Slots & Daggers made roguelikes finally click for me

Back when the demo of Slots & Daggers was released way back in 2025, I fell in love with the vibe and the gameplay, but I didn’t fully understand it. I’m an inveterate roguelike noob, and I struggle with the mechanics of the genre regardless of how much I happen to enjoy playing them. 

Now, with the release of the game on mobile platforms, I suddenly find myself in possession of Slots & Daggers on three different platforms, two of which happen to be touchscreen. And finally, something has clicked in my head. I’ve developed a strategy, I’ve learned what everything does, and I’ve got further than I ever managed to get on PC. 

So now I finally feel like I’m in a good place to take a second look at Slots & Daggers, from the perspective of someone whose brain ordinarily responds to roguelike systems with Windows error noises. 

A smooth transition to mobile

Before we get into my newly educated experience playing Slots & Daggers, I have to credit Friedemann for the absolutely stunning mobile port. Sure, you could say that the game was always laid out in a way that translated to touchscreen devices, but having played it on both a tiny phone screen and a fairly large tablet, I can attest that it feels like it was always designed to be there. 

Admittedly, I did have to fiddle around with the settings just a tiny bit to make myself as comfortable as possible, but not much. Aside from activating the “Tap Anywhere” option and disabling the slight camera movement that made me feel a little bit motion sick, the game runs like a dream on both devices. I also never had a problem reading any of the text despite being somewhat visually impaired without my glasses on. 

The pros and cons of poison

Like an overburdened and underappreciated Victorian housewife, I go into battle armed with primarily poisonous weapons. Poison stacks and bypasses any shield the enemy may have, so you can build up a solid amount of damage per turn by piling on the poison, especially when you have more than one arsenic-laced weapon option on the slot reels.  

Magical attacks also bypass shields for both you and the enemy, but this is something I’ve learned to worry about more than I’ve learned to use as part of any actual strategy. It makes the addition of shields on the reels fairly pointless for certain enemies, especially those in the Cathedral of Smoke; apparently, the clergy favors magic, which is delightfully ironic given the church’s historical relationship with witchcraft. 

I suck at skill checks

There are a whole host of weapons and shields in Slots & Daggers that rely on skill checks to maximize their damage. They’re capable of hitting massive numbers, but you need to be good with timing to get the most out of them, and that is not my strong suit.  

One of my favorite weapons in the entire game, the Massive Blade, has one of those skill checks attached. It’s a big beefy sword that really packs a punch if you get the timing right, but I never can, so I imagine myself waving it limply each time I try to attack, maybe catching the enemy with the end and giving them a little cut on the arm or leg. 

The good news is that you don’t have to use weapons with skill checks, and it’s entirely possible to do remarkably well with other weapons even if you struggle with dexterity or timing. Since unlocking the Hammer, which does both physical and magical damage, I’ve never looked back. Maybe I’m not making 100+ damage per hit, but at least I don’t have to suffer through failing skill check after skill check. 

Ooh, what does this do?

Usually, while playing any roguelike, I read what the different upgrades do and then proceed to pick whichever ones I can afford regardless of what they do. It’s… a system, but not a good one, and it has left me feeling like I’m bad at roguelikes. Slots & Daggers is the first roguelike that I’ve genuinely thought I might be good at, even when my ass is getting whooped, because at least it took a little bit longer than it did the time before. 

I actually understand what everything does, and in an improvement over my PC experience, it’s clicked in my brain that Modifiers affect every run moving forward and should definitely be upgraded whenever you can. I also stopped spending my money as soon as I got it, instead choosing to weigh up the pros and cons of saving for something more useful, even if it means going through a couple of bad runs to get there. 

Slots & Daggers appears to be the roguelike that’s taught me that buying an upgrade just because I can isn’t necessarily better than buying nothing at all. Sometimes it’s worth playing the long, albeit frustrating game of willingly sending yourself to your death to save up some chips for a more expensive Modifier. I’m not sure why that clicked here when it never has before, but I guess at least now I’ve learned a valuable lesson. 

If you’re into roguelikes and haven’t checked Slots & Daggers out yet, there has never been a better time to do so. With the release on mobile platforms, you can take it outside with you, and who doesn’t want to game while touching grass? You can get Slots & Daggers on the following platforms: 

• Steam

• iOS

• Android