Mika: Dungeon Backpacker makes you pack the heroes’ bags before sending them into danger
Someone has to keep the party organised
- Explore grid-based dungeons where every step costs food
- Pack, merge and upgrade gear within limited bag space
- Battle through dungeons with a party of four heroes
If I’m playing a game called Mika: Dungeon Backpacker, I’d expect her to be the hero of her own story. Except she really isn’t. She’s a Dungeon Supporter, which as far as I can tell means she packs everyone’s bags while four heroes take the credit. It’s a backpack-building roguelite with grid-based dungeons, and it’s coming soon to iOS and Android.
The setting is Stonia, a continent that’s slowly turning into dungeons, and Mika’s latest job takes her into the ruins of a cathedral where an expedition disappeared a century ago. Something has been asleep down there ever since. Cheerful stuff.
You explore one tile at a time, and you won’t know what’s behind a door until you open it, whether that’s a chest, a Mimic or a trap. Every step costs a unit of food, so scouring each corner for loot eats into what you’ll have left for the boss on the tenth floor.
On each floor you pick gear from a shop, squeeze it into limited bag space like a puzzle, and merge matching weapons into stronger ones. Your four-hero party is built around Neutral, Order and Chaos alignments to counter what each monster does. And once the fight starts, it mostly plays itself, with everything in the bag firing on cooldown.
Bag-packing as a genre seems to have done well on phones this year, with Backpack Battles having launched earlier in Feb. Mika: Dungeon Backpacker has a different argument for itself, and it’s the walk to the shop. Charging food for every tile turns exploration into spending, so a detour for one more chest is a choice you pay for at the boss.
Outside the main run, Blood Arena pits your party and bag against other people’s, and Nightmare Tower wants every hero you own. An idle reward system ticks away in the background too.
Mika: Dungeon Backpacker is due on the App Store and Google Play on October 31st.
If you’d rather someone else did the packing, our list of the best RPGs on iOS is full of heroes who carry their own.
