Digimon Story Time Stranger
Digimon Story Time Stranger
Game
Game2016
Dungeon Rats
Developer Iron Tower Studio
A turn-based, party-based RPG set in the Age of Decadence world and focused on squad level tactical combat. Fight your way out of prison mine or die trying. From the Steam store page
187 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Sep 22, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
76
LovedLoved
141 positive · 44 negative
95% range 70–82%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 141 | 44 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
2 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
559 of 724 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 187 · most liked firstThe game started very catchy and promising just to end up in a very frustrating manner for me. I was playing on "normal" level and found the game to be very sour and unbalanced for the following reasons: 1) No tutorial with some very basics of the game just to explain how to invest your points to keep the game more or less balanced; no good explanation for affects of crafting and achemy creation options or how it really works, etc. 2) While on this level the fights supposed to be more or less…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →To simplify the premise real quick: you gotta fight your way out of a prison mine. I've always yearned for prison plots. Movies like Lock Up, The Shawshank Redemption, Bronson, Brawl in Cell Block 99, and Fortress are irresistible to me. Some of my favourite places in gaming are prisons and camps. Say, the ones in The Suffering or Silent Hill 2, obvious Gothic, etc. I love them for the inherent intensity of the predicament and the grime. Maybe it's a pathology since my teachers used to tell me…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is a save-scumming and min-maxing random number generator hell for masochists. You will run out of healing supplies before the Emperor fight and will have to restart the entire run. Some fights you will restart 40-50 times before you find that one very specific tactic that works or rng gods rule in your favor. Why can't I rest (at least) once in each camp? That would allow me to save some healing supplies. You don't expect me to believe that main character murdered 1000 people without…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →9 out of 10 people you pick off the street and ask to play this game will be repulsed, but for a few, it's manna from Heaven. Dungeon Rats is a game for people who really, really like Age of Decadence's implementation of combat. It's a game for the minority of players whose favorite part of AoD was its combat and who don't care much about narrative. AoD itself is quite a niche game appealing to an audience that enjoys a systems-heavy, RNG-reliant role-playing game that takes that genre title…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Rats is a spinoff of "Age of Decadence" which strips away the branching storylines, most non-combat skills, and non-linear progression. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as it leaves a lot more focus on the combat. However, the combat was not, in my opinion, fine tuned well enough to warrant its own game. Some things remain unbalanced from the original such as bombs remaining a 100% hit chance while dealing around half your health in damage and having a 75% crit chance causing extra…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like the company and the games are fun the developers seem nice but I honestly cant endorse this game. I am having serious issues with Dungeon Rats on Tough Bastard ONLY THE SECOND DIFFICULTY. Had problems with ants and raged quit after ELDER SCORPION BOSS. This is another game in a long line that gives enemies and advantage and or they need not follow the same rules as you. I do not enjoy.... ... constantly doing ZERO damage with my 8 strength. ... having my 5-8 damage spear constantly…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The problem with this game is the hours you waste reloading and reloading battles to avoid lucky attacks (crits) by enemies which will kill you instantly and to deal lucky crits yourself. These hours are wasted without any progress whatsoever. Moreover, you will most likely run out of healing mid game, and then you are simply stuck and have to start a new game. I had to cheat in healing supplies to avoid losing my savegame due to this ill-considered game design. The devs want to uphold their…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →*** W A R N I N G *** THIS IS A VERY NICHE GAME: BUYER BEWARE *** W A R N I N G *** I think that's a big enough sign. Ahem. Hi. Are you here because you're an RPG fan? Watch out. This game is missing depth, plot, polish and a degree of balance at higher difficulties. A few delves into the community pages show this is claimed by the dev's to be by design, and having played Age of Decadence, I 75% believe them (and about 95% think THEY believe it). They know how to write plot. not necessarily…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's like masturbating with sandpaper, painful but ultimately satisfying.