Discovering Crymelight: A Whimsical Action Roguelike I do not know if FuRyu make games that one can easily jump to calling "good" but they are regularly putting out mid-budget (I assume) games that make me go "oh, there's certainly some sauce here." That's certainly how I felt about the Kingdom Heartsian Reynatis (I will defend this prime cut of jank until my dying breath). And now they are back with a game that I instantly have no idea how to pronounce: Crymelight. Is it like crime light? Cry me light? Let me watch the trailer… it's the first one! Crymelight is yet another action roguelike, one that appears to have a Hades style structure to it. Aesthetically, it's anything but, instead taking its cues from pop-up books and the whimsical world of Alice in Wonderland. The protagonist quite literally is named Alice, so it's clearly lifting from the original books here. Crymelight is definitely maximalist in its visual design sensibilities, the environments and set dressings all have a slightly warped, twisted wonderland quality to them, but the nostalgic picturebook quality appeals to me as much as it all is. Watch on YouTube The set up for the story is appropriately dark too. In this take on the classic series, Wonderland is the afterlife, where Alice must face her sins in order to take down the queen and gain her freedom. Action wise, it looks quite similar to Hades in that there's slicing and dicing, moves that have MMO style area-of-effect damage zones, it's hard to comment on much more. There is a deckbuilder-like quality to it too, one that's sort of based on poker, where you build hands providing you certain boons like a faster dash speed charge. You'll also find a, no word of a life, "repentance system," where Alice can confess her sins and "transform them into power." As the game's Steam page explains, "The tears of penitence will become power-up items for you to use," all of this complete with a gacha-pull-esque animation where a wet-eyed Alice sheds a tear to produce said item. It's a lot! And you can have tea parties too! A game of tonal multitudes. Crymelight also has some notable talent behind it, with the writer of classic visual novel Kanon, Naoki Hisaya, penning the story. The dark take on Alice in Wonderland certainly isn't novel, but the vibes on display are enough to draw me in so far. Currently Crymelight is planned for release on November 4th, 2026, and you can wishlist it on Steam now.
