Earlier this week I was itching for a new roguelike to play, and I stumbled across Insider Trading in my Steam Discovery queue. The game looked intriguing and I saw it had a demo, so I gave it a shot. After playing with the demo for a bit and liking what I saw I decided to take the plunge, making the purchase and I’m glad I did.

Insider Trading is in the emerging subgenre of scorelikes, a genre that exploded in popularity after Balatro became an indie sensation in early 2024.  So, what are the hallmarks of a Scorelike game? I’d like to borrow a definition that was laid out by Brendon Bigley of the Wavelengths YouTube channel.

Score-Like
*Start with existing game mechanic framework and then layers roguelike elements on top of it
*Round based gameplay system that sees players trying to hit increasingly high score benchmarks to continue. In between rounds players will shop for items and upgrades that modify the base game mechanic framework in wild and exciting ways

Insider Trading sees players trying to make enough money as a day trader to hit their profit targets on a mock-up stock market. Each day begins with 10 price cards being dealt, which will each increase or decrease the stock’s price as they execute left to right. Players then decide if they are going to use their trading tokens to discard and replace or rearrange the cards in their pricing queue, all the while being mindful, that those same trading tokens are also used to purchase items and upgrades from the aftermarket which you will need to hit the increasing profit benchmarks.

Insider Trading is a good Scorelike because it takes well-known framework of the stock market and cheekily gamifies it with fun and fast paced decision making. I love that the game’s core mechanics are simple enough to pick up but require deep strategic decision making to succeed.

Shoutout to Brendon for doing a refreshingly relaxed and conversational approach to game coverage with Wavelengths. I’m always looking forward to his next video.