Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEAstrea: Six-Sided Oracles
Astrea is a DICE-deck-building roguelike that flips the script on deckbuilders by using dice instead of cards and a unique dual “damage” system: Purification vs Corruption. Build a dice pool strong enough to purify Astrea's out-of-control corruption and save the Star System.
Why this score?
Health management and editing die faces make randomness part of the strategy itself, with notably deep builds. The calculation burden and information presentation are the main trade-offs to consider.
Machine-translated summary. The original review and its sources are preserved below.
Original text · Simplified Chinese
生命资源和骰面编辑让随机性进入策略本身，构筑深度突出；计算负担和信息呈现是最需要留意的代价。
Core gameplay
Weight 25%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
净化和腐化让生命也是可消费的行动资源，每回合有紧密的转化谜题；复杂角色与长回合提高疲劳感。
Builds & strategy
Weight 25%9.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
安全到高风险骰子、改面、守卫与祝福能构成不同风险路线，不理想的掷骰也可转用；部分选项的收益差距仍存在。
Replayability
Weight 20%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
六位角色机制差异足以要求重新学习，高难度提出新约束；敌人和事件变化较少使同一角色的局面趋同。
Randomness & fairness
Weight 20%7.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
玩家可以主动选择波动并修整骰池，资料中的额外生命给试错缓冲；隐藏数值、缺少结果预览和多重随机仍会阻碍判断。
Polish & usability
Weight 10%6.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
美术和反馈有辨识度，但大量小图标、角色专属词条与缺少结果预览形成实际信息负担，不能靠表现力抵消。
- Reviewer
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Rogue by Rogue · AI 资料评测- Version reviewed
Original text · Simplified Chinese
具体构建未知；以所引资料描述的版本为准
Scope and limitations
Original text · Simplified Chinese
未进行试玩；分数是依据已收录评述与社区具体反馈作出的主观资料评测。旧反馈跨版本、部分原始材料为不可重开的本地快照；本次 Steam 核查仅确认玩法与功能，未复测平衡、性能或报告的故障是否仍存在。
Review sources 02
- 01Archived materialView archived external material ↓
Original text · Simplified Chinese
收录评论与社区资料（2026-10-01 快照）
使用 作者观点摘要 的 Tier list Part 2 (2024), Top 10 of 2024 (#5) 的具体优缺点，以及 玩家好评、玩家批评 与 资料核查说明；不使用旧等级、外部分数或销量反推。
- 02Web sourceView original ↗
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles · Steam 官方商店
2026-10-08 访问。核对净化与腐化的双向作用、生命阈值能力和安全／平衡／高风险骰子。未据商店介绍推定性能或故障已修复。
Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
A Slay the Spire-style roguelike deckbuilder by Little Leo Games where you build a pool of six-sided dice instead of cards, with a dual Purification/Corruption damage-and-healing system.
Astrea is well regarded: Steam shows about 4,561 reviews at roughly 92% positive (Very Positive), Metacritic critic score is 85 and OpenCritic top-critic average is 87 (all critic reviews recommend it). Critics and players praise the fresh dice-building spin, the Purification/Corruption health-as-resource idea, six distinct Oracles and the striking art. Complaints cluster around heavy RNG, information overload and unclear iconography, weak damage previews, and (from some) runs that are either too easy or too samey. It is a finished game, not early access: PC launched Sep 2023, consoles Sep 2024, mobile Jul 2025, with post-release balance passes and content still appearing on Steam into 2026. Metacritic user score (6.9 on only 14 ratings) is far lower than Steam and is too small a sample to trust.
