One of the great things that indie games do in the eShop is open a space for all sorts of gamers to have the opportunity to have some fun. While there are plenty of folks out there in search of action, intensity, and challenges, there’s also a significant contingent out there who are looking for something a little more approachable and even casual. The good news is that while most of the time simple puzzle games and things in that vein tend to be the primary laid back options out there, the space has begun to grow, and in the case of Lucky Hunter I think you could argue that space now includes a roguelike strategy title.

Given the preponderance of roguelike deckbuilders and tactical strategy games out there, this is a pretty interesting departure from the norm. Taking a much more passive overall form, you will be choosing what perks and cards you’ll be using, but from there instead of painstakingly working through each battle you’ll be sitting in the passenger seat and seeing how generous the RNG gods are feeling as your cards get randomly distributed on the board, and then automatically play out combat against your enemies.

On the one hand, the relinquishing of specific control over how these battles play out is at least refreshing, and pushes the challenge to success being more about making smart moves to try to improve your chances by using some special cards that will periodically show up. While choosing to add a Shapeshifter to your deck involves taking a chance on the hope it will be randomly positioned to the left of a valuable card worth cloning, when you do manage to copy something powerful it can really turn things around. As you have more successes you’ll then have the opportunity to continue to add new individual cards and sets to your collection as well, ensuring that future runs will continue to have different possibilities as the pool of what you may draw next time as an option for a perk continues to evolve. I do think that this game would work just as well, if not better, as a distraction to play on your phone, but I’ll admit that it ended up at least being more surprising than I thought it would be originally.