Leafborn is a roguelike that made me forget I was playing a roguelike

I have a love-hate relationship with roguelikes. I love the satisfying loop and gradual improvements that keep me hooked, but I find it really hard not to get frustrated with the repeated deaths. With that said, I love finding a roguelike that makes me forget it's a roguelike, if that makes sense, and Leafborn absolutely does that. 

Leafborn, by Green Cat Games, is a fast-paced action roguelike that throws you into a world where nature is fighting back against machines, and you play the part of nature as a pile of sentient, satisfyingly swishy leaves. You jump, glide, swing, and dash your way across a gorgeous green landscape while taking out the mechanical threats trying to take over, and I am thoroughly obsessed. 

Wait a minute

I've been watching the development of Leafborn for quite a while, but my attention has always been taken up by the stunning visuals and jumpy, swirly movement of the leaf creature. I didn't really dig into what the game actually was, so if I'm honest, I went into it thinking it was going to be a platformer adventure game. Imagine my surprise when, after dying, I could buy upgrades. 

At that moment, my brain went, “Wait a second, this is a roguelike!” (And no, I clearly did not look at the Steam tags. I'm a fan of going in blind; you should know that by this point!)

My first thought wasn't the usual confusion I feel when picking upgrades in roguelikes. Instead, I realized I'd been playing for half an hour, and this was the first time I'd died. In my experience, roguelikes usually have a rocky start, with plenty of deaths and upgrades before surviving a run even feels possible, but Leafborn seems to skip over that entirely. Which, in retrospect, is probably why I thought it was a platformer right up until the moment I died. 

It also explains why Leafborn doesn't feel like your run-of-the-mill roguelike. It feels like an adventure platformer game even now, when I've unlocked so many upgrades I've lost count. There are secret platform paths to explore that lead to hidden treasures, a narrative that's told through the environment, and phenomenally addictive combat that makes me miss savage tier raiding. 

Gliding through it

Everything you do during a run of Leafborn happens at top speed, from navigating the increasingly challenging gaps between floating islands to working your way through waves of enemies. I usually struggle with speed-based mechanics because I feel like my brain has a hard time keeping up, but somehow Leafborn escapes that fate and everything feels smooth and easy, even when it's decidedly not. 

If we're being completely honest, I haven't entirely figured out the game's health system. I know that as you lose health, you take on a distinctly autumnal hue, and that being hit in combat obviously knocks some health off. However, I'm also fairly sure certain attacks sometimes cost health to use, while others give it back? 

I may be misunderstanding that, but that's how it seemed to me after throwing myself into a wave battle at critically low health and suddenly finding myself regaining some. It's also entirely possible that this was fully explained in a pop-up that I closed in a hurry to get back to the game, because I do have a habit of ignoring important reading…

Still, even with that confusion, I have to give combat its moment in the spotlight. It's chaotic, thrilling, and indescribably satisfying to bounce around at high speed, wiping enemies off the map. As the difficulty increases in later stages, dodging and baiting AOEs becomes something of an art form. You're flying through the air and landing at just the right moment to take the perfect swing. 

There are multiple attacks to unlock and level up between runs, but I am a shameless fan of the Leaf Punch, so I poured all of my Flow (the currency you gain from defeating enemies or collecting it from the environment) into leveling it up. It's so much fun to leap from enemy to enemy, dealing a huge amount of damage in one hit. 

I love this little leaf person

Leafborn wouldn't be Leafborn without its main character and its leaves. I've spent a lot of time just watching the little creature move, and every movement is mesmerizing. Even the idle animation, which gradually turns this adorable leaf person into nothing more than a simple pile of leaves, brought a smile to my face… Alongside a momentary panic that I'd melted by standing still for too long. Thankfully, it popped straight back into its usual form at the first sign of movement. 

Gliding might be my favorite movement of all. One button turns the leaf person into a sheet of leaves that soars through the air, almost bird-like, for surprisingly long distances. You can sometimes bypass the platforms between islands simply by gliding. It does get a bit perilous thanks to the speed of travel, and I screamed as the island I wanted to land on came and went a few times, but it's worth the risk just because gliding is so damn pretty to look at. 

Does it make me a bad person if I say I like the way the leaf person looks when it's close to death? Probably, but I've always been a fan of autumnal colors, and seeing it turn from green to orange just feels cozy to me. It's not that I want to perish, and I do try to avoid it as much as possible by picking up the little piles of leaves you can find around the islands, but at least the colors are a nice silver lining to toeing the line between life and death. 

And I definitely don't feel a little wistful when the leaves start turning green again… Much. 

Leafborn doesn’t have a release date just yet, but the demo is available as part of Steam Next Fest right now, and I know I’ll be going back for more as long as I can!

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