Reptilian Rising is a retro turn-based strategy RPG where figures throughout history face off against a rising reptilian race. Developed by a team of three different studios—Gregarious Games, Robot Circus, and Hyper Luminal Games—and published by Numskull Games, Reptilian Rising was released on April 23rd, 2026. As a retro themed tactical tabletop game, players must use a squad of well-known figures to defend against a reptilian race. Capturing time gates in each mission serves as your main objective, but of course there will be tactical combat and plenty of strategy along the way. Perks, classes, and hero powers are some of the tools that make each hero feel unique. A touch of roguelite elements for permanent progression also exists as the shop opens between eras, allowing you to upgrade perks and purchase powerful passive effects.
Upon first glance, Reptile Rising looks a little rough. With slightly cheap comedy and lacking top-notch visuals, my initial impressions were not very positive. However, though some things could be improved, it is still a decent tactical strategy game. I felt that the actual gameplay elements, though somewhat simple in execution, are well done. The roguelite aspect of the game helps make the game feel not as narrow in scope, though still could use some widening of possibilities. The poor visuals are intentional as they fit with the retro action figure theme the game has and became a part of the game’s charm. Overall, Reptilian Rising is somewhere between okay and good, and leaning slightly towards the good side in my opinion. So, get your action figures ready, because its time to discuss Reptilian Rising!
Heroes throughout History vs a Reptilian Cult
The gist of the story is that a reptilian cult made up of dinosaurs (not reptiles), reptile creatures, dragons (maybe not reptiles?) and occasional hybrids which are actually just robots (hybrid between reptile and robot?) is trying to take over the world throughout time. The game spans multiple eras—like the Crusade era and the Atomic era—and in each one, your squad of heroes has to fight off the reptiles. These heroes come from across history, time travelling to help out in the fight. A squad could be made up of Cleopatra, Albert Einstein, Robin Hood and Spartacus, with a roster of 30 different heroes in total.
Both heroes and reptiles take on the form of old action figurines—the retro kind in a hollow plastic square with a cardboard back. These still exist now I’m sure, but the quality of how they look is more reminiscent of something from an older time. The figures sit on a tabletop board where all the tactical and strategy gameplay unfolds. The game certainly has a nostalgic theme, complete with a tape player for music and somewhat low quality graphics. It feels like I’m a young child again, playing a boardgame with friends. This may also be the reason why the story outside of the gist above gets a little nonsensical. You can collect cards during missions that expand the story, but I wouldn’t expect the overall lore to feel crisp or clean.
In each mission, your main objective stays the same—take over the three time gates scattered across the board. These crystals are portals for both heroes and reptiles to come through, allowing for more units on either side. After taking over a time gate, you are then able to summon more heroes from your collection at the cost of time energy. Time energy is perhaps the most important resource in the game. Time energy has multiple uses, and you can earn it through various actions. Defeating enemies and capturing time gates are some of the main ways. The reptiles also have a form of time energy, though theirs works a bit differently. They passively gain the energy from purple dies on the board, and once full, it will summon the overlord, a difficult boss enemy. These dies can be destroyed.
There are two phases in each round—a hero phase and a reptile phase. Each character on the board can perform one move and one action. Common actions are of course attacking and defending, but other interactions also count, such as claiming a time gate. Your squad of heroes earns XP together, which levels up the whole team. After gaining a level, each hero can acquire a perk. Perks are passive effects that increase that heroes power, such as adding poison to their attacks or increasing their backstab damage. The perk selection is random, but some are specific for a certain class. On levels 2 and 4, the heroes will learn a hero power. These are powerful abilities and are unique for that hero. Performing hero powers costs time energy. Players will need to be strategic with their time energy usage.
Heroes have a limited number of lives. If defeated in combat, players can resummon heroes at a time gate, though they will be missing a life from then on. Once they use up all their lives, they’re no longer available to summon. Though this wouldn’t matter too much in a single mission, heroes lives and HP persists into following missions. Heroes low on HP can retreat at time gates to regain health. This is probably a better solution than letting them lose a life. This will also refund some of the time energy used to summon them, which may let you summon a different hero in their spot.
There are four different classes—scout, warrior, elite and heavy. Each class has their own traits, such as scouts having more movement capabilities and heavy units having increased HP. Heroes can be melee or ranged, with ranged heroes being slightly different depending on which era they come from. You can add new heroes to your collection during missions. There is a portal on the board that allows you to recruit a new hero out of a selection of three. You can activate a hero synergy by fielding multiple heroes who share a trait, such as coming from the same era or belonging to the same class. This will provide a passive effect during that mission, such as Crusade heroes having resistance to fire attacks.
After taking a time gate, reptile reinforcements will pop out of tunnels. Blocking tunnels prevents this from happening. It might be useful to strategically place your units to be able to block tunnels before claiming a time gate. Once you take all three time gates, the objective then becomes to defeat the remaining units. Once this is completed, victory is yours and you are rewarded gold and obsidian. I’ll discuss their use in the next section. You can also complete a side objective to earn increased gold and obsidian. These side objectives include things like collecting insignias from defeated enemies or destroying eggs before they hatch. If you are able to, it might be worth while to complete them.
Overall, the tactical and strategic gameplay of Reptile Rising is well done. It sounds more complicated in writing, but is quite simple once you have an understanding. The game lets you set your own difficulty during missions, so players are free to choose the level of challenge they want. Personally, I’m not too good with strategy and tactics, so it was nice to have a challenge and still feel like I was mowing down reptiles at different times during my play through. This was especially apparent during overlord battles, as they can be a little tricky no matter what difficulty you set. Reptilian Rising has a decent set up for their gameplay and its hard to argue against it. Sure, it might not be on the levels of Into the Breach or XCOM, but it is still an enjoyable experience nontheless.
