Another last-minute demo that I stumbled upon because of Bluesky and Twitter. It is nice to see that Twitter, once in a blue moon, can sometimes shine a light on gaming.

Anyway, this week is Sephiria

Sephiria is a top-down action roguelike from Team Horay. The game was released onto the PC at the end of July 2026 and retails (at the time of this post, it’s on sale 40% off)

Bunnyville is in trouble from a cataclysmic threat from the future. The Day of Destiny is a day when buns learn of their destiny; it is divulged from essentially the World Tree that the inhabitants will be absolutely slaughtered. When back in the waking world, it is up to the player to stop the ill-fated attack by attacking first. I love the way Sephiria looks. I think that I am more attached to these pixels because they are bunnies. I love the dialogue when the goofy-looking bunnies of Bunnyville sprite come in close.

I never played Dungreed, but after playing this game, I would like to more than ever.

Gameplay is pretty standard for a top-down action game like this. WASD to move, the mouse to aim the crosshair, space to dash, and clicking the mouse does the attacking thing. Enemies attack along a very noticeable red-highlighted pathway to let the player know exactly where to dodge or parry. Parrying/blocking requires mana to do, and when you have none, it is essentially curtains for the bunny hero.

Which happened a lot because I am, and forever will be, terrible at parrying.

The demo area does a good job of showing the player how navigation and the map system work. Each floor has a set amount of rooms that either have baddies, merchants, artifacts, etc and the map displays when pressing Tab. I love that the map looks hand-drawn, like the player is jotting it down as they are exploring. I also love the ability to hover over and click a specific room to teleport to it without having to make the actual trek back. Very innovative.

Combat is easy: click the mouse button and the baddies’ shield/HP bar goes down until they stop attacking. Dash attacks and heavy attacks do more damage, which prioritizes staying moving and choosing the right time to close the gap. Not really exciting, but the depth comes from the roguelike/lite and backpack minigame, which I enjoy very, very much. If the player meets an unfortunate end at the hands of mole people, this World Tree-adjacent revives, and you start back at square one with the money to upgrade Bunnyville and the player’s arsenal.

Experience is gained when defeating the bad guys, and it is translated into perks that the player can choose from a wide range of elemental types and basic combat efficiency. Fire and ice damage percentages are present, and a version of lightning that I have not necessarily figured out yet how it works, but nonetheless it is interesting enough. Some perks grant, for instance, a hammer that attacks on dash and refills every 6 seconds. Basic aspects like damage, evasion, attack speed, and extra dashes are present as well, making filling out builds a little easier.

The backpack minigame is something that I enjoyed the most. Reminiscent of the Moonlighter series, artifacts are deposited into the backpack, and the player has to move perks around to min-max the value you can get from them; in this case, the artifacts give additional power to the perks in your backpack. It is really fun to take a breather after a battle to see how you can position an artifact that gives a +1 to all perks in the cardinal directions. The backpack is large, but it fills up fast.

I talked a lot, but I really, really, really like Sephiria. I like the setting, and I like the buns. I played it on a whim and was left wanting more. The perks and artifact system has me theorycrafting even when I am not playing the game. The game is super affordable, and it looks like there is a lot of content to see. I am looking forward to buying and playing Sephiria.