Thirty minutes doesn’t sound all that long until you’re surrounded by several thousand monsters and desperately waiting for three matching magical treasures to turn into something capable of killing them. That’s the situation you’re looking at in Infinite Tao.
Developed and published by solo indie developer insomnia, Infinite Tao is a survivor-style action roguelite set in a world inspired by ancient Chinese immortal cultivation. Your attacks happen automatically, leaving you to concentrate on dodging the ever-growing mob of enemies and, more importantly, figuring out how to turn the collection of magical treasures you’ve accumulated into something completely ridiculous.
Runs last 30 minutes if you can survive that long.
Three of a Kind Gets Considerably More Dangerous
The big twist here comes from Infinite Tao’s auto chess-inspired upgrade system. There are more than 70 Magic Treasures to find, but collecting them isn’t simply about grabbing whatever gives you the nicest numbers. Get three copies of the same treasure and you can combine them into an upgraded version, freeing up space while making your collection considerably nastier.
Then there are synergies. Infinite Tao has more than 20 of them to discover, rewarding you for putting together treasures that work particularly well alongside one another. The result is a build system that’s constantly encouraging you to decide whether you really want that shiny new treasure or whether you should concentrate on finding another copy of something you already have.
Naturally, you’ll be making these decisions while everything on the screen is trying to kill you.
Apparently Saving Money Is Important During a Monster Attack
Spirit Stones give you something else to worry about. You can spend them to search for more Magic Treasures, use them to unlock additional slots and increase your cultivation realm, or simply hang onto them. Saving may initially sound like an odd choice when you’re being chased by an increasingly unreasonable number of monsters, but keeping Spirit Stones earns interest, giving you the chance to build up considerably more wealth for later.
Spend aggressively and you might find the treasure that completes your build right now. Save instead and you could have far more options later in the run. Assuming, of course, there is a later.
You Only Need WASD, Apparently
Actually controlling Infinite Tao is about as straightforward as it gets. Attacks are handled automatically, so movement is controlled entirely using WASD. Your job is to weave between enemies, collect what you need, and somehow keep enough breathing room to survive while your build does all the horrible stuff around you.
That simplicity leaves plenty of room for the auto chess systems to do the heavy lifting. You’re not worrying about aiming several attacks at once. You’re just focused on your Magic Treasures, synergies, Spirit Stones, upgrades, and whether that massive gap between two groups of monsters is actually a gap or an elaborate trap. It’s probably the latter.
Thirty Minutes to Become an Immortal
Infinite Tao originally entered Early Access in November 2022 before receiving its full Steam release on May 8, 2023. It currently has more than 850 Steam user reviews, with 79% of them positive at the time of writing.
It’s the combination of auto chess and bullet heaven ideas that made us choose this one for our daily Rogue Discovery. There are plenty of games where you can spend half an hour watching increasingly absurd attacks obliterate thousands of enemies, but Infinite Tao makes assembling the machine responsible for all that destruction a much bigger part of the fun.
You’re matching treasures, chasing synergies, deciding when to spend your Spirit Stones, increasing your realm, and hopefully creating something powerful enough that the thousands of monsters closing in eventually become their own problem.