Long before some of Steam’s biggest rogue games had thousands of reviews and millions of players, they were sitting on itch.io waiting for people to find them. Some started as free browser games, others were made for game jams, and a few spent years being played and developed there before eventually making the jump to Steam.
Itch.io has always been a good place for developers to test an idea without knowing quite where it might end up. Sometimes that means a small project stays small. Other times, something made for a weekend game jam or uploaded for free eventually turns into a game that almost everyone who plays roguelikes recognizes.
So, we’ve gone back to the beginning of 10 familiar rogue games to see what they looked like before they became Steam hits. From early prototypes and game jam entries to free versions of games that would eventually reach millions of players, this is where they started…
1. Vampire Survivors
It’s difficult to imagine Vampire Survivors as a game nobody knew about. Long before millions of people were playing it, developer Luca Galante uploaded a free browser version to itch.io hoping that maybe 100 people would play it and leave some feedback. At the time, it was essentially a hobby project rather than the beginning of one of the biggest indie games of the decade.
That original version already had the basic idea that would eventually become so familiar…automatically attacking enemies, increasingly enormous hordes, and upgrades that gradually turn your character into something capable of clearing most of the screen.
Vampire Survivors arrived on Steam Early Access nine months later, on December 17, and its audience quickly started growing. What began as a small itch.io experiment eventually helped popularize an entire style of roguelike and inspired countless games trying their own take on the formula.
2. 20 Minutes till Dawn
Before 20 Minutes Till Dawn, there was 10 Minutes Till Dawn. Developer Flanne released the free prototype on itch.io, giving players a much shorter version of the idea that would eventually become the full game.
The basic formula was already there. You had to survive increasingly large hordes of enemies while choosing upgrades and putting together a build capable of lasting until the timer reached zero. Unlike Vampire Survivors, attacks had to be aimed and fired manually, giving the game more of a twin-stick shooter feel despite the obvious similarities between the two.
The prototype proved popular enough for Flanne to expand the idea, doubling the survival time and adding considerably more characters, weapons, upgrades, and build possibilities. 20 Minutes Till Dawn reached Steam Early Access on June 8, 2022, but you can still play 10 Minutes Till Dawn on itch.io today and see where it started.
3. Backpack Hero
Backpack Hero first appeared on itch.io in 2022, and its inventory-based approach to dungeon crawling quickly gave it something that helped it stand out from the growing number of roguelikes being released around it.
Rather than simply finding better equipment and equipping whatever has the biggest numbers, almost everything revolves around how you arrange items inside your backpack. Weapons, armor, potions, and other objects can interact with whatever is sitting beside them, turning inventory management into the main part of building your character.
Developer Jaspel continued updating that original itch.io version as more people found it, before taking the game to Kickstarter and eventually Steam Early Access later that year. The finished game grew considerably from those early builds, adding more characters, items, enemies, and an entire town-building system, but the clever backpack mechanic that first caught players’ attention on itch.io remained at the center of everything.
4. Loop Hero
Loop Hero can trace its beginnings back to Ludum Dare 45, where developer Four Quarters created LooPatHerO around the theme “Start with Nothing.” An expanded version was later uploaded to itch.io, with the team openly asking players for comments and criticism while they continued developing the idea.
Even at that stage, the foundations of Loop Hero were recognizable. Your hero automatically traveled around a looping path and fought enemies, while cards allowed you to place mountains, forests, villages, and other tiles around the world. Progress came from deciding how dangerous to make that loop while gathering enough resources and equipment to keep going.
Four Quarters continued expanding the concept before Devolver Digital eventually published Loop Hero on Steam in March 2021. The final version was considerably larger, but that unusual mixture of automated adventuring and manually building the world around your hero was already taking shape back on itch.io.
5. Peglin
Long before its full release, Peglin was already bouncing balls around pegboards on itch.io. Red Nexus Games used the platform to distribute and regularly update an early demo, with devlogs documenting new orbs, relics, bosses, pegboards, and plenty of balance changes as development continued.
The idea was already an unusual one. Peglin takes the basic satisfaction of Peggle and turns it into a roguelike RPG, with every shot bouncing between pegs to determine how much damage you deal. New orbs and relics gradually shape your build, while different pegboards make choosing where to fire just as important as what you’re firing.