What players praise
- Purification vs Corruption turns your health bar into a resource: players deliberately take damage to unlock health-tied Virtues, and the risk/reward balancing is called addictive
- Safe / Balanced / Risky dice tiers let you choose your own volatility, and die faces can be rerolled, inverted, forged or permanently converted, giving real control over the randomness
- Six Oracles with very different playstyles, each with several viable archetypes; critics say all feel viable
- Huge content pool for replay: 350-750+ dice (store-page vs GameGrin counts differ), 170+ Blessings, Sentinel companions and ascension-style Anomaly difficulty levels
- Distinctive art direction with crystalline character designs and a blue/red palette; soundtrack also praised by some critics
- Three regenerating lives forgive mathematical mistakes and encourage greedy builds
- Fresh feel in a crowded Slay the Spire-like genre; many reviewers call it one of the better recent deckbuilder variants
What players criticize
- Iconography and UX overload: each Oracle has its own keywords and symbols, and every die has six faces to read, so evaluating choices is mentally exhausting
- RNG is heavy and not fully seeded (random targets, values, crits and the rolls themselves), so losses can feel undeserved and first turns differ even with identical choices
- No damage or outcome preview, and some corruption values are hidden, so players resort to pen and paper to avoid being blindsided
- Runs can feel samey: fewer random encounter types and less enemy variety than Slay the Spire, with the first act reportedly identical in demo and full game
- Balance: some critics and players say it is too easy or breakable once you find each character's best approach, while others hit brutal bosses and luck spikes at high Anomaly levels
- Safe dice and some Blessings are called too weak or too keyword-dependent, pushing builds toward Risky dice
- Later Oracles are very micro-heavy and slow to play, and some reviewers say too many systems make turns play themselves
- Short runs and price: several top negative reviews say a roughly 1-hour run feels shallow for $24.99 (would be fine at a discount); Steam listing is Windows only
Distinctive features
- Dice instead of cards: each die has six faces with different effects and you can edit those faces over the run
- Dual-direction Purification/Corruption damage: purification damages enemies or heals you, corruption the reverse, so the same effect can help or hurt depending on target
- Health-linked Virtues: repeatable passive abilities unlocked by your current health level reward playing near the edge
- Black Hole Blessings (powerful with notable downsides) and Star Blessings (smaller, no downside), plus Sentinels as companions
- Risk-tiered dice (Safe/Balanced/Risky/Epic) as the core build axis, with self-inflicted corruption dice you must play or swap
Divided opinions
- Difficulty: a few players won on their first run in under an hour and called it too easy, while others find high Anomaly levels unpredictable and luck-driven
- RNG: praised as controllable thanks to reroll, convert and invert tools by many, yet a core reason for negative reviews from others
- Dice vs cards: some feel dice add novel tension; others say face-editing is less interesting than unique cards and the dual-damage system is partly marketing
- Visuals: widely praised, but a few players find the blue/red palette and stylized icons bland or confusing
Repetition and friction
- Reading six faces on each of several dice every turn and every reward screen
- Micro-management on later characters that makes early turns painfully slow until a build forms
- Saving-scumming or restarts felt necessary at high Anomaly levels because of dice variance
- Short runs (often about 1 to 1.5 hours) that some find shallow, while others say they get repetitive quickly
- Each character starting from the same difficulty with separate progression, which some found grindy
- Performance and UI issues reported on handheld devices (freezes, long autosaves)
Hoped-for improvements
- Add a damage/effect preview (e.g. like Monster Train) and clearer surfacing of hidden corruption and damage sources
- Simplify or clarify iconography and die-face readability; some players shelved the game waiting for a UX fix or mod
- Fully seeded or more deterministic RNG and more consistent balance across Oracles and Anomaly levels
- More event and encounter variety plus more enemy variety to reduce repetition between runs
- Rebalance Safe dice and underpowered Blessings, and tighten keyword clutter across characters
- Reviewers and players wished for a richer story (the narrative is short and generic) and better Japanese/Korean localization
