Today’s Niche Spotlight comes from indie German developer KnotHorn Studio with Once Upon A Tile, a dungeon game with a unique premise.

The intriguing roguelike tasks the player with placing dungeon tiles in strategic locations in order to guide the hero character to victory. 

The game is being reviewed positively in the few weeks that it’s been available to play on Steam, with a 93% overall rating.

Once Upon A Tile is now available for Windows PC (via Steam) costs $17.99, supports multiple languages, and includes family sharing.

Here is a rundown of the game, plus its latest trailer:

A young wanderer is lost in the forests, and accidentally unleashes something evil. A group of strangers need to become friends and find their own path to salvation to lift the curse that has befallen the land.

Once Upon A Tile has you explore ever-changing dungeons guarded by monsters, traps and magical challenges. Perhaps you need to navigate a trap-filled corridor to the end, or defeat a certain amount of monsters or collect enough treasures to make it through alive. The reasons will change, but the goal remains the same – build the dungeon as you explore it, and avoid traipsing over too many traps or monsters you can not defeat yet. This will require a little bit of luck and a whole lot of strategic planning.

While you play as a hero, you do not move directly. Instead, you follow the shortest paths to the newly discovered dungeon rooms you are exploring. This makes for a very unique and challenging game, where every steps and tile you place counts.

Features:

• Endless replayability with procedurally generated dungeon-decks
• Unlockable and upgradable characters
• An engaging, fully voiced storyline depending on which character you choose to play
• Complex mechanics that require you to think carefully, but easy to learn gameplay

This is Niche Spotlight. In this column, we regularly introduce new games, anime, and more to our fans, so please contact us to let us know if there’s a game you want us to cover!