A couple of months back developer Spellbind Studios were looking for beta testers for an upcoming mobile port of their rogue-lite dungeon crawling RPG Rogue Wizards, which launched on Steam to fairly positive reviews back in September of last year. Well, the beta testers have tested their little hearts out and, although it’s a bit behind the rest of the week’s new releases, Rogue Wizards (Free) for iOS has now arrived in the App Store. The game utilizes a neat isometric view that reminds me a lot of the excellent Shattered Planet (Free), and in addition to normal dungeon crawly things you’ll also be doing a bit of city building, somewhat reminiscent of the wonderful Sproggiwood ($4.99). Also the way the game world sort of pops in and pops out as you move gives me a heavy Bastion ($4.99) vibe. Basically, in a sea of mediocre dungeon crawlers, Rogue Wizards throws some interesting inspirations from a variety of great games into the mix to make itself stand out. One other cool touch about Rogue Wizards is that it offers two different modes. Story mode is the more casual option and features a quest-driven storyline and the town-building features. Gauntlet mode strips away the story and town-building stuff and throws you into an increasingly difficult dungeon with permadeath and challenges you to make it into the Hall of Fame.

From what we can tell, the only major change to Rogue Wizards between its desktop and mobile versions is in the pay model. On Steam the game goes for $15, but on mobile the game is now free to play with in-app purchases. Danger! Danger! Danger! Just kidding, and actually the IAP seems pretty inoffensive, with a few consumable options for purchasing in-game gems as well as a permanent gem doubler for $4.99. There are also opt-in ads to watch for some gems, should you choose. Spellbind Studios (which is just a single person, by the way) posted in our forums about some of the minor differences between the mobile and desktop versions of Rogue Wizards, and also says that the game has been balanced so that the gem doubler equates to the balance of the desktop version. Those who don’t wish to pay or just want to buy some gem packs to speed things along now and then may do so, but if you buy the doubler you’re essentially getting the same balance as the desktop version, and that seems pretty darn fair to me. So hey, if you like roguelike dungeon crawlers, storylines, light city building, or all three, then check out Rogue Wizards for free and see what other are saying bout it in our forums.