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't like to post negative feedbacks in general; it is more efficient and comfortable to uninstall and move on. [h1 ]but... The game, sadly, has more flaws than advantages and forces you to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result (you know what I mean, right?). Even with a strong and balanced party, using the limit of 3 NPCs with you, the game surpasses the limit of hard by being severely unbalanced, in every aspect. I understand what was intended: a harsh environment,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I both hated and liked this game. If you arent into achievement hunting and love tactical combat, yeah, get this, right now, it has good mechanics, lots of different builds to try out and very challenging, even on EASY. If you are an achievement hunter and like to 100% games.. oh boy.. get ready to go into Hell. This game is super hardcore. I spent weeks trying to find the right RNG and build to pass through the Hard modes of this game and It was SUFFERING, I died HUNDREDS of times and for…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent game. Has everything that I love about video games. Combats that pushes you around silly, thus requiring you to learn the encounter in order to succeed. When you think a fight is too hopeless it's probably because you're missing a key component! In example, focusing a high priority target down. Or maneuvering around the field in order to get the foothold against the enemy. The game also features some really well designed mechanics to bite into. I spent hours thinking about my…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has 2 major problems: 1) Very linear. 2) Massive difficulty spikes. Thus its very easy to get into a situation where you don't have the equipment/skills to survive an encounter and cannot get what you need to survive as there's nothing else you can do. Also in easy mod you shouldn't need to use heavy min-maxing to complete the game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried REALLY hard to like this game. Unfortunately it doesn't hold a candle to Age of Decadence. - A punishing recourse management game that doesn't allow much diversity of builds - Grindy, with boring filler combats (e.g the insects at the start) - Insane RNG reliance to progress - Encounters make no sense whatsoever (e.g being ambushed from behind despite clearing the area beforehand and no possible physical access due to the bridge being "cut") - Lots of balance issues, Bombs in particular.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Challenging but extremely satisfying series of fights that push you to conserve every bit of healing supplies or items that might tip the next fight in your favor. I'd definitely recommend making a character with 8-9 charisma and heavily investing in a defensive skill for survivability. There's bits of dialogue scattered around in the game but the meat of the game is going from one hard encounter to the next as you fight your way out of a prison mine.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was prepared to love this game. Tactics games are an old favorite of mine, and I can spend all day pondering character builds. Unfortunately, Dungeon Rats has THE MOST player-unfriendly interface I've ever seen in a video game. Selecting from your menu of 8 or so attacks requires clicking on your attack icon to scroll through them one at a time, a system I haven't seen since 1998 in Fallout 2, or by right-clicking the button and selecting from a tiny menu that doesn't give you any details…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's okay, but I can't see myself playing it any more after the 10 hrs I put in. The UI is not good -- inventory management and in-combat functionality are worse than most games from the mid-90s. I was playing on normal difficulty and got pretty far into raiding the people with the ore up top, and decided to try out a couple characters one difficulty lower. The "25% reduced enemy hit chance" seems inaccurate. I've been keeping track and they appear to have the exact same chance to hit as on…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cant really advise anyone to buy this game as it is unpolished mess. I personally like it though. Problem here is you have a developer who seems to have spent insane amounts of time debating people on various forums, trying to justify and philosophically explain every ingame situation that players showed discontent for to them from his perspective and various other things. I am not kidding, just dig into it and see for yourself. Its very repelling to see as a buyer. More time and philosophy…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While I absolutely loved the devs' previous game, Age of Decadence, this is like that game (an absolute gem of a CRPG I can't praise enough) with everything but combat stripped away. Now, that's not necessarily a problem by itself, as the combat system is excellent, but the game so deliberately stacks the odds against you at every turn that even when you're at the peak of your power, you have to desperately grasp for every possible advantage you can get. A lot of builds, even with a lot of the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wanted to like the game because I love the aesthetic, but it's just not very favorable to the player even on lower difficulties. Have to play basically perfect and get good rng to survive.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →next to no story. idiotic combat, very poor graphics, and very stupid inventory 'management' or lack thereof!! whats wrong with click and drag to the chest?! not this highlite.. click transfer 'method'.. utter stupidity.. then if you accidentally click take all.. you gotta do it all over again! pathetic. the premise of the game (to make it 'difficult'), is that the players characters maintain the same HP (and other stats) throughout the entire game!?! you improve your skills.. but you dont…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hardcore roguelike turn-based tactical RPG. Not much of a story and straight into battles one after another. Extremely challenging even for someone with good understanding of dnd system and more.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Homework: The game The game isn't really hard per say, it just knowledge checks you about crafting optimal builds If that's your thing then I recommend the game easily. If it's not, then it's an even easier no.