Shogun Showdown

Lore & Background

The player in Shogun Showdown is a samurai on a quest to kill the shogun, which has caused a cataclysmic event to ruin the earth and send forth shadowy forces. These shadowy forces are generally ashigaru warriors, and the location of the game is on a series of islands representing islands in feudal Japan.

Battles are fought on a one-dimensional track of 5 to 9 spaces. Each turn, the player may perform actions such as moving forward one square, turning around, using a skill, preparing an attack or action, or using queued attacks and actions (maximum of 3). Some attacks and actions do not use up the player's turn, and attacks can be freely organized or removed from the queue. After the player acts, enemies act on their turns with similar movement and attack options. Strategy comes from knowing ahead of time what the enemy will do on its next turn.

Attacks and actions come from a set of tiles collected throughout a run. Each character starts with two basic attacks, and players may collect other tiles from shops and randomized events. Tiles can be upgraded in several ways, such as reducing cooldown or increasing base damage. Each character also starts with a skill separate from the tile set. Between battles and runs, the game features a node-based map with randomized shops and enemies. After each run, players can unlock new characters, tiles, and skills. Upon successful completion of a run, the game can be played on the next hardest difficulty.

Reader's Guide

Shogun Showdown was developed by Roboatino, a solo game developer named Mirko. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Mirko taught himself Unity and began prototyping a deck-building game. Over the next year, he developed the left-right movement scheme and posted an alpha build to itch.io in May 2022. YouTube content creator Retromation became a fan of the early build, and his videos helped popularize the game early in its development. Mirko was still working full-time as a software developer and designing the game in his spare time until Goblinz Studio signed Roboatino, allowing Mirko to switch to part-time, then full-time, development. The publisher allowed Roboatino to hire Oscar di Mondogemello to write the score, while additional pixel art was drawn by Brandon Schenk and Camille Blinot. Gamera Games joined as publishers to the Chinese market. On April 4, 2023, a free version titled Shogun Showdown: Prologue was released on Steam with access to 3 combat locations and a small subset of tiles. The full game entered early access on Steam in June 2023 and was part of Steam Next Fest. Northernlion played the game several times on Twitch and posted videos to his YouTube fanbase. Development continued for about a year and a half after early access, and the game was released on all platforms on September 4, 2024. Roboatino did the Nintendo Switch port itself, while Entalto Studios handled the PlayStation and Xbox ports. The game received generally favorable reviews, with PC Gamer praising the combat and Rock Paper Shotgun lauding the exceptional turn-based combat, gorgeous visuals, and refreshingly simple mechanics. Nintendo Life called the Switch version must-play and noted the combat felt like a rhythm game.

Did You Know?

• The game was developed by a solo developer named Mirko under the studio name Roboatino.
• An alpha build was posted to itch.io in May 2022.
• The free prologue version was released on Steam on April 4, 2023.
• The full game entered early access in June 2023.