Outside on the Tabletop
When not in a mission, there are a few things that players can view on the table, including the roguelite elements that I will discuss in this section. First though is the mission selection screen. Reptilian Rising has 15 total missions and 5 overlord battles across 5 eras, culminating to the final battle. Players need to jump from era to era, starting in the Crusade era, and complete its 4 missions, including the overlord battle. You get a checkpoint save as soon as you begin a new era. If defeated at any point during that era, your progress will reset back to the checkpoint. However, any unlocked perks, time tech, upgrades and collectibles will stay. What is learned is earned. This is where the roguelite elements come into play.
The shop opens when starting a new era or returning to a previous checkpoint. As noted earlier, missions reward you with both gold and obsidian. You can spend gold to upgrade perks, boosting their effects from one to three stars. For example, the reptile lethality perk gives a 5% increase to damage against reptiles. After upgrading with gold though, the damage increase goes up to 20%. Keep in mind though that perks can be class specific and also not guaranteed when leveling up. It might not be the best idea to spend all your gold to fully upgrade specific perks and instead spread out the funding. You can also view locked perks and see what you need to unlock them, along with a tidy list of your collected hero classes.
Obsidian, the other currency, lets you purchase time tech. Time techs are powerful passive effects that modify many parameters in the game and improve your chances. Obsidian is a rarer resource than gold, so you need to spend it wisely. These effects can be an increased number of lives for your heroes, increased number of initial hero summons, and increase time energy storage capacity. Just like perks, they upgrade from one to three stars, though many effects remain locked at first. You open them up by clearing eras or completing enough missions.
Upgrading perks and time techs bring in the roguelite elements that I like. If I feel like I could do better during a run, I may let my heroes die, resetting my progress but keeping the gold and obsidian gained. I like the idea and generally don’t have too many complaints. I do think the game could improve a few things. The biggest issue for me is that the new recruitable heroes during missions are fixed. Before starting a mission, you can see what choices you will have for new recruits. Instead, I wish it was a randomized selection of heroes. Each run would stand out since you never know which squad you’ll get. Sure, you can pick a different hero of the selection of three, but already knowing what you can get is kind of boring.
On the flip side, I can see why they did the hero selection like this. Some heroes simply feel more powerful than others. The idea is to introduce the more powerful heroes later on, that way your squad feels ready for the final battle. However—and I admit this might be my own bias—I’d personally prefer a more RNG‑driven approach with better hero balancing. Sure, some heroes will inevitably still be more powerful than others. If you’re lucky enough to pull it as an option, then of course you’ll end up taking it. As long as no hero feels like a “requirement” to have on your squad, I think it would be more enjoyable.
Another wish I have is to not have most upgrades locked behind progression. Again, it feels like it falls in line with the more powerful ones being unlocked later on. I’d much rather have slightly more balanced perks and time techs, allowing for more unique runs. I suppose what I am probably wanting is more in the way of a roguelite, which Reptilian Rising is not trying to be. Yes, it has roguelite elements, but at the end of the day, it is not a roguelite. I suppose I’m just wishing it is something its not, but it did hinder my overall enjoyment of the game. I wanted a blend of both game genres, but instead only got a dash of the one. It feels too narrow in its current state, as if my playthrough will mirror everyone else’s because of what’s available and what’s still locked.
Retro Visuals and Corny Comedy
Before concluding, I want to discuss the visuals and “comedy”. As mentioned, the game has a retro theme. The aesthetics from the low quality action figures to the music are reminiscent of an older time. Visually, the game looks rough around the edges, and I believe that this is intentional. I like how the game’s setting is entirely on a table that stays visible even during a mission. I like that the low quality action figures feel reminiscent of a collection I might have as a child. For me, these added to the game’s charm. Though janky at first, I quickly just got used to the visuals. However, this certainly won’t appeal to everyone. If you want your games to have a polish to them, then perhaps this one might not be for you.
Now, the “comedy” on the other hand is as you’d might expect. This usually comes in the form of the little quips and voice lines the heroes say, and they say them quite often. I quickly got tired of hearing Sir George brag about delivering royal butt‑kickings, Charles de Gaulle claiming his attacks were, how you say, fragged, and Spartacus dropping a full Cardi B okurrr. It’s corny, cringey and simply too much. I’m not really sure who this comedy is for, but it is not for me. It feels ironic to critique the game about its comedy given the context of the rest of the story, but I think it might just be a slight issue with the writing overall. Sure, I can be fine with a nonsensical story, but I would have loved a bit more polish in this regard. At least reduce the character voice lines!
Overall though, Reptilian Rising isn’t the worst game out there. I’d argue it has more positives than negatives and receives a decent score in my books. Sure, it may not compare to the popular tactical strategy turn based games out there. I’m aware of this even as generally not the biggest fan of the genre. Improvements can be made. I’m not a fan of the comedy, but outside of that, I think the game has a charm to it. It almost feels like a hidden gem. In fact, at the time of writing, there are less than 10 reviews on its Steam page. At the very least, I hope Reptilian Rising gets more recognition. Reviews are probably the best way for developers to hear from their player base and improve their games. With more reviews, the developers can have a better idea of what is and is not working here.
Thank you for reading, now go fight some reptiles!
