This gem surfaces soon
We have it ready, but it is not unsealed yet. Come back when it opens.
Opens on 2026-07-18 (JST)
You spend every run designing skills and the exact conditions that trigger them, then let go completely, and the fight plays out on its own, exactly as well or as badly as you actually planned it.
An auto-battler roguelike made and self-published solo by the circle 定期的な宝物 (Teikiteki na Takaramono). Per Steam's own listing, you never touch the fight itself: everything is decided beforehand, combining base skills with trigger conditions to invent new effects, a skill that costs HP but gets cheaper, one that permanently raises your max HP on a killing blow, one that costs double to fire twice in a row, then sitting back with a coffee to watch the battle you designed play out. Every run reshuffles the enemies, the skills on offer, and the events you meet, and what actually grows stronger from one run to the next is not your character but your own judgment and strategy. AUTOMATON covered it in its own year-end roundup of 'good small-scale domestically-made games of 2025,' praised there for the satisfaction of trial-and-error optimization and floated as a title with real educational value now that programming is a required subject in Japanese schools, and it was shown in person at Tokyo Game Show 2025's Indie Selection 80. Released May 23, 2025 at ¥690, it is Very Positive at about 92 percent over 718 reviews (660 positive, 58 negative), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated assets, and per Steam's own content descriptors, nothing sexual. It supports English and Japanese, and only about 214 of its 718 reviews, some 29.8 percent, are in English, leaving the majority of its audience still in Japan.
Published 2026-07-18
01First, the one feeling
- Per Steam's own listing, the entire game is decided before a single enemy appears: you spend a run combining skills and the exact conditions that fire them, then step back completely, so the tension isn't in reacting to a fight, it's in the quiet certainty (or dread) of watching your own planning get tested in real time.
- Every combination changes the math in a small but real way, a skill that costs HP but gets cheaper, one that permanently raises max HP on a kill, one that fires twice for double cost, so a run becomes a running argument with yourself about which tradeoff is actually correct, settled only by watching the automated fight play out.
- AUTOMATON's own year-end coverage floated this as something worth trying in a classroom now that programming is mandatory in Japanese schools, and once you know that, the game reads less like a roguelike wearing a programming skin and more like an actual argument that designing a system well is its own distinct, satisfying skill.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You want a roguelike where you never touch combat directly, only the skills and trigger conditions you design beforehand, and the payoff is watching your own plan succeed or fail
- You want a genuinely small-scale, self-published Japanese production: a solo circle's title AUTOMATON itself filed under 'good small-scale domestically-made games of 2025,' shown in person at Tokyo Game Show
- You want a Very Positive title (about 92 percent over 718 reviews) that is still genuinely under-discovered in the West: only about 30 percent of its reviews are in English
Not for you
- You want direct, hands-on combat control; here your only input happens before the fight starts, and once it begins you are purely watching
- You want a title already validated by a large English-speaking audience; it is a paid game, not free and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated assets and, per Steam's own content descriptors, nothing sexual, but its audience so far remains mostly Japanese
03The roots of this taste
92% positiveonly 718 reviews — yet almost no one has found it
Auto Rogue Buried gem
Per Steam's own listing, you never touch the fight itself: everything is decided beforehand, combining base skills with trigger conditions to invent new effects, a skill that costs HP but gets cheaper, one that permanently raises your max HP on a killing blow, one that costs double to fire twice in a row, then sitting back with a coffee to watch the battle you designed play out. Every run reshuffles the enemies, the skills on offer, and the events you meet, and what actually grows stronger from one run to the next is not your character but your own judgment and strategy. Made and self-published by the solo circle 定期的な宝物 (Teikiteki na Takaramono), it was covered in AUTOMATON's own year-end roundup of 'good small-scale domestically-made games of 2025,' praised there for the satisfaction of trial-and-error optimization and floated as a title that could even carry educational value now that programming is a required subject in Japanese schools, and it was shown in person at Tokyo Game Show 2025's Indie Selection 80. Released May 23, 2025 at ¥690, it is Very Positive at about 92 percent over 718 reviews (660 positive, 58 negative per Steam's own review API), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated assets, and per Steam's own content descriptors, nothing sexual. It supports English and Japanese, and only about 214 of its 718 reviews, some 29.8 percent, are in English, leaving the majority of its audience still in Japan.
Give it your first passFactorio The critical echo
The origin of this taste: Factorio, Wube Software's 2020 game about, per its own store text, 'building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity,' where the real skill lies not in any single click but in designing a system correctly beforehand and then watching it run on its own. Auto Rogue is not an official Factorio work, and this lineage is a comparison drawn by this site in outside critical commentary (echoing one already made by a Japanese blog covering the game), not a connection stated by developer 定期的な宝物, but it carries the same core idea into a new frame: a combat encounter, not a factory, built entirely in advance and then left to run itself.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- Factorio Root
- Auto Rogue You are here
- Read-and-build games another taste