Flick Shot Rogues

Flick Shot Rogues has a great hook. The idea of lining up a shot and flicking your hero across the board, chaining collisions and combos, is tactile and satisfying. There's skill in reading the board, judging angles, and shooting your disc through a crowd of crabs and monkeys to set off a chain reaction. The game is at its best when it forces you to bounce your guy into a few walls and enemies, needing you to predict the trajectories beyond the aim markers (though it feels like you should have much higher shot power to really maximize the fun in this). The cutesy pirate-themed art, the monkey island-like music, and the physics-driven puzzle of each encounter make those first few hours feel fresh and inventive. The problem is what happens after those first few hours. The run structure gets repetitive and the runs themselves aren't varied enough to make you want to keep winning them. Each attempt sends you through the same sequence of biomes and essentially the same encounters, and because so much of the game's content is locked behind a slow meta-progression, you spend a long time replaying near-identical runs just to try to gain a few Profile Levels. You're doing the same thing over and over, going crazy watching the same opening stages roll by. A good roguelite uses repetition as a way to promote variety: new builds, synergies, harder zones coupled with your better understanding of the mechanics. Here it's just a chore.

Obligatory "what a shame Steam doesnt offer a neutral view" disclaimer. "Deep as a Puddle" is a phrase I think this game suits very well, I agree with the other negative Reviews. In 1 run you will have seen every normal enemy this game has to offer. In 3 runs or so you will have seen every boss and every arena this game has to offer too. With playtime you unlock more characters, more "weapon modifiers", more "relics" and more choices you can do in your run. However with the lack of enemy or arena variety, none of these feel very unique or special. There isnt much variety for your build, even after unlocking a bit you will see the same 5 modifier choices in every run, and none of these feel cool or crazy, it makes them all blend in with each other, and none of these even will give you a "build", its more so just different skills that dont synergize with each other. There is a level up system that just as easily couldnt exist, its an arbitrary way to fake "progression" in a run. If the devs just didnt give more health or damage to enemys nothing would change, this level up system doesnt offer anything because you cant really lose enough exp. in a run for it to matter. Its useless flair. This game really is not a good Roguelite game, and if youre here for the Roguelite aspect you should skip this one. If youre here purely for the "Flick" aspect I think you will have a very fun time with this. I'd say get it on a Sale no matter what, because compared to other games in this price range I have seen way better. As a basis, if I didnt have a neurotic compulsion to 100% every achievement in games, I would have had 5 hours on this game without buyers regret and be very content with the 45% sale I got this. But trying to get anything more out of this game will make you feel frustrated. I feel like this game would have worked way better as a linear story based game instead of a Roguelite.

“A Clever Idea That Fights Against Itself” Flick Shot Rogues immediately caught my attention because it tries something genuinely different from most roguelikes out there, and I’ll always respect developers willing to experiment instead of copying trends. During my initial hours with the game, I actually enjoyed parts of the experience and could clearly see the creativity behind its design. The biggest issue for me, however, was the controls. While the flick-shot mechanic is definitely unique, it often felt more frustrating than satisfying. Too many moments felt like I was fighting the controls instead of mastering them, and simple actions occasionally became irritating due to how imprecise or awkward the movement and aiming could feel. Because of this, the pacing never fully clicked. Roguelikes usually thrive on momentum, flow, and that “one more run” feeling, but here the mechanics constantly interrupted that rhythm for me. Instead of feeling exciting and fast-paced, many encounters ended up feeling slower and more cumbersome than they should have. That said, I did enjoy the progression system. Unlocking new content and seeing gradual improvement gave me motivation to keep playing longer than I otherwise might have. The game also deserves praise for its presentation. The art direction is fantastic, the pirate-themed worldbuilding has a lot of charm, and the music fits the atmosphere extremely well. There’s clearly a strong creative vision here. Unfortunately, some of the characters felt hit-or-miss gameplay-wise, which became another issue affecting longevity. Certain characters were genuinely fun, while others made runs feel significantly less enjoyable. Over time, that inconsistency made it harder for me to stay invested. Ultimately, Flick Shot Rogues feels like a game with a fantastic foundation that just didn’t fully come together for me. I honestly think with more refined controls and smoother gameplay flow, this could have been something special. There’s a great idea here, I just don’t think the execution reaches the same level as the concept.

Boring, with annoying finicky controls.

Solid.

Nice game! Makes fun to play 9/10

Flick Shot Rogues was genuinely such a pleasant surprise for me. I got this in a bundle, expecting it to be a great idea with a bad execution. But this game does such a great job at making the most out of it's unique concept, and it is so very [b] [i] very fun. [/i] [/b] You have 5 characters, each with two variants to unlock. The major areas of the game are always the same, but the paths within those areas have different risks and benefits to encourage you to take them. Enemy variety is a tad bit lacking, yet that doesn't diminish the replayability in fighting them. But the most important part IMO: The game never neuters your power. Some games will see a way that you can become overpowered and nerf things, or prevent combos, etc. This game doesn't do that, you can become effectively godly in terms of power and I cannot understate how fun that makes the game. Not even to mention the adorable art style, the addictive sound design, and the fact that I've only ever encountered one single bug/glitch in 25+ hours. Such a genuinely well built, well executed game. I love it and highly recommend it.

I enjoyed the gameplay of Flick Shot Rogues well enough. It follows the usual arena roguelike gameplay of fight, then map screen to choose a path and continue. The characters that you unlock are all very different to each other which helps provide some variety, but there are only 5, and you use two in a run. Sadly, there aren't many items to get in the runs, nor are there different worlds or a huge range of enemies, so every run that I played felt the same. There is a tonne of content, with (I think) 20 ascension-style difficulties to run through, but not enough gameplay content to sustain my interest beyond a few runs. Still, recommended because i did enjoy the short time that I played.

Quite fun game, despite all the chaos and misbalance. Chaos? You can't control a lot of the situations, especially during some boss fights. You can end up in a wrong spot and that will result in you flying around the board and taking tons of damage. Misbalance? I had trouble with first 3 or 4 runs as my synergies didn't feel amazing, I got tons of forced picks for 2nd character that I always ended up using less due to clunkiness. I played very carefully and couldn't keep up with all the enemy spam. Then I got some crazy armor + self-burn build because e.g. the rocks aligned into proper perks (e.g. 3x supportive rock) and I won without even trying, by often doing random shots at the final 2 stages. Still, I definitely recommend it, The combat system kindof reels you in, especially if you're a fan of games like pool, and it's also nice graphically and musically. It has a bunch of characters and combos to try on few difficulty levels and a lot of achievements to go for.

What at first looks like a knockabout, chaotic billiards inspired roguelite turns out to have surprising tactical depth. The addition of predictive targeting, where you can see the final positioning of a planned shot before taking that shot, allows for precise moves, and as you climb the difficulty levels, it becomes impossible to succeed without paying careful attention to every shot, trying to eke out the most damage, preserve your dwindling supply of hit points and set yourself up for the best following shot. Way more fun than I thought it was going to be.