Game: Rogue Waves
Developer: Pomelo Games (Uruguay)
Genre: Roguelike Deckbuilder · Surf
Platform: PC (Steam)
Demo: Available now
Setting: Porto Calambre
Structure: Four-round competitions
Combat: None whatsoever
🏄 Uruguayan studio Pomelo Games have launched the Steam demo for Rogue Waves, a roguelike deckbuilder about competitive surfing — where you bid for the best wave, chain physically impossible tricks, and trade insults with rivals in the world’s least regulated tournament.
🌊 The Steam Page Just Went Up, and the Demo Is Already There
Worth noting the sequencing. Pomelo Games launched the store page and the playable demo on the same day, with the stated reasoning that they’re confident it’ll win people over.
That’s a confident move for an unannounced game in an unproven genre combination — and it means you can find out whether surf deckbuilding works for you right now rather than wishlisting on faith.
Competitive surfing, as a deckbuilder
Chain physically impossible tricks until the scoreboard breaks. The only violence is your rival’s passive-aggressive one-liners.
Rogue Waves is a roguelike deckbuilder about surfing, which is a sentence that shouldn’t work and appears to anyway. You cruise the beaches of Porto Calambre, fight rivals for the best waves in the lineup, and build combos designed to make the scoring system give up.
It’s from Pomelo Games, an indie studio out of Uruguay, and the demo is on Steam now.
The Wave Draft Is the Clever Bit
⚖️ One Resource, Two Competing Jobs
Before you ride anything, you have to win the wave — spending limited energy to outbid your rival for the best one in the lineup.
Here’s the catch: that’s the same energy you need to boost your own manoeuvres. Win the bidding war decisively and you’re riding a superb wave with nothing left to perform on it. Hold your energy back and you’re doing your best work on whatever your rival didn’t want.
That’s a genuinely elegant tension. Most deckbuilders keep acquisition and execution in separate economies; Rogue Waves fuses them, so every good wave you take costs you the ability to make the most of it.
Layered on top is the rogue wave itself — a massive set with high rewards and, per Pomelo, extreme penalties. Given that the whole game is already a bidding-versus-boosting gamble, adding a wave that can swing either way is exactly the right kind of complication.
It’s Defined by What It Leaves Out
🚫 No Card Costs. No Inventory. No Violence.
Pomelo lead their pitch with three things Rogue Waves doesn’t have, which is an unusual way to sell a deckbuilder and a telling one.
No card costs removes the mana-curve arithmetic the genre normally runs on. No dedicated inventory strips out the management layer. And no violence is the genuinely rare one — the roguelike deckbuilder is an overwhelmingly combat-framed genre, built on depleting an enemy’s health bar.
Replacing that with score attack changes what a good run even feels like. You’re not surviving; you’re showing off.
That reframing does real work. In a combat deckbuilder, a bad hand means you take damage. Here it means you post a weak score while somebody else posts a better one — which is a different kind of pressure, and arguably a better fit for a game about competition rather than survival.
What’s in the Demo
🃏 The Rookie Deck
Fully implemented, with over 50 manoeuvre cards to build combos from.
🏷️ 40+ Stickers
Board stickers from “suspicious sponsors,” each with run-altering effects.
🏄 Six Rivals
Each with unique effects specifically designed to interfere with your strategy.
🌊 Wave Drafting
The full bidding system, plus the rogue wave mechanic and its risk-reward swing.
Six rivals who actively disrupt you is the detail worth flagging there. Deckbuilder opponents are often just stat blocks with a damage number; opponents whose entire purpose is to mess with your plan turns each competition into something you have to adapt around rather than solve in advance.
Between Competitions
🛒 The Shop
Buy new manoeuvre cards to expand what your deck can pull off.
💆 The Spa
Heal up your injuries between events.
🏋️ The Gym
Temporary boosts to your abilities, spent when you need them most.
🎪 Sponsor Events
Pick up run-altering stickers for your board from those suspicious brands.
It’s a familiar between-runs structure dressed in surf-town clothing, and the theming does more than decorate. Injuries healed at a spa read differently to hit points restored at a campfire, even when they’re doing the same job.
Radical Nonsense, Deliberately
The tone is doing a lot of the lifting. Porto Calambre is described as an irreverent surf world full of fake brands, strange locals and radical nonsense, and Pomelo put humour explicitly at the forefront rather than treating it as garnish.
The art style backs it — stylised card illustrations, expressive characters and bright, striking environments. For a genre that trends heavily toward gloom, a deckbuilder built on sunshine and trash talk is a genuinely different proposition.
🃏 Deckbuilder
🎲 Roguelike
🏄 Surfing
📈 Score Attack
😎 Comedy
🎯 Single-Player
Who’s Making It
🍊 Pomelo Games
An indie studio based in Uruguay, returning to Steam with Rogue Waves. Surfing games are thin on the ground at the best of times, and a surf-themed roguelike deckbuilder is genuinely without an obvious precedent — which is the most interesting thing about this announcement.
The Rogue Waves demo is available on Steam now, with the full release still to be dated.
Hi there! I’m Marie, also known as CtrlQueen. I’m passionate about keeping up with the latest in gaming news and sharing my insights. RPGs steal my heart with their rich narratives and immersive worlds, but I also love unwinding with fun, casual games. Whether you’re here for deep dives into game mechanics or just to chat about your favorite casual game, you’ve found the right place! Let’s game and explore together.