That demo continued evolving throughout 2021 before Peglin entered Early Access on itch.io and Steam simultaneously in April 2022. By the time the full game arrived in August 2024, what started as a much smaller prototype had become one of the best-known examples of turning an existing game mechanic into a roguelike.
6. Streets of Rogue
Before Streets of Rogue arrived on Steam, Matt Dabrowski had already been developing and sharing the game through itch.io and GameJolt. Those early versions introduced the basic idea behind what would eventually become one of the most open-ended roguelikes around.
Rather than simply fighting through procedurally generated levels, Streets of Rogue gives you objectives and then largely leaves you to decide how to complete them. You can fight, sneak, hack computers, talk your way through situations, destroy walls, poison ventilation systems, or come up with something considerably less sensible if the opportunity presents itself.
The game continued growing as Dabrowski added characters, abilities, items, and increasingly complicated interactions between its systems. Steam Early Access eventually brought it to a much larger audience, but its earlier itch.io period was an important part of that development, giving players access while the chaotic sandbox was still being built around them.
7. Windowkill
Windowkill started even smaller than most of the games here. Developer torcado created the original version in just 72 hours for Ludum Dare 54 in 2023, before releasing it on itch.io and continuing to develop the idea into something much bigger.
It’s a twin-stick shooter where the game window itself is part of the problem. The edges constantly close in around you and shooting them pushes the window back across your actual desktop. Enemies and bosses can appear in their own windows too, turning something that you’d normally never think about while playing into one of the game’s main mechanics.
The original jam version is still available through itch.io, making it particularly easy to see where everything began. Torcado spent the following months expanding it with new characters, weapons, upgrades, bosses, and mechanics before Windowkill received its full Steam release in February 2024.
8. Die in the Dungeon
Die in the Dungeon began as a small game jam project in February 2021, long before its dice started appearing in front of a much larger audience on Steam. Developers ATICO released the early version on itch.io and continued working on the concept in their spare time over the following years.
Instead of building a deck of cards, you build one out of dice. Different dice can attack enemies, defend your character, heal damage, or strengthen other dice, with their position on the board creating combinations that can completely change how effective they are.
That central idea was already strong enough to attract plenty of attention on itch.io, and it eventually developed into the free Die in the Dungeon: Origins before the much larger game followed. Die in the Dungeon finally reached Steam Early Access in February 2025, four years after the original jam entry, with considerably more dice, enemies, relics, and ways to build each run around them.
9. Slice & Dice
Slice & Dice took a much longer route to Steam than most of the games on this list. Developer Tann released the full game on itch.io in June 2021, and it remained available there and on mobile for almost three years before finally arriving on Steam in March 2024.
The game puts five heroes under your control, but their abilities are determined by the six sides of their individual dice. Each turn lets you roll those dice before deciding which results to keep, reroll, and eventually use, turning every fight into a mixture of probability and working out how to make the best of whatever you’ve been given.
Years of updates meant the version that eventually reached Steam was far larger than that original itch.io release, with an enormous collection of heroes, items, enemies, modes, and difficulty modifiers. Steam introduced Slice & Dice to plenty of new players, but itch.io users had already been rolling those dice for years.
10. Path of Achra
Path of Achra was already available for free on itch.io while developer Ulfsire was preparing its eventual move to Steam. Early versions let players experiment with the same character-building systems that would later become the main reason the finished game developed such a dedicated following.
It’s a much more traditional roguelike than most of the games here, with turn-based movement and combat taking place across compact levels filled with enemies. The real depth comes from creating your character, combining different cultures, classes, religions, powers, and equipment to put together builds that can become ridiculously powerful when everything starts working together.
Ulfsire continued developing the itch.io version as Path of Achra moved into Steam Early Access in May 2023. Its 1.0 release followed a year later, and the game has since earned thousands of overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews. Not bad for something players were once able to discover for free on itch.io.
Every Game Has to Start Somewhere
It’s easy to look at these games now and forget how small some of them started. Vampire Survivors was a hobby project hoping to find a few players, Windowkill was made in 72 hours for a game jam, and Slice & Dice spent almost three years on itch.io before it ever appeared on Steam.
They all took very different routes to get there, but the ideas that eventually made them stand out were usually already there in those early versions. Some just needed more time, more content, and considerably more people to find them.
With developers still uploading prototypes, jam entries, and complete games to itch.io every day, there’s a good chance another future Steam hit is already sitting there just waiting to be discovered.