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Feels like an experiment "can we make a dungeon crawler with Age of Decadence's combat and assets?" And the answer is yes, although it doesn't come close to classics like Icewind Dale. The AOD system translates pretty well to party combat and extended dungeons, although I'd rather they use these lessons to flesh out future RPGs instead of making more dungeon crawlers. Writing is limited but what's there is good. There's a good sense of tension throughout and (like AOD) it nails their gritty…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a bad game exactly, but so frustrating it made me punch my own keyboard. Completed on 'Nice Guy' mode. Cannot imagine how frustrating it must be to play through on more challenging modes. Never want to try.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah, I finally beat it on solo murderous psychopath after two dozen tries and it was the most fun I had in turn-based CRPG combat since Age of Decadence. Nice short game with a narrow scope that does it well. Irontower is the best studio and I hope they stick around for a long time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I found it bare bones, dry, clunky, and ugly. Time is better spent elsewhere.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Really cool tactical, turn-based game. It's very combat focused, so if that interests you, it is worth a buy. It can be brutal, but it feels really good once you beat a hard encounter. You can either boost your charisma and bring party members, or just build a very strong character and go solo. You won't be using magic spells, but rely more on weapons like swords, bows and so on. You can coat your weapons in poison, throw fire bombs, or use nets to hinder opponents from attacking you. That the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I do not enjoy this which would explain why over 3 years I have come back to it 3-4 times and always stopped playing it. It's very unbalanced, I originally started the game on the hardest difficulty and after dying so many times by an ant queen I decided to play it on the easiest and although it is easier it's still very unbalanced. Sometimes entering a battle can be lost on the first round by having a bomb thrown at you since you can't heal mid-battle which the healing wouldn't be an issue if…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You'll hit impassable battles if you don't have the optimum build. Not fun enough to want to replay to learn the optimum build
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is too difficult on easy. You get zero rations on the second level and cannot heal yourself. There is also a reload glitch with the crossbow. Instead of having 4 attacks you only get 1 and then it says you have no ammo when there is plenty of ammo. This game is a waste of money.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I actually think this game is easier to recommend than its developer's earlier title, The Age of Decadence. This is a VERY dead simple set up for a game: a series of Turn-Based Tactical Battles with your own created character and whomever you pick up along the way against a series of escalating combat scenarios set in the low-tech post-apocalyptic pseudo-roman world of AoD. There's a plot here, but it's as threadbare as the rags your character starts with, and it's not really the point.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For the fans of Age of Decadence, that game takes the difficulty and cranks it up to 11. Dungeon Rats is all combat, and if you are looking for a challenge, it's going to give plenty of it. Don't worry about actually beating this game. If you do though, you're cut above lesser tacticians.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →when a guy offers to drag your stash with you to new locations, don't turn him down
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's good, but turns out to be a game of long-term attrition management (rations). This means that even when you win fights, you have silently lost them due to taking too much damage, and thus running out of rations 5-6 fights down the road. This aspect of the game's design is frustrating. Here's the fix btw: Console comand: dlgadditem(10503,1000) . However, the game is well worth playing for the experience for a number of hours. Recommended.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not really my cup of tea, I need plot AoD had. But the tactical combat is still great. If you want challenge and turn based depth, with every fight a lethal puzzle and without getting sidetracked by pesky story, this game is for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Love the game, Torque ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →More of a game of figuring out how the developers want you to play it than it is about having fun or coming up with your own solutions. Better to spend your time on other games that are actually fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very hardcore game, could only finish it on easy mode, wich is the best option if you want to enjoy it... imho.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I loved Age of Decadence's combat system, and this game is exactly what it said on the can. Tactical combat in the AoD world. It's harsh, gritty, no hand-holding, yes tactics. RNG is there for you to overcome it. Ideally your strategy should be robust enough so that randomness is a non-factor in your playthrough. That can be difficult, since the combat system is very complex, but it's complex in an enjoyable, albeit masochistic way. My only real criticism is that most fights involving bomb…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →RNG slot machine.