KAZ – Simple Arcade Roguelike That’s Impossible to Put Down

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• DEVELOPER: Kalinarm
• PUBLISHER: HAKURO
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Action Roguelike / Arcade
• RELEASE DATE: July 13th, 2026
• STARTING PRICE: 6,99€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

If you’re looking for a game that takes an incredibly simple idea and somehow turns it into something ridiculously addictive, KAZ might be exactly what you’re after. Just be prepared to give your fingers and wrists a bit of a workout, because once you start chasing high scores, it’s surprisingly difficult to stop.

KAZ is a fast-paced arcade score chaser where every run lasts only a few minutes before convincing you to immediately jump into another. The objective couldn’t be simpler. You move across a small grid using only four directions, avoid enemies and hazards, eliminate anything standing in your way, survive until the timer expires, choose an upgrade, and repeat the process until you eventually fail to reach the required score.

It’s a formula that sounds almost too simple on paper, yet it works remarkably well because of how quickly the game keeps evolving. Every round lasts roughly fifteen seconds, although various upgrades can extend that time while also increasing your score potential. The further you progress, the more chaotic the arenas become, filling with additional enemies, hazards, and opportunities to rack up even bigger multipliers.

Huge amount of builds to experiment with

Rather than relying on traditional character classes, every run revolves around combining weapons, items, spells, buffs, consumables, and even negative effects into increasingly ridiculous builds. You begin each run by selecting one of six weapon types, each offering its own active ability, whether that’s magic, a sword, a bow, or several other options. From there, every completed round rewards you with another upgrade, gradually transforming your build into something completely different from your previous run.

There are well over 110 items to discover, numerous active spells, dozens of buffs, more than 35 curses, and plenty of unlockables that continue expanding the available pool the longer you play. New spells, themes, upgrades, and combinations unlock surprisingly quickly, giving you a constant sense of progression.

What I especially liked is how well the upgrades interact with one another. Some activate only at the beginning of each round, others trigger after hitting walls, while others exist purely to boost your score multipliers or improve your survivability. There’s a huge amount of synergy between different abilities, making experimentation one of the game’s biggest strengths.

The curse mechanic adds another layer of strategy. As you trigger traps or suffer certain penalties, your curse meter gradually fills. Once it’s full, future rewards become negative modifiers instead of helpful upgrades, forcing you to choose the least harmful punishment. Interestingly, curses aren’t always purely bad. Some can unexpectedly open new opportunities or complement specific builds, while others can completely ruin a promising run if you aren’t careful.

It never wastes your time

Thankfully, the game never feels unfair. RNG is balanced well enough that you’re almost always offered useful upgrades, even if they don’t perfectly fit your current strategy. Success comes down much more to adapting your build than hoping for perfect luck. Enemy variety remains fairly simple but does enough to keep each round interesting. Some enemies stand still, others only move under certain conditions, shielded enemies require multiple hits, and environmental traps constantly pressure your positioning.

One feature I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did is the theme system. Unlocking new themes doesn’t just change the background colors, it completely refreshes the visual style of each run with different environments, enemy appearances, and overall presentation. While enemy behaviors remain largely the same, the visual variety helps prevent the game from feeling repetitive.

Visually, KAZ knows exactly what it wants to be. The graphics are clean, colorful, and extremely readable despite the increasing chaos on screen. Even when dozens of effects are flying around, it’s rarely difficult to understand what’s happening. The soundtrack deserves praise as well, perfectly matching the frantic arcade gameplay and making every run feel energetic from beginning to end.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give KAZ is that it never wastes your time. Unlocks arrive frequently, every run feels meaningful, and failure never feels frustrating because you’re constantly learning, experimenting, and immediately thinking about your next attempt. It’s the kind of game where “just one more run” quickly turns into another hour disappearing without you realizing it.

The final verdict

I wouldn’t really call KAZ a traditional roguelike. It feels much closer to an arcade score chaser built around endless replayability. The gameplay stays simple throughout, but the huge number of upgrades, build combinations, weapons, curses, and unlockables gives it an incredible amount of long-term depth.

At the end of the day, KAZ proves that you don’t need complicated mechanics to create an addictive game. Its responsive controls, satisfying progression, endless build variety, fantastic audiovisual presentation, and constantly escalating score-chasing gameplay make it incredibly easy to recommend. Just don’t blame the game when your fingers start asking for a break after chasing one high score too many.

Review copy provided by the publisher