I love discovering new games, especially when they look as fascinating as the roguelike Rangedrifter. What caught my eye here is the graphical style. It looks like a classic ASCII game, but mixes in some fun effects to make it really come to life and it just looks awesome.
Released into Early Access back in May, it has gone quite under the radar with only 23 user reviews on Steam. This is one that clearly needs more attention.
Check out the trailer below - you have to see it in action:
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Direct Link
Direct Link
Key Features
- Turn-Based Heart Beat: This is a tense, turn-based experience where one rash step can invite disaster. Survey each situation, and carefully think about your next step. When you die, the game is over.
- A New Adventure: Each run starts at one of over 1500 locations in the world from where you have to make your way along a winding, unpredictable path that leads you through forests, ruins, and dungeons.
- The Forbidden Land: Explore dark forests, sunken temples, sandy plains and spider-infested crypts in a world created entirely by hand using the engine's built-in editor.
- Ebbs and Flows: Resources are vital to your survival. Venture into zombie-filled villages, flooded sewers and haunting temple-ruins for precious gear, supplies and food to survive.
- Fight To Survive: Wild animals and evil monsters would like you as their next meal. To overcome the dangers of this world in turn-based combat, you have to weigh all options and tools at your disposal.
- The Right Tool: Easily learn the game's symbols with the Nearby list on screen or explore the game's items, monsters, objects and associated symbols in the built-in Codex.
- A Moody Place: Get transported into the game's world by its soundscapes and unique graphics, brought to life by the game's custom 3D engine.
The developer has a small roadmap of stuff coming including:
- Sep 2026: Mountain Region.
- Dec 2026: Fourth Region.
- Feb 2027: Ending Region.
- 2027: Continued expansion of the game.
About the author - Liam Squires-Hand
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked 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.
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3 comments
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup players will love this no doubt. It's so stylish!
But I can't do with the ascii stuff these days. It's too mentally tiring to remember what's what. Is that dangerous? Is it melee? Is it magic-based? Having to identify or cross-reference every letter you come across to know what something is... it's an immersion-killer for me now.
But I can't do with the ascii stuff these days. It's too mentally tiring to remember what's what. Is that dangerous? Is it melee? Is it magic-based? Having to identify or cross-reference every letter you come across to know what something is... it's an immersion-killer for me now.
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I love the layered approach to implement spacial depth, looks awesome! I've never really played something with ASCII-based "assets", and I wonder how long it would take for the different characters to feel natural so that you don't see a "T" anymore but a "Troll", much like when learning a new language you eventually stop translating in your head. Though I figure it'll take a while.
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noobdoomguy8658 5 Sep 2026
I actually am having a bit of a difficulty calling this ASCII. They certainly are ASCII characters, but it's far from how a traditional roguelike is rendered: it's not really text, bound by your (terminal) window, but a proper engine with depth and such, as opposed to text rows and columns where cells are all of specific width and height.
Other than that, yeah, it's looking fantastic!
Other than that, yeah, it's looking fantastic!
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