Roguelike action games are one of those genres that are all over the place in the indie developer space, similar to retro-style platformers. It seems like no matter what platform you’re on you can find dozens of hack ‘n slash action games, including mobile. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way as that’s one of my favorite game genres and there are a ton of gems out there, but at some point a certain amount of fatigue sets in and it’s hard to differentiate these games from one another. Well developer Foolish Mortal Studios aka solo developer Kyle Barrett are taking a stab at the top-down, pixel art, hack ‘n slash roguelike with their upcoming title Immortal Rogue, but it’s actually doing something really interesting for a game like this on mobile. It’s using an intuitive swipe-based control scheme that should work aces on the touchscreen. Check out the Immortal Rogue trailer.

So how do the controls work? Well there are some very helpful animated gifs on the game’s official press page and also embedded below, but in short you’ll use quick swipes to move your character around, taps to perform light attacks, and then tap-and-drag to slow down the action slightly and pull up an aiming arrow that upon release will unleash a heavy attack. And that’s pretty much it. It’s designed in a way so that you can play Immortal Rogue with just one hand in portrait orientation, which as you all know I’m a big fan of. The other really interesting thing about this game is how it’s dynamically generated based on your actions. Here’s a brief description of what that exactly means in Immortal Rogue:

“You play as a vampire that wakes up every 100 years to feed. Who you choose to hunt directly impacts the future and changes the game world. Different timelines offer different enemies to defeat and unique items to discover. You can fight samurai with a rocket fist from a long lost civilization, or take out cyborgs with an enchanted katana. The combat is challenging, and defeat has consequences. But you can never truly die. The world goes on with both your allies, and your enemies, awaiting your return."

This is one of those games that based on everything I’m seeing and reading is pushing all of the right buttons for me. The game’s feature list includes over 70 unique enemies to discover, 30+ Vampiric abilities to unlock, 30+ Unique weapons to master, hundreds of potential characters to hunt down or turn into allies, and “Massive replayability with scores of possible timelines that offer their own distinct characters, challenges, and rewards." The hope is to launch Immortal Rogue later this month, but ahead of that the developer is hoping to get some people to run through the early parts of the game as a short beta test, so if you’re interested in doing that then head over to our forums to register your interest. Otherwise look for this promising title in the coming weeks.