Rogue Grinders Guide: Tips & Tricks To Surviving and Unlocking More Items

Grind and crawl through dungeons in Rogue Grinders, a new roguelike RPG featuring wacky and unique characters. Start the adventure as Pierrot, the brave bird who journeys into the dungeon with only a stick for protection. Brave or foolish? That is up to you to decide as you attempt to survive the dungeon!

In our Rogue Grinders tips and tricks guide, we will go over the basics of improving your chances of survival, and how to unlock more characters and get more gems. Let’s get started with our Rogue Grinders tips and tricks strategy guide to surviving and unlocking more items!

Understanding the combat system!

In Rogue Grinders, the world only moves when you move, just like most roguelike games. Every time you take a step or swing your weapon, all enemies and traps on the screen will move or activate.

You can use this to your advantage. When an enemy is about to strike, all of the affected tiles will be marked with a red X, so you know where not to stand. Taking out enemies in Rogue Grinders is all about performing lots of “hit and runs”, where you move in just to attack and move back out before the enemy counterattacks.

Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to turn in place, so if you want to turn around you need to move forward then move backwards to face the direction you want. You can, however, skip a turn by attacking. Attacking will always count as a turn, even if you do not hit anything, so you can attack mindlessly to skip several turns.

Your starting character, Pierrot, can only take about two to three hits before he bites the dust, so avoiding damage is crucial in Rogue Grinders. When you have an enemy in your sights, do not blindly tap the attack button – make sure you are watching to see if the enemy’s aim changes at all.

Different weapons have different effects!

Pierrot starts the game out with the Wooden Sword, which has an attack power of 2 and a T-shaped attack coverage. You will be using this for a while unless you get lucky with a chest containing a new weapon, at which point you will notice a few things.

Each weapon has their own attack powers, but more importantly they also have different range and properties. Let us look at the beginning weapons as an example. The Iron Dagger has low attack power and range, but it attacks twice per attack.

The Iron Axe has the same attack power as the Wooden Sword, but it has wider reach. Finally, the Iron Spear’s reach is narrow, but it always faces the closest enemy, making it easier to hit and run.

Adapting to your weapon of choice is important. Wide range weapons like the Iron Axe let you take out multiple enemies at once, but the Iron Dagger lets you focus down a single enemy. Play to your weapon’s strength and you will succeed!

Open chests for helpful items and weapons!

The most common chests are silver and gold chests. Silver chests will usually contain consumable items, such as potions, food, and thrown weapons, like the Throwing Bone. You can carry two consumable items, so try to make the best out of your limited inventory space.

Gold chests are a lot rarer, and you will usually see these trapped behind the mouse and cheese puzzles (more on that below). Gold chests will usually contain a new weapon for you, and in case you do not like it, you can always switch back to your old weapon.

Every item and weapon in the game also has a rarity color to indicate how strong it generally is. Gray items are common, blue items are uncommon, purple items and rare, and so forth. You can use this as a general way to gauge how strong a weapon is.

There is a third type of chest, and that is the platinum chest. These chests are the ultimate rarity and they often contain an undiscovered item or a super rare weapon, so be on the lookout!

Be ware of mimics! If you notice a chest that is not glimmering, that means it is a mimic in disguise. Mimics will attack as soon as they are discovered, so they can quickly kill an adventurer who is not paying attention!

Run over grass, kill everything, and level up!

Every monster you take down is more experience added into your pool. There is no way to tell how much experience you have a accumulated during your run, so just keep going until the very end.

You may have noticed purple orbs coming out of the grass tiles when you walk over them. Those are experience points, so make sure you run over every single grass tile in the current floor!

When you run is over, whether you took out the dungeon boss or you met your untimely end, your experience is tallied up. If you level up, you will be rewarded with a gift box.

How to unlock more characters and items?

Gift boxes are awarded to you whenever you clear a dungeon or you level up. Gift boxes can be opened immediately on the spot – no waiting required! Gift boxes can give you lots of goodies, including gemstones, character unlock pieces, and even new items and weapons!

If you got a strange item and you do not know what it is used for, chances are it is a character unlock item. These include honeycombs, cucumbers, wishes, and more. You can see your total collected by going to the character select screen. Keep opening gift boxes to unlock more characters.

You can find new items simply by adventuring through the dungeon. If you find an unknown item that the shopkeep is selling, buying it will unlock it for future runs.

Aside from that, the main method of unlocking new items is through the item checklist accessed on the main menu. You will need to fulfill certain requirements like reach level 12, kill 5 bosses, find a specific weapon, and so forth. Fulfilling a requirement will unlock a new item to be found in the dungeon!

Feed the mice in Silent Palace!

In every dungeon exists a floor called the Silent Palace. These are sort of checkpoint floors, as the key is given to you right at the start and there are no enemies to fight. There are traps, however, so you have to be careful.

There is a hungry mouse somewhere in each Silent Palace. He is blocking the way to some sweet treasure, but in order to make him move you need to satiate his hungry with some hearty cheese.

There is a cheese slice somewhere in the palace, but you must be careful! Attacking the cheese or letting it sit on spikes will destroy it, crushing your chances of getting the treasure behind the mouse.

Study the layout of the palace carefully, then start moving the cheese around, taking care not to leave it on top of spikes. Remember that if you run into an item that is against a wall, you will push it away from it. Push it into the hungry mouse, and the treasure is yours!

That’s all for Rogue Grinders! If you have any other tips or tricks to share, let us know in the comments below!