcade/dark-fantasy aesthetic; reviewers also praise the sound and music
- Visible RNG you can bend: choosing what goes on the reels (and not overloading them) gives a satisfying mix of chance and strategy
- Short, tight runs (10-30 minutes) that suit quick sessions and an 'one more run' pull
- Great value at a few dollars, with a generous demo whose progress carried over
- Responsive solo developer who patched exploits quickly in the first weeks
- Arena mode gives an endless high-score chase with exclusive enemies
- Polished and stable: reviewers repeatedly call it polished, with cloud saves supported (Steam) and few reported bugs beyond a meta-progression unlock exploit
Common complaints
- Very short: many reviewers beat the campaign and got 100% achievements in 1-3 hours, some in under 80 minutes
- Low replayability: meta becomes obvious after one or two runs and there is no ascension or difficulty ladder
- Limited item and build variety; a handful of dominant options (extra-spin items, bombs, multiplier plus saw combos) make other builds pointless
- Balance is lopsided: busted combos can make the game play itself, while some enemies can soft-lock or hard-counter weaker builds
- Game blocks further build upgrades after a certain point, which reviewers found unfun
- Shallow compared with Balatro, which many reviewers use as the benchmark and find it lacking against
- Some players report performance problems (sub-60 fps on strong PCs) and a few minor bugs such as cursor glitches and ban-slot bugs
- Story is thin and adds little reason to replay
Can feel tedious
- Having to spin each of the five slots individually each turn, with no spin-all or speed-up
- Repeating runs to accumulate stat upgrades rather than making interesting decisions, described as a weak progress loop
- Heavy RNG and little ability to change strategy mid-combat, which some felt removed the sense of skill
- Once the busted build is found, fights become about speeding through rather than deciding
- Some found the game boring after a short time or said the enemies felt like faceless targets
- Balance patches arriving in rapid succession (reviewers cite about five nerf/counter updates in one week) that punished players who had found a fun build, alongside a reported bug that unlocked the whole meta progression after one run
What's unique
- Combat is literally a slot machine: you populate reels with weapons and items, and spins determine your attacks
- Magic attacks bypass shields and reel dilution is a real tradeoff, so adding more faces lowers odds of hitting the ones you want
- Pseudo-gambling theme with skill-flavoured mechanics (beats, clicking, wheels) rather than pure luck
- Power-ups in combat cost in-run currency, putting a risk-reward spend decision into fights
- Retro, deliberately crude art style with a cigarette-smoking slot-machine mascot, leaning into a seedy arcade mood
Players want
- Add more items, weapons, symbols and enemies, with the most common ask being DLC or an expansion in the same direction
- Add ascension levels, harder modes or challenge runs to give veterans a reason to return
- Quality-of-life: a speed-up option and a way to spin all slots at once instead of five separate spins per turn
- Rebalance dominant builds upward or add counters (for example thorns-style enemies) instead of only nerfing, and buff weak elements such as poison
- Give Arena mode more depth and a real ending or reward instead of just dropping players back to the start
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
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Tier list Part 5 (2026)
Slots & Daggers is a slot-machine roguelike where you add icons to a reel, spin, and resolve the results as turn-based attack, block and gold gains against monsters. He loves the vibe, the 2D-in-3D fourth-wall presentation, and especially the audio-visual feedback. He finds the core gameplay very simple, RNG-driven, repetitive and badly balanced, with mechanics like rerolls and tile moves feeling like afterthoughts. He ends by placing it in a 'simple, clear, down the middle' spot, but never names a tier letter.
Liked
Disliked