Wayward Souls

Wayward Souls is a roguelike action game from Rocketcat Games that offers a surprisingly elaborate combat system on a small screen, with several characters that play quite differently — a knight, a thief, a mage, and others. The controls rely on a virtual joystick for movement and a set of buttons for attacking, dodging, and special abilities, with the game designed to work even without physical buttons, which was no small feat for an action roguelike on mobile at the time. Each run through the dungeon is procedurally generated, and death means returning to the start, so the game is built mainly around mastering combat and gradually improving player skill.

It was released in 2014 as a direct successor to the studio's earlier titles (Mage Gauntlet, Punch Quest) and is a one-time paid game without ads or microtransactions — a model on which Rocketcat Games built its long-term reputation as an independent studio focused on control quality. This emphasis on making sure the touch controls of an action game never feel like a compromise is part of what earned the game recognition from reviewers and players who prefer more demanding titles.

Permadeath and unlockable characters give the game solid replayability despite being a smaller, focused project without ambitions to be a long-term live service. Each character also offers its own playstyle and its own storyline, so repeated runs through the dungeon never feel entirely the same.

Why play it: Suits players who want a genuinely demanding action game on mobile with honest controls and don't mind repeated deaths as part of the progress.