Row Divers

A cheap number-climber that buys goodwill on price alone

Row Divers, released 16 May 2025 by solo developer and publisher hermurx, is a short, experimental incremental game where players descend endless dungeon "rows," shooting monsters, collecting resources, and steadily upgrading a bow to push further before eventually prestiging and starting again. At NZ$4.49, its price is central to how a meaningful share of the review sample receives it, with reviewers repeatedly framing modest flaws as forgivable given how little they paid. One reviewer describes it simply as "a nice little game with a few hours of fun for less than a coffee, what more to say," while another calls it "fun game to kill an afternoon. worth the pickup," a recommendation offered with minimal elaboration precisely because the stakes of the purchase feel so low.

A handful of reviewers go further, describing genuine enjoyment of the core loop independent of price. One reviewer calls the gameplay loop "brilliant" and states it "immediately draws you in," praising that "it runs well" and that its talent system "give[s] you a decent sense of progression." Another reviewer frames the appeal in genre terms familiar to incremental-game fans specifically, writing "I really liked this! I love branching skill trees and repetitive game play," before pivoting to a more measured assessment of the game's unrealized potential, discussed further below.

Content exhausted within minutes, reviewers report

Set against that modest goodwill, the review sample's single most heavily corroborated and most damning complaint concerns how quickly the game's content is exhausted. One reviewer states this in the starkest possible terms, writing "the first 5 seconds of your gameplay will contain the entirety of what you will see in the game," arguing "the only thing that changes is that you do bigger numbers," and specifically rejecting the idea that being an incremental game excuses a lack of mechanical depth, noting pointedly "even cookie clicker has strategy." A separate, independent reviewer corroborates the identical underlying complaint with a specific timeframe, reporting that "after reaching prestige one after about ~30 minutes I feel like I have seen everything there is to the game."

A third reviewer frames the same problem through the lens of disappointed expectation, reporting the game's own trailer "show[s] everything that is in the game," and that the actual playthrough "felt like the same short ~20 minute game repeated four times." That reviewer notes early promise, "starting with the most basic of upgrades; increasing attack power and max health," but reports the game "keeps this same progression system, barely adding a few mechanics" before those additions are "rendered useless by the only useful upgrades." Even reviewers who ultimately recommend the game acknowledge this pattern, with one writing candidly of "how much potential this game has," lamenting "there's so many directions this game could expand into" that simply weren't pursued.

Progression math that several reviewers say doesn't add up

Beyond shallow content, a second, corroborated complaint concerns the game's upgrade costs and progression pacing specifically, which multiple reviewers independently describe as confusing or poorly calibrated rather than merely simple. One reviewer states directly "progression is exponential," reporting "armor doesn't make sense" and "cost of upgrades don't make sense," concluding the early game is "painful to go through" and "painfully boring" as a result. A separate reviewer echoes the same underlying complaint with a specific concrete example, describing an upgrade costing "1 coin" for "+1 damage" sitting alongside another that "costs 2 coins and does +20 damage," while "the previous one still has 9 level uninvested," concluding the numbers feel simply "arbitrary" rather than deliberately tuned.

A further reviewer, more sympathetic overall, still flags the same category of issue, describing "a lot of weird mechanics and progression milestones that I don't think fit all that well" despite otherwise praising the core loop as "brilliant." That combination, praise for the initial hook paired with recurring, independently corroborated confusion about how the numbers underneath it actually work, suggests a real balancing and communication problem rather than simply a matter of reviewer taste.

Minimal variety and an unresponsive developer

A third, corroborated complaint concerns the game's mechanical and enemy variety, which multiple reviewers describe as close to nonexistent. One reviewer reports "the enemy variety is basically non-existent," consisting of "basically two types of monsters (ranged/melee), just reskins with very very minor differences," a specific, concrete observation about the game's actual content rather than a vague impression. That same reviewer separately notes the developer was "apparently not replying to a single comment in the forums," a detail that, while impossible to independently verify from review text alone, is presented as a specific, first-hand observation rather than speculation, and is consistent with at least one other reviewer's report of an unresolved, progression-blocking bug: finishing "everything" with "all the upgrades" yet still being unable to get their 100% completion achievement "to pop."

Combined, these complaints, shallow content exhausted in minutes, confusing progression math, minimal variety, and at least one unresolved completion bug, describe a release that, whatever its charm at a glance, needed considerably more development time and post-launch support to deliver on the "lot of room to grow" that even some of its supporters acknowledge it's missing.

Verdict

Row Divers is, by its own review sample's account, a cheap, forgettable incremental dungeon-diver whose low asking price buys real goodwill from players content to watch numbers climb for a couple of undemanding hours. But a genuinely corroborated pool of complaints, content exhausted within the opening minutes, upgrade costs and progression pacing multiple reviewers independently describe as nonsensical, minimal enemy variety, and at least one unresolved completion-blocking bug, mean it falls well short of the "lot of room to grow" potential even its own supporters see in it. Players looking for a few disposable hours at a very low price may find it tolerable; anyone wanting genuine strategic depth from their incremental games should look elsewhere.