New Roguelike RPG Graphite Turns Your Sketchbook Into An Adventure

Posted in: Games , Video Games | Tagged: graphite , indie.io , RipRed

Graphite is a new roguelike RPG that makes you wonder what would happen if all the sketches you did in school suddenly became an adventure.

Game developer RipRed and publisher indie.io have launched their latest adventure title, as players can break out the notebook and pencil for Graphite. This game is a roguelike RPG in which the premise is that all the sketches you use to decorate your school books and sketchbook have come to life and started having massive adventures. The game has officially launched today on both Steam and GOG, as we have the full details, trailer, and images for you here to check out before you go play the game.

Picture a school desk. On it, a notebook. Scattered around it, playing cards and household objects repurposed by imagination into the artifacts that will define each run. Inside the notebook, heroes with names, fears, and histories face monsters drawn from the same restless mind, all of them racing against a campaign that unfolds across four acts, 15 days a piece, to fight, gather artifacts, recruit allies, and build a strategy before Death arrives. The clock is always visible. The pressure is always real. And none of the heroes know that any of it is happening inside a child's mind.

Graphite is a roguelike RPG that refuses to choose between spectacle and substance, where the RPG elements run as deep as the tactical systems that surround them. The handcrafted pen-and-ink world, the emotional weight of the story, and the tactical depth of its combat were built as one cohesive vision by a small team determined to honor both. Spread across four acts, the seven heroes are parts of a whole, each carrying a distinct backstory, personality, and reason to fight. Players must invest in the relationships between them, deepening bonds across the journey to unlock new stories and progression. Their paths converge toward a truth that only becomes clear the longer you play.

Combat operates on a timeline where positioning in the timeline matters. Every unit's actions are queued and visible, and the Break system rewards players who can read the rhythm of a fight. Deplete an enemy's poise while they wind up an attack, and you push their turn further down the line, buying space and changing the shape of the encounter entirely. The same pressure applies in reverse. Artifacts layer on top with no hard ceiling, from rare items distributed across your party to legendaries that build and detonate across consecutive hits. Enemies can acquire artifacts too, turning every encounter into a tug-of-war where the risk is always mutual, and a plan surviving contact with the enemy is its own reward.

Fans of D&D campaigns, choose-your-own-adventure books, and the kind of deck builders you invented on a rainy afternoon will find something deeply familiar in how Graphite is structured. Artifacts are pulled from a deck, each one a choice that shapes the run ahead. Adventure events are signaled by a tarot card draw, opening into a fully illustrated scenario where every decision is shaped by your party, your inventory, and the path already taken. Every run is a story only you will tell.