Launched on Steam Sep 21, 2023 at $24.99 from Little Leo Games, published by Akupara Games; released on PS4/PS5, Switch and Xbox Sep 26, 2024 and on iOS/Android Jul 17, 2025. Critics were consistently positive (OpenCritic 10 reviews, 100% recommend; Metacritic only 6 critic reviews, all positive). The Steam score is high in aggregate (about 92%), though the vaporlens aggregator shows 72% positive, implying lower sentiment in some recent or platform-specific reviews; recent Steam reviews from 2025-2026 are still mostly positive and mention updates. Post-launch the devs did balancing passes per Oracle. Steam Spy style estimates put owners around 100k-200k, and steam-revenue-calculator estimates about $2.6M gross and about $766k net (Boxleiter-style estimate, not audited). Platform notes: Steam is Windows only; handheld reports mention freezes and long autosaves.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam store data: review counts, price, Metacritic, owner and revenue estimates ↗
- OpenCritic page: top critic average 87, 100% recommend, outlet scores ↗
- Metacritic: Metascore 85 (6 reviews), user score 6.9 (14 ratings) ↗
- Release timeline across PC, console and mobile; reception summary ↗
- GameGrin 9.5/10 review: pros, RNG frustration, content counts ↗
- GameLuster 7/10 review: balance and replayability criticism ↗
- Aggregated player review themes: RNG, learning curve, performance, localization ↗
- Steam discussion on high-Anomaly difficulty and lack of damage preview ↗
- Estimated gross and net revenue (Boxleiter method) ↗
Archived creator commentary 2
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Astrea is a dice-based deck-building roguelike with six playable characters. He admires how it solves the usual strategy-versus-randomness problem of dice games: every die face has a usable effect, and the game is built around deliberately swinging your health up and down. It is very complex, with long fights and heavy keyword load, so he recommends it mainly to experienced deck-builder fans. Audiovisuals are excellent, and he places it in A tier.
What the creator praises
- Dice design keeps strategy meaningful: every face (including self-damage) can be exploited, so no roll is wasted
- Health-bar mechanic where low/high health thresholds unlock abilities, encouraging a constant take-damage/heal loop
- Six characters, each with roughly ten unique, complicated keywords
- Great music, amazing art and strong visual effects
- Secret final boss unlocked by beating the game with all six characters gives long-term progression motivation
- Unique events and companion 'friends' with their own mechanics add depth
Issues raised by the creator
- Extremely complicated, possibly one of the most complex deck builders he has played
- Keywords are numerous and dice show only small icons, making it hard to remember what each does (harder to read than cards)
- Fights are very long (only about three fights per floor); final boss took him about an hour
- Both worlds look too similar (mostly blue), so it is hard to tell which world you are in and it is less immersive
- The default starting character is the least interesting one
Design observations
- Designed around wanting to take damage, turning randomness into something you can always benefit from
- Health thresholds act as the activation system for abilities, creating a low-high-low-high health rhythm
- Solves the common dice deck-builder issue of diluted strategy without removing the RNG
Top 10 of 2024 (#5)
Astrea is a turn-based roguelike deckbuilder that uses dice instead of cards, with a Slay the Spire-style map of shops, events and elites. He calls it one of the most complicated deckbuilders he has played. Its core is a dual purification/corruption system where dice can heal or damage either side, and a virtue bar that only unlocks when your health is low. He finds it very rewarding when everything clicks, but would not recommend it to casual players. He ranks it fifth of the year.
What the creator praises
- Multi-purpose dice effects and self-damage make every roll usable, which reduces the luck factor
- Each character plays very differently, with roughly 30 unique mechanics apiece
- Turns and fights are puzzle-like, and winning with efficient use of technical mechanics feels very satisfying
- Sentinels, dice editing/destroying/duplicating and blessings (passives) add depth to builds
- Beautiful visuals and a fantastic soundtrack
- Meta-progression via unlocking characters and a teased mystery locked door
Issues raised by the creator
- Very complex and not suited to casual players, and hard for newcomers
- Dice symbols are small and harder to remember than card text
- Luck still matters, and he wants more rerolling options to cut its impact
- The first available character is probably his least favorite
- One misplay can cost all your health given the low max-health cap of seven
Design observations
- Corruption self-damage feeds the virtue bar, then purification heals you back in a cycle
- Dice serve dual purposes, used on self or enemy, which turns RNG into decisions
- Complex mechanics paired with complex strategy, the opposite of his usual preference for simple mechanics with deep strategy
