By Aimee Rogers 
The autoshooter roguelike has become a crowded lane. Games like Brotato and Vampire Survivors have perfected the formula of constant movement paired with screen-clearing firepower, leaving little room for mechanical innovation. Enter Stonecall, a top-down roguelike that inverts the fundamental rule that you attack by standing still.
The demo is now available on Steam, and it presents an interesting constraint for a subgenre built on perpetual motion. You descend into the Stone Vault, where awakened stone golems await. The gimmick forces you into positional play. Instead of circling enemies while your character auto-fires, you’ll plant yourself and manage your position with surgical precision. Movement becomes a tactical decision rather than a constant state.
Beyond the core mechanic, Stonecall leans into relic synergies and crafting systems. Sentinel bosses guard each floor, and the game promises secrets worth uncovering. It’s the usual roguelike promise, but the stationary attack system should create genuinely different moment-to-moment decisions than you’re accustomed to.
What makes Stonecall interesting is how directly it challenges one of the genre’s core assumptions. Most autoshooters are built around movement. Dodging attacks, weaving through enemies, and constantly repositioning are part of the experience. Stonecall asks what happens when you take that away. Whether the idea works will come down to enemy design, pacing, and how much depth the game can create without relying on constant movement.
Steven Andrew