An Indie Backlog curated overview. We round up the best indie RPGs and how professional critics and players received each one — the scores and quotes below are theirs, linked to the source.
By night you raid dungeons for loot. By day you sell it in your own shop. Moonlighter turns the RPG economy into the whole game.
At a Glance
| Developer | Digital Sun |
| Release year | 2018 |
| Platforms | PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Mobile |
| Subgenre | Action RPG / shop sim |
| Length | ~18 hours (main story) |
| Steam rating | Very Positive (~82%, 21,000+ reviews) |
| Steam Deck | Verified |
| Languages | 13 |
About the Game
Moonlighter, from Spanish studio Digital Sun, is built on one irresistible loop. Will is a shopkeeper in the town of Rynoka who dreams of being a hero: by day he runs his late father’s general store, and by night he sneaks into procedurally generated dungeons to fight monsters and haul back loot.
The genius is in the merchant half. You don’t just dump loot for cash — you set prices yourself, watch how customers react, learn what each item is worth, and reinvest profits into better gear, shop upgrades, and reviving the town’s other businesses. Price too high and your shop empties; too low and you leave money on the table.
The dungeon-crawling is a tidy, Zelda-flavored action RPG with a clever inventory twist — cursed items rearrange your bag on the way out — but it’s the shopkeeping that makes Moonlighter linger in your head between sessions. Few games make running a spreadsheet this satisfying.
Screenshots
Screenshots: official Steam media for Moonlighter.
Why It Made the List
Moonlighter made the list for taking a mechanic most RPGs bury in a menu — buying and selling — and building an entire, addictive game around it. It’s a fresh hybrid that’s easy to start and genuinely hard to put down.
What the Critics Say
Moonlighter was well received by critics, who singled out its shop-running loop and clean pixel art; the most common reservation was that late-game combat grows repetitive. Steam doesn’t surface a Metacritic score on its store page, so we’ve led with verified player data below — you can read the full critic reviews on Metacritic.
What Players Say
On Steam, Moonlighter is rated Very Positive across more than 21,000 reviews — about 82% positive. Players consistently praise the addictive day/night loop; the dip in enthusiasm usually comes from the repetitive end-game grind.
Praise & Criticism
Praise
- Brilliant, original shopkeeping loop
- Charming pixel art and music
- Satisfying gear and town progression
- Runs great on Steam Deck (Verified)
Criticism
- Combat gets repetitive late-game
- Inventory management can frustrate
- Story is fairly thin
Games Like This
- Children of Morta — another gorgeous action roguelite
- CrossCode — sharp, demanding action-RPG combat
- Cassette Beasts — an inventive twist on a familiar formula
Where to Buy
Plain store links for now — swap in your affiliate-tagged URLs once you’ve joined Amazon Associates and the eBay Partner Network. (Steam has no affiliate program; that link is for convenience.)
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