- Spreading indie love with anniversary bundles! - 27 May 2026
Today marks the 2-year anniversary of Rack and Slay! Back when I started the project I didn't dream of getting anywhere close to 500 very positive reviews. This journey will forever hold a special place in my heart and I'm super grateful to everyone who gave the game a go! ♥️New BundlesThat said, the games industry as a whole and indie dev in particular are becoming an increasingly tough business. Visibility is everything, but getting a piece of the pie gets harder every day with more and more games launching, some bringing much bigger budgets to the table, without much more space to share the spotlight for the "true tiny passion-project indies". So while Rack and Slay isn't a massive hit by any means, I feel like I was fortunate (and buffed through an awesome job by 2 Left Thumbs) to reach at least a few eyeballs with these billiard balls.Hence, bundling with other small games that des…
- Billiards double feature + new game demo! - 1 May 2026
The genre of billiards roguelikes remains on the rise with the very fun Midnight Billiards joining the ranks very recently, now available in a bundle with Rack and Slay!Billiards Roguelike Double FeatureTopdeck Automat Demo🤖🖨️👽In other news, Rack and Slay team has a brand-new demo out for their new game just in time for Steam Deckbuilders Fest next week!Topdeck Automat fuses auto-battler + roguelike deckbuilder in a wacky sci-fi setting.Every single wishlist and demo play helps, so thank you for taking a peek. 🙏All the best, Fabian
- New bundles and a new game! - 24 February 2026
Hi! I'm excited to announce Rack and Slay has recently joined forces with two other awesome games in the billiards-ish physics roguelike space: Check out the "Pool Roguelikes" bundle featuring Drop Pockets, as well as "Rack n' Flick" with Flick Shot Rogues.New BundlesBoth those games are tons of fun and should appeal very much to you if you like Rack and Slay!Wishlist Topdeck Automat 🤖🖨️👽In other news, the team of 2 behind Rack and Slay is collaborating again and making a new game!This time you're a brave printer robot, hacked and reprogrammed to fend off the alien invasion.Every single wishlist helps, so thank you very much for checking out our new game. 🙏P.S. There's a playtest coming soon and you can pre-register right now on the Steam page!All the best, Fabian
- 2026 Publisher Sale - 7 February 2026
Today kicks off the big 2 Left Thumbs Publisher Sale!Explore the full event page to scope out loads of discounts, free games, bundles and more! Rack and Slay is 40% off!Be sure to check the Bundle List for any additional discounts that may be available to you NEW RELEASEYesterday saw the release of Underboard, a new team-based tactical roguelike autobattler!(The lead artist of which did the awesome custom art for this sale!) COMING SOON 4 more games have received official release dates! Each of which offers a public demo.Dice A Million - Dice-rolling Deckbuilder Roguelike - February 25thCrawling Angels - Physics-based Puzzle Horror - March 13thWasteland Bites - Survival Horror Food Truck Manager - April 3rdBesmirch - Survival Horror Farming Sim - May 11thWHAT ELSE?There were too many announcements this year to include in store page post.Check out this news post with EVERYTHING related t…
- Patch 1.29 - Spanish translation added! - 10 September 2025
Spanish + SaleSurprise! Thanks to the efforts of Alberto Pensado I was able to add a Spanish translation. The game now has a total of 9 languages available and I'm super happy so many folks are able to experience it in their preferred one! To celebrate, the game is also on sale right now! ❤️As always, if you find any issues or have notes for the Spanish version, please let me (and thereby Alberto) know and we'll do our best fixing anything that comes up.New game? 👽⚔️🤖In other news, and maybe less of a surprise, while I'm super glad with the number of players Rack and Slay found, I'm working on a new game I'm very excited about! It'll be pretty different, but definitely one for the roguelike enjoyers again. If you'd like to keep up to date and be among the first to learn more about it, feel free to follow the usual places!DiscordBlueskySteamAll the best, Fabian
- 2025 Publisher Sale - 7 February 2025
Today kicks off the big 2 Left Thumbs Publisher Sale! Explore the full event page to scope out loads of discounts, free games, bundles and more! How about a FREE game?! Croak Crusader: Spawn of the Spore Spectre launched TODAY, and is available 100% for free! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2997920/Croak_Crusader_Spawn_of_the_Spore_Spectre/ This free title introduces the general gameplay, protagonist and antagonists of the upcoming (paid) release, Croak Crusader: the Champion of Canada. Be sure to add that to your Wishlist! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152060/Croak_Crusader_the_Champion_of_Canada/ COMING SOON Very VERY soon! Novus Orbis is a combo-based roguelike deckbuilder, set to release into Early Access on February 10th. There's already dozens of hours of content, and the game will only be getting deeper and more varied from here! https://store.steampowered.com/app/243733…
- Patch 1.28 - Russian translation added! - 11 January 2025
