The Deadly Path is a roguelike basebuilder that's like Dungeon Keeper on a tile grid

Flesh Pit. Scavenger Hut. Slaughter House. Spirit Void. These are just some of the exciting locations you can excavate in The Deadly Path, a game about digging out a dungeon to appease an elder god while adventurers periodically appear to ruin your day.

In terms of vibes it's half Dungeon Keeper and half Graveyard Keeper, as demonstrated in a trailer set to the version of In the Hall of the Mountain King from The Social Network. But unlike those games it plays on a grid of tiles representing the earth you're carving out to form your unholy domain, which you flip to reveal what might be a handy vein of gold or an opening to the surface raiders will use to access your store of precious minerals and meat.

That's why you need to balance expansion with building an army, recruiting skeletons from the Graveyard and stocking the Barracks with warrior ratfolk. Of course, those things cost resources too, which demand further expansion, and pretty soon you're stuck in a vicious cycle that can only be escaped by making even more vicious soldiers.

You'll also work your way up through the ages, progressing the tech tree from the era of darkness, up through ages of industry, until eventually you can manifest your dark lord and settle the caboose of those pesky heroes once and for all.

"The Deadly Path is a compelling hybrid of resource and building management with intuitive roguelike strategy," said Joe Goddard-Howell of Fireshine Games. "With its 'one more go' appeal and innovative approach to dungeon building, it's easy to become mesmerised by its gameplay and lose hours to the game at a time. We're very confident that The Deadly Path is a game that fans of deep strategic roguelikes will enjoy, and look forward to revealing more on the game in the months ahead."

The Deadly Path is due out later this year, and you can wishlist it now on Steam.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.