The hero has defeated the demon lord. The kingdom will live happily ever after. Everything is coming up roses for everyone! Wait…not everyone. Not YOU! You…are the defeated Demon Lord! In fact, the hero did such a thorough job on you that only your skull is left…your grumpy, animated skull. The Demon Lord’s power is so strong that survival even as a disembodied head is still possible, lucky for you. And now it’s time to wreak havoc and take your revenge. Shame you don’t have a body to back up all that bravado…
Demon Lord: Just A Block is a unique roguelike turn-based action game from solo indie developer YuWave Studio. Every once in a while we get a wildly unique and interesting game that only a solo developer could come up with. Games like Axiom Verge and The Falconeer (review here) capture our imaginations in ways that even most AAA developers can barely dream of. With the volume of games out there, it’s easy for things to slip by though and more and more often, it’s hard for outstanding indie and solo devs to get noticed at all.
Fortunately, Demon Lord: Just A Block stands out and it’s definitely not something you’re going to want to miss. With dynamic cartoonish graphics, the game immediately captures your attention and doesn’t let it go. As a Demon Lord who only has a head left, you’re understandably bitter and snarky, and it’s that levity and grumpiness that makes Demon Lord so fun to play. You wouldn’t think you could do much as a head but fortunately you’re magical and can move. And if you can move, it stands to reason you can also attack. That means wandering up and headbutting into enemies all over the place. This is a turn-based action game after all and while no one moves until you do, stopping and thinking about your next move is always an option.
Each stage of Demon Lord: Just A Block consists of a series of randomized levels. To complete each level, you’ll simply have to kill all the enemies and to do that, you’ll have to bash them with your disembodied head block. The playfield of each level is a grid of blocks and all the enemies are moving blocks too. Environments are semi-destructible as well, offering a variety of ways to attack your foes. Each hit does damage to them and their hit points are always visible, so it’s just a matter of butting into monsters over and over again until they’re dead. Of course, they’re not going to stand there and take it though. Red arrows appear when they are going to attack and you’ll have to move out of the way or take damage. Pin yourself in a corner with enemies attacking and you’re quickly going to be in trouble. As the Demon Lord, you’ve got some decent hit points but that isn’t necessarily going to cut it if you’re not careful.
The Demon Lord controls fine with either the WASD keys on the keyboard or a controller and holding down a button or thumbstick means you continue to auto-attack as long as the direction is being pressed. This turns Demon Lord: Just A Block into an almost real time game depending on your approach to gameplay. It’s easy to get going and almost forget that this is a turn-based game, especially if you’re overconfident in your abilities until you suddenly move the wrong way and get pile-driven by enemies and bosses. Oh yes, there are bosses and they are much bigger than you. The same rules apply as normal enemies here, but bosses tend to be much more powerful and generate support monsters as you fight them, leaving you struggling to survive if you haven’t gotten many upgrades yet.
After each combat, you’ll find a swirling portal (or several) has appeared, allowing you to move to the next level of the stage. In between each stage though, there are a variety of powerups. While they’re shaped like cards, this isn’t a deckbuilder. Instead it’s more of a true roguelike with randomized levels and powerups shaped like cards. Your choice of portal and options within the portal are what determine how powerful you end up and there are a lot of interesting choices from weapon buffs to supporter monsters to even insta-kill options. You generally want to stick with some consistent complimentary choices in your powerups, but at first, the options are pretty random and only work together to a degree. After you’ve played through a few loops, you’ll start unlocking additional options which allow you to modify what comes up, making you a lot more powerful.
After defeating a main boss, you get bones from them and move on to the next area of the dungeon. There are some multiple pathways and additional items and options floating around the periphery of the main game, but none of that is accessible right away. Instead it’s time to move across the map to the next stage. The difficulty ramps up pretty fast here though, so you’ll have to take time learning enemy attack patterns and thinking about your moves much more to progress. Those bones you collect are useful too, but only when you die and return to your castle.
Luckily, you’re not alone in your endeavors. As you work your way through the dungeon, you’ll find allies that will join you in your castle, starting with Lulu, a sycophantic demon girl who helps you upgrade your powers by spending souls to build up permanent stats and abilities. As you progress you’ll add more people and even animals to the castle, allowing you to train and modify abilities, swap weapons, and plenty more. There’s a steady feeling of progression as you play Demon Lord: Like a Block and it manages to keep the game from getting stale. All these little interactions add up into a cumulative story of the Demon Lord’s rebirth as you piece together what has happened to you bit by bit.
Once you unlock weapons, the game kicks into high gear a bit. Early weapons include skeletal hands, lightning, and even a sword. Each has a unique attack that you’ll have to learn how to use effectively and once you have a weapon, powerups for it appear frequently between stages, allowing you to tailor its abilities to your gameplay preferences. Maybe you like the skeletal hand to attack multiple times, maybe you’d prefer it did random damage. Or you want the lightning bolt to strike after every third movement instead of doing 200% damage after killing an enemy. The sky is the limit, but you’ll definitely have to test out your combinations to find the one best suited to your gameplay style.
There are plenty of clever design elements here as well. Boxes always contain items and can be broken or knocked into the water to claim their contents. Boulders can be rolled into enemies. Some levels had puzzles to solve such as button pressing games or isolated treasure chests to gain additional items. And bosses have a wide variety of attack patterns, some of which are even based on classic games like Go and Minesweeper (that one was tough!)! The bosses can be particularly challenging, even if you’re doing well, so make sure to slow things down and analyze combat lest you be destroyed prematurely.
Demon Lord: Just A Block is simply fun to look at too. The cartoonish graphics are fun and irreverent, the upgrades often make your vicious Demon skull look ridiculous with giant eyes or sunglasses, and the NPCs are silly in the best way. The entire game makes the Demon King seem angry but at the same time hilariously over-the-top. The simple block style and pixel graphics accentuate designs and attacks and make it easy to tell what’s happening even with some of the very busy screens later in the game. Color is used effectively to delineate enemies, and arrows and distortion of squares show attacks. Character animations are clever too and the entire game is a delight to look at – clear, simple, and most importantly enjoyable.
The music accompanying the graphic design matches well too. Tracks are powerful but fun, bouncing along with your disembodied head as you rage impotently and are whisked back to the castle over and over again. Tracks are repetitive but don’t become annoying. While you can absolutely play with the sound off and the game is very easy on resources, the tunes match perfectly and are strong accompaniment to the gameplay. The sound effects are fun too, with lots of smashing and swiping noises and some good sound matching. All in all, it’s a great soundscape to accompany an interesting game that looks amazing.
We’d be lying if we said there were any real negatives here. Usually it’s easy to find fault with a game in at least a few small ways, but aside from requiring some patience and a few initial difficulty spikes (mostly due to not powering up), there are really no issues with Demon Lord: Just A Block. It’s a delightful game that is fun to play in both short bursts and longer sections, the gameplay is creative and freshens up a number of stale mechanics, and it’s quite reasonably priced at only $13, especially for the amount of gameplay you can get out of it. Honestly, this is a must-buy title for pretty much everyone and has wide appeal to both casuals and long time gamers alike. Demon Lord: Just A Block is incredibly fun in every way and has the potential to become a smash hit. Hopefully it does. You’re going to love it…go buy it!
This review is based on a digital copy of Demon Lord: Just A Block provided by the publisher. It was played on a gaming PC, on a work laptop, and on the Steam Deck and played equally well on all three. Demon Lord: Just A Block is currently exclusive to Steam…but we suspect it will be everywhere soon!
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.