Hey folks, happy new year! 🎊 First of, a little celebration: The game broke through 400 reviews! That's way more than I ever anticipated to reach, so it filled me with a lot of joy to see this by the end of last year. THANK YOU SO MUCH! ❤️ The highlight of today's small patch is another new language. Thanks to the incredibly generous support of Ladush, a fan of the game, the game is now available in Russian and with that in 8 total languages! Patch notes (v1.28) Added Russian translation. Adjusted the tile size of some of the new floors added last update. Fixed more translation typos and text rare box size issues. All the best, Fabian
- Patch 1.27 - Visual Variety Update - 19 December 2024
Hi folks! Today artist extraordinaire Estivador and I have a little holiday surprise for you! 🎁 Speaking of holidays, the game will be on sale for Steam Winter Sale a few hours from now, so that should be a great time to join the fun-loving billiards roguelike family (or tell a friend about it)! ❤️ This patch includes a whole bunch of new graphics for floor tiles (including special boss-level ones), the outer arena walls and funky new hole graphics! 👀 And yes, you can turn the one below off by deactivating the "gore" checkbox. 😬 Patch notes (v1.27) Added a variety of new floor tile graphics. Added special floor graphics for boss levels (5 and 10). Added alternative graphics for the outer arena walls. Added alternative graphics for holes. Changed Twitter links to Bluesky. Come say hi! Fixed several translation typos and minor bugs. Finally, with the year coming to a close I'd like to…
- Rack and Slay is part of TGAGWCAGA 2024! - 13 December 2024
Hi folks! Excited to let you know that just a few hours from now, The Game Awards for Games Who Can't Afford the Game Awards (or in "short" TGAGWCAGA) will be streamed on YouTube showcasing tons of exciting recently released and upcoming indies! 📅 TGAGWCAGA 2024 🕔 Friday, December 13th - 5:00 PM UTC / 6:00 PM CET / 12:00 PM ET 📺 Watch the stream here: https://www.youtube.com/@TGAGWCAGA This is a great opportunity to check out games made by solo devs or tiny teams you may not have heard about yet! The world of indie games is a beautiful space full of creative minds who pour their hearts into deeply personal interactive pieces of art to try bold, wacky new things. This is where it's at! To quote Balatro's Localthunk who (congrats!) just won 3 TGA trophies: "Please, now that I’ve been given my flowers, go play another deserving indie game and spread the love around." ❤️
- Patch 1.26 - Italian is here! - 19 November 2024
Hey folks! Thanks to none other than the amazing tricko, also known as Empty Bottle (who has also been one of the game's earliest playtesters), Rack and Slay is now fully translated into Italian! Speaking of which, make sure to check out tricko's physics brawler Nice To Yeet You! I don't even have to lie when I say it's easily one of my most anticipated fighting games ever and I've already had a ton of fun with it in various playtests and the demo. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3108230/Nice_To_Yeet_You/ Patch notes (v1.26) Added Italian translation. Impaler and Dice Juggler now spawn the first spikes / dice with a 90° offset if you have both, so you can more deliberately target an enemy with one or the other. Fixed a variety of translation issues. As usual, if you have any feedback or ideas, please say hi via discord.gg/ludokultur and talk to me. Also maybe consider leaving a revie…
- Update 1.25 - Multi-language support + macOS - 17 October 2024
Hey everyone, it's time to bring roguelike billiards to new audiences! Today's update adds 5 new languages to the game: German, French, Portuguese (BR), Chinese (simplified) and Japanese. Additionally, macOS support and a few general fixes and optimizations! As usual here's a reminder that if you enjoy the game consider leaving a review. It means the world, helps a lot with Steam visibility and ultimately allows me to put more hours into this game that I love so much. So here's a big thank you to anyone who chipped in! ❤️ To celebrate, Rack and Slay is on sale on Steam (and Nintendo Switch) right now, and is participating in the amazing Roguelike Celebration 2024! Patch notes (v1.25) Implemented localization system and added translations for new languages: German French Portuguese (BR) Chinese (simplified) Japanese Added support for macOS. Improved performance (endless mode is now enabl…
- Patch 1.23 - 1 September 2024
There were a couple hotfixes over the past couple of days that I'm summarizing below in addition to a few smaller tweaks that I just patched. Thanks for the continued feedback and reviews everyone!
- Patch 1.22 - 28 August 2024
Another small one featuring a couple challenge balancing improvements and a little quality-of-life feature that has been requested by the mouse-only crowd for a while. :) Patch notes (v1.22) Boss Rush challenge now starts with +2 shots to account for the higher number of enemies per level and give you a better chance to actually get through them all. Drunken Master backwards shot now never happens the first turn of a level to give you a bit more agency (and not ruin your first-shot abilities). Added option to the advanced settings that allows you to use your mouse scroll wheel to micro-adjust your aim. Fixed environment (mud/ice) tooltips repeatedly triggering in some cases.
