Two days. Two games. Zero hype from the usual curation channels. And somehow, both are climbing.

Tavern, Inn, and the Halberd hit Steam on May 29 with the kind of storefront presence that screams “niche visual novel with a combat system bolted on.” Then its concurrent player count doubled overnight — up 103.3% to 122 players, according to Steam data. That’s not a typo. A hundred and twenty-two people, nearly twice as many as the day before, playing a game most of the internet hasn’t heard of.

Right beside it on the New Releases chart sits Kunugi’s Life is a Mess!, a roguelike dungeon-crawler from developer Like a Girl. It’s sitting on a pristine 100% positive rating from 11 reviews, with a more modest but still climbing 64 concurrent players — up 30.6%. Neither game made GameGrin’s weekly “36 Hidden Gems” roundup for the week of May 25–31. They are, in the truest sense, under the radar.

That’s the wrong radar.

The Accidental Bullet Heaven

Here’s the thing about Tavern, Inn, and the Halberd: it’s not supposed to be this good. Developer AleCubicSoft built it as an adult-oriented adventure, published through HENTAI Plan and OTAKU Plan — studios whose names tell you exactly what aisle you’re browsing. The Steam page describes a straightforward quest: Mira, an adventurer, has been journeying in search of her missing lover. Seeking clues to his whereabouts, she arrives at a guild in a certain town — and as one player summarized it, “gets in all sorts of trouble.”

But the reviews tell a different story. A player with 6.6 hours logged — already a serious time investment for a game under nine bucks — laid it out plainly: “Bought the game for the art. Never played the Survival Vampire type game before this… Got invested by the battle gameplay. Lowkey obsessed. Now the H parts are a bonus, lol.”

Another, with 5.6 hours, echoed the surprise: “Bought because cute girl and quite good CG but got decent Vampire survivors.”

That’s the hook. The bullet-heaven combat — think Vampire Survivors with an anime coat of paint — is apparently legitimate enough to convert players who showed up for something else entirely. One reviewer did note the system has “no depth. no evolutions, no combinations,” suggesting the mechanical ceiling is low. When you’re grinding the same few weapons and perks run after run, the novelty has a shelf life.

But here’s the counter-argument: these players are averaging five to seven hours on a game that launched two days ago. That’s not curiosity. That’s engagement.

AleCubicSoft isn’t a newcomer, either. The developer’s DLsite catalog shows 17 products, with the top seller at over 20,000 purchases. There’s an established audience here — one that’s now spilling onto Steam and bringing word-of-mouth momentum with it.

The Perfect-Score Underdog

Kunugi’s Life is a Mess! has a cleaner story, literally. Eleven reviews, eleven positive, zero negative. That 100% rating is still early-sample territory, but the sentiment is consistent: players expected a throwaway RPG and got something with genuine chops.

“Damn, what a great JRPG,” wrote one player with 3.3 hours. “Honestly expected way less when buying it, but I’m thoroughly impressed.”

The game casts you as Kunugi, a homeless girl seeking vengeance against her former bully — a premise with more teeth than the cheerful character art suggests. It’s a roguelike, turn-based dungeon-crawler with skill progression and gear systems, the kind of structural loop that either clicks or doesn’t. For 11 out of 11 reviewers, it clicked.

Like a Girl, the developer, also comes with pedigree. The DLsite version of Kunugi’s Life is a Mess! has logged 16,797 purchases at 1,870 JPY — roughly $13 USD. That’s not a hobby project. That’s a small but real commercial operation with a loyal following, now finding a second wind on Steam at $8.79 (20% off launch price).

A player with 10 hours already — again, two days post-launch — praised the game’s depth and characters, while hinting at the mandatory-install adult patch that’s standard for this tier of release. The fact that someone’s already put double-digit hours into a dungeon crawler at this price point tells you the loop is working.

Do They Have Legs?

This is where it gets honest. Both games are riding the launch-week wave. Tavern, Inn, and the Halberd has 83% positive from just six reviews — one negative voice could tank that number. The bullet-heaven gameplay, by its own fans’ admission, lacks depth. Once the art novelty fades, retention depends entirely on whether AleCubicSoft supports the combat system with updates, or whether the current weapon-and-perk pool is the final product.

Kunugi’s Life is a Mess! has the stronger fundamentals for longevity. Roguelike dungeon-crawlers with genuine JRPG combat systems and turn-based strategy have a proven track record of building dedicated player bases. A 100% rating, even from a small sample, signals a product that understands its audience.

Neither game will crack the top 100. Neither will make anyone’s Game of the Year list. But that’s not the point. In a Steam ecosystem where hundreds of titles launch weekly and most vanish within 48 hours, these two are doing something harder than charting — they’re converting skeptics. Players who showed up for screenshots are staying for the systems.

That’s worth watching. And nobody’s watching.

Sources