Part 1 (Sep 2023) · #34 of 35 in that tierWatch the moment (2:45:20)
Tangledeep
- Developed by
- Impact Gameworks
- Published by
- Impact Gameworks, Doyoyo Games
$14.99
Enter the magical world of Tangledeep, a beautifully polished dungeon crawler inspired by classic 16-bit RPGs! Colorful characters, a unique job system, tons of skills, items, and diverse environments with deep, turn-based roguelike gameplay. A different adventure every time you play!
Consensus
C69/100
Steam players82% positiveVery Positive1,486 reviews
Metacritic ↗79/100Users: 7.4/10
OpenCritic78/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈109K copies · ≈$1.2M gross
What creators say
What players say
A 16-bit-styled, turn-based traditional roguelike/dungeon crawler by Impact Gameworks with a job system, pet taming and a town hub, with an optional no-permadeath Adventure Mode.
Tangledeep is well regarded: Steam shows Very Positive (about 82% of ~1,490 reviews positive), Metacritic critics average 79 from 7 Switch reviews, and GOG lists about 78 on OpenCritic with 100% critic recommend. Players and critics praise the pixel art, Andrew Aversa soundtrack, mix-and-match job system and flexible difficulty, and often call it a hidden gem and a friendly entry to traditional roguelikes. Detractors find it shallow, easy or a grind for veterans, and find the controls, tutorial and run length rough. Metacritic user score is a middling 7.4 on only 25 ratings. It is a full release (Feb 2018) with paid expansions (Legend of Shara, Dawn of Dragons) and Steam reviews are still arriving in 2026, so it still has an audience; I did not find evidence of it being abandoned, but did not verify current patch cadence.
Players love
- Polished SNES-era pixel art and an acclaimed soundtrack (composer Andrew Aversa with guest composers) that reviewers repeatedly call captivating
- Job/class system with about 12 base jobs where you can mix and match abilities and passives via multiclassing, giving lots of build freedom
- Very customizable difficulty: four difficulty tiers including a no-permadeath Adventure Mode plus 10+ optional modifiers; praised by GameCritics as something more games should copy
- Approachable for roguelike newcomers while still offering depth; several players call it a cozy, chill traditional roguelike
- Large amount of content: side areas, quests, item dreams (mini-dungeons to upgrade gear), a town hub, farming, pet taming and breeding; one player logged 192 hours without seeing everything
- Good controller support plus fully rebindable keyboard controls; players say it plays well on gamepad and the Switch version gets long playtime
Common complaints
- Top-voted negative review (12 votes): beautiful art and good music but 'a whole lot of unmemorable stuff in between'; never reaches its potential
- Combat and build depth felt shallow to veterans: few enemy types, skills maxed out early so tactics stop changing, equipment rarely changes how you play
- Generally too easy for experienced roguelike players, who say a no-death clear in one attempt is plausible (while Nintendo Life cautioned difficulty spikes for newcomers)
- Clunky interface and controls per several players: unhelpful default keymapping, menus described as convoluted, and movement described as clunky
- Tutorial is thin and mostly leaves players to figure mechanics out
- Late-game gear selection becomes a slog, with strategies dictated by RNG loot and lots of unusable drops for your class
- Some feel it does nothing better than its genre predecessors and lacks the creativity and humor of games like Dungeons of Dredmor
- Music cannot be turned off until after character creation, cited as a UX annoyance
- No character customization beyond class choice (4 votes)
Can feel tedious
- Full runs are very long (one player reported 6-7 hours at best, up to 9-14 hours), so a late death feels painful
- Catching pets is called a drag (GameCritics) and pets feel almost necessary for some players
- Grinding for gear upgrades and sifting through lots of junk loot late in the game
- Some players say winning favors patient defensive play rather than tactical skill, making long runs feel repetitive
- Turn-based movement and menu navigation felt slow or unintuitive to some new players
What's unique
- Capture-and-breed pet system: catch monsters, keep one fighting beside you and breed them in a Monster Corral
- Job system with free class switching (for a fee or free) and cross-class ability mixing, reminiscent of JRPGs
- Item Dreams: random mini-dungeons you enter inside an item to strengthen it, a Disgaea-like idea
- SNES/JRPG-flavored presentation with town hub, farming, banking and shared progression between characters, blending roguelike with Mystery Dungeon and classic RPG feel
- Adventure Mode without permadeath alongside a hardcore mode, plus a heavy modifier menu and challenge leaderboards
Players want
- A better, more informative tutorial and clearer default control/keymap labelling (controller Start/Select confusion, WASD vs arrow keys mismatch reported)
- More enemy variety and skills/equipment that change tactics rather than giving flat passive boosts
- Cleaner menus and inventory UI; Steam reviewers called the interface clunky despite an unlimited text inventory
- Fewer rough edges for ranged/melee play such as automatic weapon switching back to melee (one reviewer complaint)
- Mitigations for run length and RNG punishment, since full runs are reported at 6-14 hours and a late death is demoralizing
- More build-defining synergies so the multiclass system feels necessary rather than optional
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Traditional RoguelikeTurn-Based TacticsMystery DungeonDungeon CrawlerDifficultTurn-BasedRogue-likeFemale ProtagonistRPGTurn-Based Strategy
Similar games
More runs with shared subgenres and Steam tags.
65 consensus76% Steam
TraditionalTurn-based
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Tangledeep is a turn-based, top-down strategy roguelike with a huge amount of systems and information. PepperHead played about 20 hours and enjoyed it early on, but found that returning to it felt impossible because of how overwhelming it is. He would only recommend it to a narrow audience who like heavy systems. He places it in low B tier.
Liked
Disliked