Last week we got a behind the scenes look at an early gameplay demo of the Glowmade’s newest title, Rogue Fortune. By the time you’re reading this, Glowmade will have already announced Rogue Fortune at Gamescom, but I’m here to tell you my impressions about what I saw. I won’t be getting too much into the smaller details of the art and visuals because this was still a very early build and there were quite a lot of assets not ready yet. However, we got a general taste of the gameplay systems and what they’re bringing new to the table.

If you don’t already know, Rogue Fortune is a top-down roguelite game where you cast yourself into the Well of Eternal Riches in hopes to make yourself, well, rich. You’ll battle through hordes of monsters, collect Relics, and gamble you items and riches to see if you can get further. On paper, this doesn’t seem like the most ground-breaking idea ever. We have seen plenty of roguelites with this similar concept. However, it’s how they are handling combat and builds that catches my eye.

Welcome to the Well of Eternal Riches.

Jonny Hopper, Studio Head and Co-Founder

The announcement was presented by Jonny Hopper, Glowmade’s studio head and co-founder. Over the last 25 years Jonny has worked at AAA studios including Media Molecule and Lionhead before founding Glowmade in 2015. Originally a programmer, he has written gameplay, tooling, engine and backend code, and has shipped games across various platforms like PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. He was very passionate about the presentation for Rogue Fortune and you can tell that passion bleeds into the game.

He explained his goals for the game is to show how greed can consume you or help shape your destiny. Every action in Rogue Fortune costs gold, and that can mean each attack, each dodge, or even taking a hits will cause you to lose gold. Will you try and penny pinch to save your precious gold or spend it to improve your chances of surviving and making it out? Or how about gambling it all in pursuit of even greater power? These are decisions Glowmade wants to really push for this roguelite, making choices matter a bit more. Different Personas, or classes, will have ways they deal with gold so you will have some choice in the matter.

Oliver Wauters, Lead Designer

After the introduction with Jonny, we get introduced to Oliver Wauters who is the lead designer for Rogue Fortune. Oliver got his start at Gameloft and Viker, but he is most known for his work at Mediatonic as LiveOps designer for Fall Guys. With the lead designer in charge now, we get to dive deeper into the gameplay. Each run you do starts off with shaping your backpack, this is very important step because of their “geometric puzzle power system”. See, everything you pick up be it a weapon or relic will be in a geometric shape. You will need to Tetris the pieces together, not only for maximum efficiency, but also for stat buffs.

This is where creating a perfect starting backpack is huge. While you will start off with your basic bag without much room or customization, as you progress and unlock better things, you will be able to expand your back and even put stat boost tiles in the backpack. These are specific sections of the backpack that will boost relic abilities even higher. You can even have locked pieces that will boost the relic even more, but you won’t be able to move or swap out those pieces for the rest of the run. Relic position and synergy are huge aspects of the gameplay. Matching together relics with similar abilities or that will just boost other relics that are adjacent to it is key. Rogue Fortune’s item gameplay turns into an intense survival management sim in some ways. What do you move? what do you get rid of?

Enemies can swarm pretty well, and with each hit taking your gold, it can get intense.

It’s hard to fully comment on the level designs themselves and those smaller details that we want to flesh out a roguelite game due to a lot of it not being finished. However, the general level layout will be by room cells where you will enter and either have a battle for some sort of puzzle. There will be shops and other non-combat rooms where you will just be able to select an item, but the formula is very much a typical roguelite. I did like that they showed off various puzzle rooms like having to run around falling platforms in a specific order to unlock a chest. These small puzzle challenges are a nice way to break up the gameplay a bit.

There will be quite a bit of combat modifiers depending on what you equip your weapons with or what relics will alter your attacks. However, the general gameplay is a top-down action hack ‘n slash with light and heavy attacks and a dodge. Of course, relics will change how these actions work like being able to place a pool of fire when dodging. You will also collect purple Phials that act as currency to unlock permanent upgrades or really great weapons mid-run. There will be an option to bank the Phials at certain times in order to not lose them if you die, but that also will limit your ability to get great gear in your current run.

Relics will be able to change your various attacks.

The demo wasn’t all that long, and there was only a brief conversation about Rogue Fortune being procedurally generated. I had some more questions though and Jonny was able to get me some answers:

WTMG: It was mentioned that the levels are procedurally generated, however, are there other main biomes or designs to reach as you continue?

Jonny: We demoed the first biome in the game, The Fallen Sanctuary. This is the very bottom of the Well of Eternal Riches, right after the player has jumped in. The player must progress up through 15 floors to escape the Temple, through a number of different environmental biomes. Each is progressively harder and weirder than the last, with a succession of unique tricks, traps and challenges, as well as its own selection of enemies.

WTMG: With it being a Roguelite, are there any permanent stats or upgrades that always carry over to the next run? Are there permanent unlocks for items and gear for progression? Or do we need to rebuy everything each run with the money or purple vials (sorry forgetting the name) that we banked within the run?

Jonny: Yes. The Gear you buy with Phials (those are the purple vials!) carries over from run to run. The Gear you choose to equip for a given run determines the size and shape of your Backpack, and thus how you can arrange Relics on the board to enhance or hinder your skills and abilities as you progress through the temple. In addition to this, the Personas change a variety of class-stats to vary the challenge – a favourite example being The Miser, an old, old man who is very slow and has low HP, but starts with a lot of gold.

The one benefit to this Persona is the Accelerate ability, which hugely speeds up Relic levelling. We have a whole matrix of stats to define which can, can’t or may affect a Persona, in addition to altering the behavior of the Relic Board itself. For instance, The Pyromaniac’s Relic Board burns away a row every floor you ascend, making you think very differently about how you arrange your Relics, and forcing you to continuously consider which you want to keep and which you are willing to sacrifice.

While there were unfinished assets in this early build. I already really liked the art design and color pallet here.

Some of the final information given is that Glowmade is shooting for each run to be about 30 or so minutes each. They want quick action and fun, engaging runs, without having to sink hours into a single session. That being said, progression to completion will take a total of 60 hours to see and collect all the stuff in the game.

While there wasn’t a ton shown here, and some of it unfinished, I really like the ideas presented here for Rogue Fortune. I definitely want to see more, but the meta game of the relic inventory puzzle power system has me intrigued because that is a game in itself. It has some unique aspects going for it and I can’t wait to see it fleshed out more and see what else lies in wait in the Well of Eternal Riches.

Rogue Fortune is set to launch on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. There is no release date announced as of yet.

*All assets provided by the publisher