Mad King Redemption puts roguelite progression under a beat ’em up
3 min read
A brawler is a genre that traditionally ends when you run out of quarters. This one keeps the run and hands the next one better tools.
A brawler that remembers the last run
The Kingdom has fallen to the Mad King, who used forbidden magic trying to resuscitate the queen. The powers of life and death were too big to handle and the King lost his sanity. You slay hordes through careful button smashing, faithful to a brawler, with roguelite elements underneath.
The tension in that combination is real and worth naming. A classic beat ’em up is a test of a fixed skill: the moveset is the moveset, and getting better means you got better. A roguelite is a test of adaptation: the build changes, and getting better means reading what you were given.
Putting them together means the game has to keep both honest. If the upgrades are strong enough, the brawling stops mattering and the run becomes a slot machine. If they are too weak, they are decoration on a game that was already finished.
The pitch says upgrade your heroes and unlock multiple skills, which suggests progression sits across runs as well as inside them. That is the safer of the two options — permanent unlocks widen what a run can be without deciding it in advance.
Why the moveset carries the whole thing
What makes a good combat system is the reference that matters most. A brawler has fewer inputs than almost any other action genre, so every one has to be legible on sight and distinct in feel — and the enemies have to be designed as questions those inputs answer.
Roguelikes, persistency and progression is the other half, and specifically the argument about what should carry between runs. Persistent power makes a game easier over time; persistent knowledge makes the player better. Games that pick the second age much more gracefully.
Shovel Knight’s signature moves is worth reading for the pixel-art side of the same problem. A 2.5D brawler has to communicate hitboxes through animation alone, and a move that reads clearly at a glance is worth more than one that is mechanically clever.
What you actually get
Mad King Redemption is by SECRET MISSION, published by Pixel Doors, out now in Early Access on Windows and Mac since 14 May 2026. It is filed under Action, Adventure, Indie and Strategy.
Early Access is the right shape for this one. The balance between the brawling and the roguelite layer is exactly the kind of thing that needs a lot of players hitting it before the numbers settle, and the developers are running a public roadmap with playtests.
If a 2.5D brawler with a run structure is the draw, Mexican Ninja is the direct sibling on this list — the same genre pulled toward speed and absurdity instead of medieval tragedy.
