Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUECursorblade
Cursorblade is a bullet hell game where you play as the cursor, fighting your way through waves of enemies. Combine weapons and items to become more powerful with your own unique builds. Slash, dodge, upgrade, and repeat!
Our score
Eligible for ranking after all five dimensions are reviewed
Game filed. Review coming soon.
This game has not yet completed our five-dimension review. Explore its details and external material in the meantime.
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 cheap Windows-only arcade bullet-hell roguelite by solo-ish studio RealPeach in which you are the mouse cursor, slashing waves of cute enemies and picking weapons and passives between waves.
Steam players rate it Very Positive (about 85% of roughly 1,045 reviews) and treat it as a short, satisfying, cheap ($4.99) arcade score-chase with an original mouse-only hook. The most common complaint, even in positive reviews, is thin content: few weapons, enemies and upgrades, one boss, one map, and most people see everything in 1-3 hours. There are no professional critic reviews; Metacritic shows no critic score and too few user ratings for a score. Content additions since the demo appear minimal and a Steam discussion thread raises worries about the project being abandoned.
What players praise
- Novel concept: the mouse cursor is both character and weapon, with one-to-one mouse-only control that players say they have rarely seen in a bullet hell
- Fluid, responsive, fair arcade feel; difficulty is described as challenging but fair by many, and as a good nice timekiller or relaxing pause
- Wave structure with a choice of one of three random weapons after each wave and a passive every few waves, giving simple survivors-like build decisions
- Cute art and animation (goofy-eyed monster sprites) and satisfying sound and visual effects
- Very cheap, short, easy to pick up and addictive for quick runs; some players lost track of time
- Achievement hunting and the wave-50 boss give a clear goal; some players pushed to wave 57 and beyond chasing high scores
What players criticize
- Very little content: roughly 6 weapons, about 12 upgrades, fewer than 10 enemy types, one map and a single boss at wave 50, after which waves continue endlessly with the same enemies
- Builds feel bland and a handful of options dominate, so runs feel identical; many upgrades are just 'X appears more often'
- Almost no meta progression: currency only unlocks new swords/cursors, so there is little reason to keep playing after unlocking everything (several say you have seen it all by the third game)
- Late waves become cluttered, so skilled dodging matters less and play turns into slowly picking off stragglers
- Looping, short and generic music gets grating; a few players mute it, though others praise the soundtrack
- Technical bareness: no Steam Cloud saves, essentially no graphics options (no resolution or FPS cap), some reports of bugs and slowness
- Some unlockable cursors/characters are seen as weak or useless, and right-click abilities have a slight activation delay that makes them unappealing
- Shallow, barebones feel: several negative reviews call it unfinished and Flash-game-like, with no saving and little build diversity
Distinctive features
- You play literally as a mouse cursor, using mouse motion alone to move, attack and dodge
- Bullet hell blended with survivors-like level-up choices but with no persistent stat meta-progression, closer to an endless arcade high-score chase
- Cursor-themed characters/blades each with a right-click active ability
- Combo meter and score-driven unlock points, where raising wave difficulty earns unlocks faster than perfecting combos
- Tiny runs and a playable free demo on itch.io (v0.27f), making it a pick-up-and-play desktop toy
Divided opinions
- Difficulty: some call it fair and even easy (100% in a couple of hours), others call it punishing and unfun
- Value at $4.99: fun short game for the price versus not worth it for the content, with some recommending alternatives like 20 Minutes Till Dawn
- Roguelike versus roguelite label: debate over whether the lack of meta progression makes it a true roguelite
- Music: praised as awesome by some, called repetitive and grating by others
Repetition and friction
- Content exhausted within 30 minutes to 3 hours, making repeat runs feel padded and monotonous
- Some players say runs feel like chore-like work, one comparing it to cleaning windows
- Reliance on RNG weapon offers to carry runs
- Difficulty spikes: a minority find it too hard from the start, and demo players say it gets annoying past wave 10
- Endless post-boss waves repeat the same enemies with nothing new
- Looping music and lack of settings options
Hoped-for improvements
- More weapons, items, enemy types, bosses, maps and characters; players note little has been added since the demo
- Real meta progression or build-diversity systems (and a save feature) so unlocks matter beyond new swords
- Make cursor-specific active abilities more useful and responsive
- Options: FPS unlock, resolution/graphics settings, Steam Cloud, and more music tracks
- Modding or Steam Workshop support (repeatedly requested in Steam discussions), plus community translations
- Clearer developer communication about the project's future and fixes for balance issues such as a blade bypassing invincibility frames and concern about the round-80 boss
Released Nov 6, 2023 on Steam (Windows only) at $4.99 after a free itch.io demo; Steam has held steady at Very Positive since launch (85-86%). Nodal.gg reports average playtime of about 2.2 hours with 65% of players reaching 1+ hour. No Metacritic critic or user score (only a couple of user ratings, below the 4-rating threshold) and no OpenCritic entry found. The last itch devlog found was a balancing and bug fixes post from Aug 2023, reviewers say little was added beyond the demo, and a Steam discussion thread (about 12 comments) worries the game is abandoned. Workshop/modding, FPS unlock, extra powerups and translations are popular requests. Family Sharing and achievements supported.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam store page data: Very Positive, 85.2% of 1,045, price, tags, developer ↗
- itch.io demo page: v0.27f, 4.6/5 from 130 ratings, last devlog Aug 2023 ↗
- itch.io demo comments: praise for concept and art, requests for GOG/mobile, difficulty past wave 10, roguelike vs roguelite debate ↗
- Steam discussions: workshop, FPS unlock, abandonment concerns, blade bug and round-80 boss threads ↗
- Playtime stats (mean 2.2h, 65% over 1h) and similar-game clustering with Brotato and Vampire Survivors ↗
- Metacritic page: no critic reviews, user score tbd with only 2 ratings ↗
- Revenue estimate of about $49.8k gross, $14.7k net ↗
- Database listing surfaced in search (not deeply read) ↗
- Third-party stats listing surfaced in search (Steam 85% of 1,038 reviews) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Cursorblade is a cute, very simple top-down bullet-hell-ish game where your cursor is both hitbox and weapon; you damage enemies by touching them and dodge by not getting hit. He finds it satisfying and charming but basic, with a game-jam feel. Upgrades arrive once per wave but barely change how you play. He places it in C tier while stressing it is not a bad game, just not something he would replay.
What the creator praises
- Cute and satisfying to play
- Very straightforward concept that does what it sets out to do well
- Does not over-reach; restrained content suits the game
- Could be a fun, easy intro to basic roguelike action for a younger audience
Issues raised by the creator
- Upgrades (rockets, spinners, fire damage) are not impactful, so runs play the same regardless of picks
- Gameplay loop of hitting then evading is very repetitive
- Pace is so fast it feels random, like swiping without thinking
- Would be more interesting slower, leaving room for more attacks and mechanics
- Feels like a game jam project; he would not play it again
Design observations
- The cursor is both hitbox and weapon, dealing damage by touching enemies
- One upgrade per completed wave keeps the structure minimal
- Design lesson: slowing the pace would allow richer enemy attacks and more thoughtful bullet-hell play