- Patch 1.21 - 26 August 2024
Hey everyone! It's been a great week! I'm super happy with the reception of the big update. Thank you so much for the heartwarming comments and feedback in reviews, forum posts and the Discord! ❤️ Today's patch will clean up a bit by improving challenge balancing (a couple of them were a little rough at times, especially on higher difficulties) and making TNT Crates as well as the Culty enemy a little more interesting. There are also a few minor fixes, but nothing major seems broken so far, fingers crossed! Patch notes (v1.21) The Lost challenge now makes healing collectibles heal for 2 instead of 1 to give you a bit more leeway, and you start with Mad Doctor (gain gold for healing) to help you get off the ground. Golden Power challenge now guarantees 2 extra shot-power-providing collectibles every level to help with gold generation. TNT Crates now cause quadruple explosions to make the…
- Update 1.2 - All-around Content Boost - 19 August 2024
Hey everyone, it's major update day! If you enjoy the game and the updates, maybe consider leaving a review. It really makes a big difference! Maybe we can break the 300 reviews milestone soon? 👀 Anyways, as promised this is a big one expanding on all areas of the game so let's get into it! NEW ITEMS Three new items join the compendium! Earthshaker has quite a bit of multi-kill potential and can help move enemies even when they're in tricky-to-reach spots. Bulldozer gives you a new tool to defeat enemies by smashing them head-on into obstacles. Recycler can snowball your collectibles generation and opens up new synergies revolving around picking up lots of stuff. NEW ENEMIES Two new enemies and brand-new enemy modifier! Gobbly eats the first other enemy it touches, which you can use to your advantage, but then you have to deal with a giant, satiated new "friend"... Charmy is such an at…
- Big update and Switch release in 10 days! - 9 August 2024
Hi! Today I'm happy to let you know that work on the big new content update has been going great and the release will coincide with the brand-new Switch version: Both the PC-version update (1.2) and the first Switch release (1.13) will be available on August 19! (In case you're wondering, the new update will come to Switch shortly after and already include any potential hotfixes.) A Big One As I already hinted at in the previous news post, this update will add to pretty much ALL types of content in the game (items, enemies, obstacles, pick-up, challenges, modifiers) and overall be significantly bigger than the first major update (1.1). A few teasers! The new Earthshaker item will literally shake the arena and hold quite a bit of multi-kill potential! The new Gobbly enemy will happily eat another monster ball and might help you take out a dangerous foe in a pinch. But then you have to de…
- Another big content update is coming + Switch - 23 July 2024
Hi! Given the huge optimization improvements from patch 1.13 have been pretty stable, it's been quiet for a little while in terms of quick-fire updates, BUT that doesn't mean I've been idling. In fact I'm knee-deep in working on the next big content update. Today I'd like to drop the first few teasers! First things first though, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the game recently. The review number has been creeping up quite consistently and I'm so grateful to see the game is being well received. Really keeps the indie dev motivation going! ❤️ (Side note: This reception includes the recent article from roguelike afficionado Gideon's Gaming who really got what the game is going for and found it to be "incredibly clever, fast, and easy-to-play".) What's coming? Now let's look at what's coming in the next big update though: New items that shake the arena and smush enemies New enemies…
- Patch 1.13 - 3 July 2024
Hey! Time for another bunch of improvements! The biggest deal here is a rework of how runs are saved which results in way smaller save file sizes (up to a 100x reduction in my testing on high-level endless runs) and much (up to 10x) faster loading times. The new system has been tested with a wide variety of old and new save files, but of course please let me know if you encounter any issues. Thank you!
- Patch 1.12 - 1 July 2024
Hey! Here's another set of improvements for endless mode (which might also help with some particularly broken pre-endless runs). As always, thanks for the feedback and support! :) Patch notes (v1.12) If you have more than 10 item picks, you are now able to randomly roll your remaining ones and immediately leave the shop. (Especially useful for high-level endless runs.) Fixed Wild Bomb bombs sometimes moving too slowly. Fixed out-of-bounds enemies sometimes not getting cleaned up (which could result in turns or levels not ending properly). Optimized lots of explosions being handled simultaneously. Optimized memory footprint when holdings lots of items.
- A favourite coffee-break game Rack and Slay now Steam Deck Verified plus a big update - 28 June 2024
Rack and Slay is a dungeon crawler where you're a billiard ball, and you've got to shoot yourself across every dungeon level to pot all the other very angry balls. It's good fun and now it's even better. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/06/a-favourite-coffee-break-game-rack-and-slay-now-steam-deck-verified-plus-a-big-update
