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These Vampire Survivor-like horde survival games are still all the rage, and I keep discovering more. Rogue: Genesia is another, with Native Linux support and it is rated Steam Deck Playable.

While the basics of the game are Survivor-like with you facing off against various waves of enemies, auto-firing weapons, picking up gems to eventually level up and pick from randomised powers / equipment it does have some major differences too. The main mode is set up more like Slay the Spire, where you pick locations to explore through a map which could be a normal fight spawning lots of enemies, a boss fight, a chest and so on. However there is also a plain endless survival mode too.

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In terms of artwork it looks a lot more like the Octopath Traveler series from Square Enix. I genuinely love the style to this one, it's so different to all the rest.

As you go through it, you also unlock more locations and there's lots of different builds you can make. It's in Early Access so it's not finished and seems like it won't be finished for quite some time. Even so, it's a lot of fun to play through even now and worked pretty great on both Desktop Linux and Steam Deck (with settings turned down to Low).

I also still don't know what to call these types of games. Has the industry settled in a term for it yet? Horde survival? Vamp-like? Survivor-like? There sure is a lot of them.

You can find Rogue: Genesia on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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4 comments

slaapliedje Mar 24, 2023
Ha, someone needs to hunt down what game it is that Vampire Survivor is like. Space Dungeon and Robotron 2084 were basically the beginnings of games like Binding of Isaac. Vampire Survivors added some stuff to the general gameplay and made it more open, but it doesn't feel like it was original in any way, and there were some much older games with pretty much identical gameplay, I just can't place them when I think about it, I can picture it in my head, but damned if I can remember the names. It's also similar to Necromancer on the 8bit computers.
Purple Library Guy Mar 24, 2023
Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, someone needs to hunt down what game it is that Vampire Survivor is like. Space Dungeon and Robotron 2084 were basically the beginnings of games like Binding of Isaac. Vampire Survivors added some stuff to the general gameplay and made it more open, but it doesn't feel like it was original in any way, and there were some much older games with pretty much identical gameplay, I just can't place them when I think about it, I can picture it in my head, but damned if I can remember the names. It's also similar to Necromancer on the 8bit computers.
In a way it reminds me of this ancient, ancient game I used to play a bit on the TRS-80. You were surrounded by all these robots closing in on you and had to move your character to stay away from them. It had this big open space surrounded by a mob and evading feel. The big, big difference was, you didn't get to fight back. But that is a pretty sizable difference.
Drakker Mar 24, 2023
This horde genre has been popular for a long time, in my group we usually call horde games Phobia like games, after the Phobia series. Most of the people here that know the series probably played Phobia 3 (https://www.mobygames.com/game/61176/phobia-iii-edge-of-humanity/) which was Linux native, but the first game of the series, Alien Phobia, was released in 1997 for Dos. https://www.mobygames.com/game/4138/alien-phobia/
s01itude Mar 28, 2023
I like to call them "Enemy Hell". The word "horde" is too often thrown around in the video game industry for my likings.
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