This cute new roguelike mixes Pokémon's creature-collecting with Slay The Spire's moreish structure

Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers has a demo out now, too

Good Pokémon-a-likes continue to pop up on PC, and I just found another really cute one hiding in the tall grass of Steam demos. Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers naturally has you collecting colourful creatures before you force them into an animal fight pit against other probably-not-enthusiastic participants. But this one mixes in some of Slay The Spire’s roguelike structure and the result has you compulsively resisting the "just one more game" urge.

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There are some notable differences between the two Mon games, though. For starters, monster fights are automatic rather than turn-based (hence the name), and ATB-style gauges decide which monsters move first. That’s another difference: battles always take place in teams and are usually never 1-1 scraps.

That auto-battling means you’ll instead be mulling over party compositions, not only choosing which monsters to go with but choosing how to line them up since that affects who gets the brunt of the damage. Putting your high-defence Kādomon on the front line might be a good idea, but backgrounding them until they charge up an extra-special move might be an even better idea.

Each creature has its unique skills you can experiment with, and of course, there are elemental strengths and weaknesses to consider, too. Thankfully, the game’s interface signals which creatures are strong/weak against which enemies. That’s handy since my memory only has space for one game's elemental table and it's the one I've learned since birth.

Slay The Spire’s inspirations come into play with the procedurally generated map that branches off into different routes, letting you stumble across more battles, rest points, and random events that can yield boosts or baddies. As a reward, once your Kādomons are battered and bruised, they'll face a beefy boss waiting at the end.

The whole affair feels like a baby’s first roguelike in the same way that Pokémon is a baby’s first RPG. Essentially, tough tactical decisions are made accessible (and cute) in a way that anyone can approach, even though I suspect there’s more depth hidden here, perhaps if I keep following these map routes.

You can download the demo for Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers on Steam now.