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not worth the $3 or so I paid for it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fan of the AoD universe, I thought to myself: why not test this crawler dungeon? Let's go! What to say: we feel the inspirations of AOD, same combat system with an immersive universe. You learn very quickly to be reasonable (I tried solo and easy mode), I quickly ran out of RATIONS and POTION (with alchemy thoroughly). So I had to load an old save game. And even being REASONABLE, I did not succes the last fight. Too bad for me, I miss the achievement ... :( :( In short, I will try again in a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Easily worth the price. I hope more games like this get developed in the future. Dungeon Rats could be described as an old-school CRPG. Similar titles would include pool of radiance ( PC version ) and temple of elemental evil. Im a bit more of a fantasy lover, so I prefer a more magic and supernatural abilities, but overall this game is alright. A few bugs, a few click issues and poor visual design, but nothing worse than $60 titles released nowadays. Give it try if you like turn-based…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played this first in 2016 and just played it now again after they did some balance tweaking. It is basically something similar to old Ultima Underworld dungeon crawler tactical turn based strategy with RPG elements in the Age of Decadence universe. First of all, the default difficulty (murderous psychopath) is for people who are ultimately familiar with combat system of AoD. It is RNG based and when they say "you will die a lot", they mean it. There is no shame in dropping difficulty…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game might not look like much but there is a deep combat quality in the encounters. The fights are carefully handcrafted, leading the played to use more and more of the various combat tools available. While normal RPGs are either hard at the start or hard at the end, this game provides a challenge at every stage. On the negative side it can't be overstated how frustrating the RNG mechanics in this game are, even worse than XCOM. You can have high defense and health but one bad roll kills…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game, great atmosphere, and very creative and tactical combat. In some ways it reminded me of Icewind Dale II. Some people criticized it for not having much of a story, but the atmosphere and gameplay were so strong that I always felt engaged.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon Rats, developed and published by Iron Tower Studio, is a deliberately focused tactical RPG that strips away much of the genre’s usual excess to concentrate almost entirely on methodical, turn-based combat. Set within the same bleak universe as The Age of Decadence, it trades sprawling narrative ambition for a tighter, more combat-oriented experience. From the outset, the game establishes a tone of harsh survival rather than heroic triumph, placing players in the role of a prisoner…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good tactical combat game, less RPG than the other Iron Tower games though.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great little gem if you are up for a turn based gauntlet rpg challenge
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This isn't for me. It's slow, there's no indication on where to go unless you read a lot of text, though the half hour I played it was fairly linear but I could see it getting annoying. It's way too complicated and battles are slow and require way too much clicking to ever be considered fun. Also doesn't help that the enemies dodge a lot. I also hate when games force you to put points into stats before you even start the game when you don't know what you want to do or how the game is even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a very fun game. Basically you are at the bottom of a dungeon and try to go up :) I liked the turn based combat. It's very similar to the Age of Decadance (it is in the same world anyway). However there isn't much story. Just entertaining encounters. So if you want a quick fix on turn based challenging combat, i think it's a game you should try. A warning though, it's not an easy game so be ready to die from time to time. It's definitely not a Souls like, however you need to plan your…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →was too hardcore for me
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Edgy, rough and sometimes buggy, but I like this game. The idea is good, sadly it ends fast.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dungeon rats is to AoD what Fallout Tactics is to Fallout. Well designed game, but Incredibly punishing combat leads to a puzzle-like challenge. Not for everyone but I'm loving it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah... It's this time of the year when I replay Iron Tower studios games. Still awesome and fresh after many playthroughs. (Actually bought their three masterpieces now and didn't pirated them) 10/10 game , when do we get a sequel?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →a short but extraordinary CRPG campaign with D&D mechanics about being a pit slave. its paced and balanced really well. the writing and worldbuilding is minimalist but quite compelling, the characters seem real and when someone in your party dies you feel something about that. every fight is difficult and you will probably have to try a couple different strategies before succeeding, even on the easiest difficulty. but because of that difficulty, every encounter feels very meaningful and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Guys, check your code please. With 50% hit chance I hit on average 2 out of 10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Trying everything on the Steam Deck # 22 I am the Dungeon. If you manage to leave, if you survive, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day, you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human beings. You are nothing but unorganized amphibian turds! Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Similar to old fallout except enemies are invisible and every fight is ambush.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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