Time and time again, the roguelite genre has proven that gambling and gaming can go hand in hand. The combination of a well-thought-out, game-breaking strategy and sheer luck is an addictive cocktail that can become addictive quickly. Roulette Hero made me feel like a real gambler. Should I give in to the urge to play, or delete the game before I get in too deep?

Place your bets

Roulette Hero describes itself as a strategic roguelike deckbuilder, but I would like to coin the term ‘roguelite gambler’, because you aren’t actually building a deck of cards. Instead, you assemble a group of animal companions to help you battle mechanical beasts. The battlefield is shaped like a roulette wheel and placing your animals on the correct tiles to activate synergies is key to victory.
During your turn, you can either buy animals to place on the board or pull the lever on the right of the screen to spin the wheel. Both of these processes consume coins. These can be earned by triggering certain animals or objects on the board. If you cannot pay to pull the lever anymore, or if you choose to do so early, you can end your turn. Once your turn has ended, the enemy will attack you, but the one-armed bandit’s price will reset to zero and the shop will be filled once again with cute or silly animals to help you fight back against your robot opponent.

The slow grind

One impressive thing about Roulette Hero is how it eases you into its mechanics. Although it is a roguelite, the developers give you ample time to learn how the game works. You start at tier 0 and unlock the ability to do harder and harder runs after beating a run. The game wants you to succeed and experience the thrill of a game-breaking run to keep you engaged. It’s just like a casino wanting to keep a gambler happy and betting for longer. The house always wins, but in the case of Roulette Hero, the house wins if you are enjoying yourself. It’s a win-win!
Completing a run also gives you extra toys to play with. You start the game with two animal groups to choose from: dogs or cats. But after you win, more animals are quickly added to the mix, including fish, bugs and other cute surprises. Synergies can be found around every corner and become increasingly wacky the longer you play. Let me give you an example. In my first runs, I put all my stakes on cats. I used one of the basic cats to earn money 30% of the time I spun the wheel. In the final moments of the run, I discovered the lion. Its attack increased every time I gained coins. Easy, right? Just spin, make money, and let the lion grow in power. It’s a clear combo. Fast forward twenty minutes and I discovered that the price and sell value of an animal were the same in the early runs. I also had five ants on the field that multiplied after a certain number of spins. I quickly had an ‘ant farm’, gaining four ants to sell after a certain number of spins. This gave my lion extra power and provided me with extra coins to pay for new spins. This created a vicious cycle that increased my lion’s power to an impressive 584!
All this is to show you: the systems are simple to learn, but they have an enormous amount of depth.

The Long Run

The longer you play, the more the core mechanics become fleshed out. There are also four other player characters to unlock. Each one offers new gameplay features and mechanics that build on the existing loop. For example, one of the player bots moves a radical around the board to guess the outcome of your roulette roll. If they guess correctly, you and your team gain extra upgrades. The game just keeps rewarding your time invested. It goes on and on; at one point, I even wondered if I was becoming a real gambler. Driven by the thrill of success. I got scared of becoming addicted in the long run. But isn’t the drive to try and get one more run the aim of all roguelites?
You might ask yourself whether roulette can truly be considered strategic or if it’s just a ‘number going up’ simulator. But I would argue that it is the former. The closest parallel to this game is an auto chess game like Super Auto Pets. Place your animals in the right sequence and you can reach a point where losing becomes impossible. Although it isn’t PvP, there is a leaderboard, so become the best animal handler, like no one ever was!

Conclusion

Roulette Hero is a roguelite gambler that strikes a delicate balance between luck and skill. It eases you in gently and explains its mechanics clearly, allowing you to have fun while discovering new features. There is a lot on offer in this game, and I think it is one of the best strategic roguelites released in the past year. I highly recommend giving this game a chance, but don’t play it on portable devices — you’ll end up getting distracted by cats, birds, dogs and bugs!

9,5/10

Reviewed on PC