Spin Tactics

Spin Tactics is a roguelike engine-builder set inside a slot machine. The reels decide what you start with. Everything after that is yours: what to keep, what to change, and when to stop.

Every run, you build an engine from scratch. Companions fire in the order you choose, Gems change your symbols for the rest of the run, and the board grows as you unlock more of it. Each run gives you different pieces, and the fun is making them work together. Press spin without a plan and the machine wins.

Each spin fills the board. Your Live symbols score, earn gold and drop Gems the moment they land, combo or not. Connect three or more symbols of the same colour and the combo scores when you end the round, from SMALL all the way up to GALACTIC at eleven symbols or more. You decide when to stop spinning and bank what you built.

Each round gives you a limited number of Actions, and every spin and every swap costs one. A spin always triggers your Live symbols, but it also deals a completely fresh board, so whatever combo you had set up is gone. With your last Action it's your call: spin for a new board, or swap to finish the combo in front of you.

Gems are how you rig the board. Change a symbol's colour so it completes a combo it couldn't before. Change its timing so it fires during the spin instead of at the end of the round. Copy a good symbol onto a bad one, add a Gem slot so it can hold more, or trigger it right away. Gems stay on their symbol for the whole run, so a symbol you fix in round two is still earning in round nine.

Then there are the Companions. You equip eight and keep four more in your bag, and there are over a hundred to find. Some get stronger every time a combo lands, some give you gold for Actions you didn't use, and some boost the Companion next to them, so the order you put them in matters. A lot of them need time to scale or a partner beside them, so the earlier you find one, the longer it has to grow. You'll rarely get the Companions you planned for, so you adapt and build around what you find. Anything you don't want, whether it's a Companion, a symbol or a Gem, goes into the Black Hole, and it pays you for it. The best engines earn gold and Gems as well as score. Build only for score and you'll be broke the whole way.

Level up mid-round and you get a new Companion, and Jackpots along the way give you extra rewards. Then the bosses fight back: some drain your score, others take away your spins. A run takes 30 to 60 minutes and ends with a score you can put on the leaderboard.

Finishing a journey earns credits, and credits buy booster packs of Chips and Portals.

A Portal is the hero you start a run with, and it has one to four sockets. The socket colour decides when its Chip fires: yellow for Live, blue for Resolve, green for OnSpin, and white sockets that take anything. Chips are passive effects. Some are simple, like gold or score every time they trigger. Some grow, gaining Power or Score each time they fire. Some pay out the Portal's own gold on an event you choose: when you sell a Companion, when you gain a Gem, or when a Companion triggers.

The fun ones change the other Chips. One doubles whatever sits in the socket to its right. One turns that socket white. One doubles every white Chip you have. Put a gold Chip next to a trigger Chip and you've got an economy running before the first spin, and a four-socket Portal has more builds than you'll ever get through.

Beat the game and Ascension goes up, so every boss asks for more, and it keeps going up for as long as you keep winning.

• Rig the board with Gems: change a symbol's colour, change when it fires, or copy it onto another

• Over a hundred Companions, eight slots, and an order that matters

• The Black Hole: get something back for anything you don't need

• Level up mid-round for new Companions, with Jackpots for extra rewards

• Bosses that fight back by draining your score or taking away spins

• Build the hero you start with from Chips you earn between runs

• Ascension: beat the game and it gets harder, for as long as you keep winning

• 30 to 60 minute runs and online leaderboards

• No real-money gambling, no microtransactions

I've made Spin Tactics on my own over almost two years. If you try the demo, I'd love to hear what you think.