Slots & Daggers review: Sometimes, a short game hits the spot

Slots & Daggers, a low-key, fantasy-themed slot machine roguelike, was one of my favorite games last year. That may sound like a complicated description, but the game mixes ideas from deckbuilding roguelikes with slot machines to create an engrossing loop, and there’s steady meta-progression that helps you push further with just about every run. Perhaps the best part is that Slots & Daggers is short: Solo developer Friedemann describes the game as a mini roguelike, and I completed it, including all 12 achievements, in just under six hours. This month, Slots & Daggers came out on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X / S, and it’s been the perfect excuse to revisit it.

Slots & Daggers has a game-within-a-game perspective. On your screen, you’re looking down at a seedy table littered with things like a drink, cards, dice, a knife, and a cigarette on an ashtray, and in the middle of the table there’s an electronic machine, which is the thing you actually interact with. At the beginning of a run, you pick three pieces of equipment to kick off the quest, like a rusty dagger or a poison blade or a shield.

Each turn, you’ll see three spinning slot machine wheels (or up to five with upgrades). You press a button to stop the wheels, and each wheel will stop on a symbol from the equipment you’ve picked up along the way and then do something depending on the symbol. So, for example, if the wheels stop on a dagger, a poison blade, and then a shield, you’ll hit the enemy, apply poison to them, and then get some shields for yourself. Getting three of any symbol in a row lands a critical hit with a celebratory burst of lights and sounds, much like hitting a jackpot on a real slot machine. You’ll also get items that let you respin wheels, which quickly become crucial (and very satisfying) tools to get more opportunities to hit your foes.

Over the course of runs, you’ll also accumulate poker chips that you can spend on modifiers, which are cleverly represented as little things you plug into the “machine” you’re playing the game on, like additional wheels, improved attack and defense, and even a revive. At times, Slots & Daggers does feel artificially difficult, as if you have to lose and upgrade your modifiers to advance. And while I like to feel as if I have some influence over the wheels, at the end of the day, you’re still playing a slot machine, so there’s a fair bit of luck and randomness involved, which can be frustrating.

Jumping back in to Slots & Daggers on the Switch, though, I remembered why I liked the game so much the first time around: Because you’re constantly getting poker chips after each run, you’re constantly able to buy new modifiers that make you stronger, but usually only strong enough to get just a little bit further. Before you know it, you’ve finished the game, left wanting more instead of completely tired out. The journey there is an engrossing loop — and it gives you the dopamine of gambling without any actual risk.

^{Slots & Daggers is out now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X / S.}