Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUECrown Trick
Enter a labyrinth that moves as you move, where mastering the elements is key to defeating enemies and uncovering the mysteries of this underground world. With a new experience awaiting every time you enter the dungeon, let the power bestowed by the crown guide you in this challenging adventure!
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Community discussion
A turn-based, Mystery Dungeon-style roguelite by NEXT Studios (published by Team17) in which the dungeon only moves when you do, with elemental magic, a limited teleport (Blink) and monster Familiars as the core toolkit.
Crown Trick is received as a good-to-very-good tactical roguelite: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 85% of roughly 5,400 reviews), Metacritic PC is 83 and OpenCritic is 81 from 37 critic reviews. Critics and players praise the pace-flexible turn-based combat, cute pixel art and build variety, while the most common complaints are opaque UI and tooltips, uneven item and boss balance, punishing curses and repetitive dungeon layouts. The user Metacritic score is lower at 6.7 (only 35 ratings), and a few critics found it derivative. Several recent Steam reviewers say the developer has stopped updating the game, leaving long-standing readability and translation issues unfixed. It launched on Switch, PS4 and Xbox in 2020-2021 and reached Steam later; the Steam price is now about $4.99.
What players praise
- Turn-based combat where time only advances when you act lets you rush through trash rooms and slow down for bosses
- Blink (teleport) and the Break/stun mechanic reward positioning and planning over reflexes
- Elemental magic and debuff combos, plus a large pool of weapons, relics and spells, give lots of build variety
- Mid-boss Familiars grant inheritable abilities, swappable between runs, which gives a satisfying sense of progression
- Charming, colourful pixel art and funny enemies; the chessboard-style tile layout keeps the grid readable
- Approachable for newcomers to roguelikes, with a gentle entry and plenty of unlockables (blueprints, soul shard upgrades)
- Magic resources reset each room, which encourages actually using tools instead of hoarding them
What players criticize
- Poor information design: many keywords lack tooltips, there is no icon glossary, and elemental debuffs are explained only in wiki footnotes
- Hard to tell which enemy is starting an AOE attack, since only the danger area on the floor is shown
- Item balance is swingy: a few items carry a run while others ruin it, and level-up choices are sometimes all weak
- Boss fights can demand specific builds, run long, and sometimes end a run with an instant-cast skill
- Curses are effectively unavoidable and the downsides often outweigh the upside; one curse can destroy gems needed for permanent upgrades
- Translation and skill wording are confusing (for example what 'shield absorption' means), and some relics read as nonsense
- Enemy variety is limited, with stronger versions of the same foes, and dungeon layouts feel samey
- Busy turns with many simultaneous triggered events make it hard to follow why you won or lost
- Hard to read what is happening on your tile depending on camera angle, per a helpful negative review
Distinctive features
- Mystery Dungeon/classic-roguelike style synchronized turns where every action, even attacking, is its own step
- Blink teleport that does not cost a turn and recharges on room entry or after breaking enemies
- Labyrinth that shifts as you move and a chessboard grid, described as a more accessible modern take on Brogue or Tangledeep-like design
- Elemental system with debuffs and cross-element synergy as the main build axis
- Mid-boss Familiars whose abilities you absorb and carry into later runs
- Pace control: a turn-based game you can play fast or slow depending on the room
Divided opinions
- Replayability and depth: some call it a favourite that hooks them, others say meta progression feels thin and it is not something to return to after beating it
- Difficulty: described as challenging without being too punishing by some, while others find bosses and curses unfair
- Originality: praised as a fresh turn-based take on roguelikes, but one reviewer called it derivative and mobile-like
- Audio and presentation: some love the art, others find the music and sound effects sleepy or limited
Repetition and friction
- Intrusive tutorial prompts and the talking crown NPC interrupting play to explain things
- Slow start and some grinding for soul shard/meta unlocks; 100% achievements need the free DLC and hard-mode boss clears
- Controller inputs can be dropped while animations finish, causing accidental wrong-direction attacks that throw runs
- Slot machines, cursed chests and curse deals widely seen as poor risk/reward, making chunks of each floor feel skippable
- Long boss fights and repetitive room structure once you have seen what the game offers
- Weak, generic story and dialogue per several critics
Hoped-for improvements
- Add tooltips for keywords, a proper icon glossary and real numeric values for items and skills
- Show which enemy is causing each AOE telegraph
- Let players decline or skip the intrusive tutorial pop-ups that cover half the screen
- Rebalance items, curses and boss design so more build types are viable, and tame overpowered combos like the ice familiar stun
- Make hub/meta upgrades and gold use more impactful and clearer about what gold is for
- Fix Steam Deck/Windows launch problems, improve the translation, and vary audio and music more
Launched on consoles first (Switch, PS4, Xbox One in autumn 2020 to 2021) and got generally positive critic scores (Metacritic 78-83 by platform). Steam reception is Very Positive. Estimated Steam gross revenue is about $3.16M (net to developer about $0.93M) and owners around 500k-1M per SteamSpy-style estimates; these are modelled figures, not audited. Steam is Windows-only; there were Steam Deck/Proton launch problems, with reviewers reporting that an older Proton version works. A recent Steam review says the developer stopped updating the game, and 100% achievements require the free Requiem of Elements DLC. Steam price is now about $4.99.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam store data: review counts, price, Metacritic 83, revenue and owner estimates ↗
- Metacritic platform scores and user score 6.7 (35 ratings) ↗
- OpenCritic score 81, 37 reviews, 89% recommend ↗
- Review (79%): Blink/Break, Familiars, RNG and enemy variety complaints ↗
- Critical review: generic story, derivative feel, overwhelming items ↗
- Forum thread: praise for tile clarity and mechanics, complaints about curses and gold sinks ↗
- Estimated gross and net revenue (Boxleiter method) ↗
- Steam store page and review summary ↗
- Steam community discussion surfaced in search, Steam Deck compatibility context (snippet only) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 3 (2025)
Crown Trick is a turn-based, board-style roguelike where a sleeping princess explores a dream fantasy world, beats a realm boss, and returns for light meta progression. He loves its sense of grand adventure, with varied biomes, bosses and monsters that are hard to achieve in an indie game. The gameplay undercuts it: the free blink is so strong that most fights collapse into the same dodge-and-hit loop. Inconsistent enemy attack telegraphing led to deaths that felt unfair during long runs, and he never finished it. He places it at low B, saying it could have been a high A with some tweaks.
What the creator praises
- Strong sense of a grand adventure from level, biome, monster and boss design
- Clear run structure with an end goal that cannot be reached on the first attempt, with multiple realms and final bosses
- Bosses with unique mechanics, such as the chess board boss where pieces move like chess pieces
- Mini bosses convert into spirit buddies granting abilities, a concept he likes
- Distinctive visuals and good story, characters and world building
- Lots of content and enemy variety
Issues raised by the creator
- Blink ability is so strong it distorts balance and makes most encounters a repetitive dodge-then-attack loop
- Enemy attacks are telegraphed only some of the time, so instant unpredicted attacks cause cheap deaths (the Poseidon boss example)
- Spirit buddies are unbalanced and there is little incentive to switch, so players stick with one build
- Weapons feel similar to each other and meta progression is minimalistic
- Runs are long (about an hour), which makes unfair deaths demotivating
Design observations
- Turn-based movement combined with a free teleport blink that regenerates each room
- Converting defeated mini bosses into spirit allies, two equipped at a time
- Chess-themed boss that moves pieces by chess rules
