By Aimee Rogers 
A demo for Secret of Circadia just dropped on Steam, and if you’ve been waiting for someone to finally mash roguelite deckbuilders together with city building, well, your wait is over.
The game presents itself as a retro pixel-styled RPG deckbuilder that layers light city management mechanics onto roguelite combat systems. The pitch is deliberately quirky and deliberately cute, which is either going to be exactly your speed or make you recoil in horror. There’s no middle ground here.
What makes Secret of Circadia stand out from the usual deckbuilder pack is its willingness to combine genres. You’ll build cards and manage combat encounters like you would in any respectable roguelike deckbuilder, but you’re also maintaining some version of a settlement or city between runs.
The retro aesthetic feels appropriate for a game this conceptually ambitious. Pixel art has become the safe harbor for indie developers attempting something structurally risky, and Secret of Circadia isn’t trying to reinvent the visual wheel.
If you’re the type who boots up every deckbuilder that ships and you’ve already exhausted Slay the Spire, Monster Train, and their respective clones, you owe it to yourself to take this demo for a spin.
Steven Andrew