Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

In a deckbuilding game, you start out with a basic set of cards, then upgrade it over time, seeking synergies and compounding effects. Roguelikes are games where death happens quite often, but each randomized “run” unlocks options for the future. In both genres, and when they’re fused together, the key is staying lean, trimming your deck and refining your strategy so that every card and upgrade works toward unstoppable momentum.

“Lean” does not describe the current scene for roguelike deckbuilder games, but they certainly have momentum. As of this writing, Steam has 2,599 titles tagged by users with “deckbuilding” and 861 with “roguelike deckbuilder” in all languages, more than enough to feed a recent Deckbuilders Fest. The glut has left some friends and co-workers grousing that every indie game these days seems to be either a cozy farming sim or a roguelike deckbuilder.

I, an absolute sucker for deckbuilders for nearly five years, wanted to know why this was happening.