Disciples of Varahces is a roguelike you've probably never heard of

So I found this one at about half eleven last night, Steam open, kids finally in bed, looking for something to fill maybe an hour before I gave up and watched telly. Typed "roguelike" into search, sorted by new, scrolled past about forty games that all look the same, and landed on Disciples of Varahces.

Twelve reviews. Made in Godot 4. The screenshots looked simple. I nearly kept scrolling.

Glad I didn't.

The premise is a bit different to what you'd normally get. Some ancient god called Varahces got sealed away, stuck alone for millennia, and now he's managed to reach out to a handful of people and offered them his power if they help free him. That's your character. You've been contacted by a trapped god and you're doing his dirty work. Dunno why but that's a bit creepier than the usual "you're a knight go kill stuff" setup.

Gameplay is wave survival, enemies come at you, you hold on. Each wave they get stronger, there's more of them, hits harder. You pick up items along the way that change how you play and compound together until by the time you're deep into a run you've got something properly ridiculous going. Theres four characters built around what the game calls the ancient elements. Shadow, Fire, Frost, and Blood. I went Frost first obviously.

The early waves are dead easy tbh, almost too slow, feels like you're just floating around picking things off one at a time. Don't let that fool you. I hit one of the major stage transitions and suddenly there is a staggering amount of stuff on screen and I'm frantically trying to remember which items I picked and why I thought that combination made sense twenty minutes ago.

The items are the game really. Over fifty of them, more coming with updates, each one changes something about how your attacks work. Stack the right ones and you've got this insane screen-filling chaos that you can barely follow. The math under the hood is doing a lot of work even if the graphics dont particularly look like it.

Before the big level changes there's a proper upgrade area where you pick from the unique stuff you've gathered in that run. That bit felt satisfying, standing there looking at what I'd built and deciding where to push it next. The major levels themselves have seriously staggering difficulty spikes, not unfair but you'll feel them.

There's nineteen achievements and for a small game that's a decent amount. Tells you the developer put real thought into what keeps people coming back. I've unlocked maybe four so far, ngl I'll be going back for more. It scratches a similar itch to Vampire Survivors but it's got an actual story reason for why you're standing in a field murdering hundreds of things, which I appreciate more than I expected to.

That title screen showing it was made with Godot 4 is something I always respect on indie games. Keeps running clean even when there's absolute carnage happening, which there will be.

The biggest thing I can say about Disciples of Varahces is that it works. The roguelike systems are properly thought through, the compounding effects do genuinely compound, and the whole thing feels like a game made by someone who actually plays games like this. It's got almost no reviews. The kind of game that'd have a thousand if one streamer with a decent audience picked it up. Hasn't happened yet.

Worth the price. Go look it up.

Disciples of Varahces on Steam