In the world of video games, it’s hard to miss the arrival and ascent of a new hit genre. From mid-2017’s breakout hit PUBG, through the rise of Fortnite later that year, and to the debut of the greatly refined Apex Legends this past February, the battle royale dominated the discourse. This year, autochess followed suit: It started as a Dota 2 mod that ditched direct character control for a focus on automation, planning, and team composition before becoming the basis for a half dozen competing games (and becoming the de facto big new thing of 2019 in the process). But my favorite “new thing” is something else entirely: the roguelike deckbuilder.
Something I like about this game is that runs are pretty short, usually 20-30 mins at most. On the other hand because they’re so short it can be tempting to do just one more.
This has really grown on me. I immediately loved the style and music, but I breezed through my first runs with the Warrior and Thief (well, mostly Bear), which left me worried that the game was too easy and a bit samey. But now that I’ve done runs with the Robot, Engineer, and Witch I’m honestly blown away by the creativity and variety in the different class designs. I also lost on my Robot and Witch runs, so the difficulty concerns have melted away. Just unlocked the episodes too, which I didn’t realize were a thing at first, so I’m excited to dig into those.
Yes the witch is really difficult! It took me 18 attempts, always losing in the fourth floor. In the end I had to completely change my strategy, what made the difference were some spells that I was totally ignoring at first.
This game is very good!
Started playing a couple of hours ago and dang is this game clever! I’m playing as the Robot right now and the possibility space seems to have opened as @UnInvincible mentioned in their post!
The game does remind me a ton of Guild of Dungeoneering which isn’t as mechanically clever or aesthetically charming, but it does deliver on many similar ideas. Plus, it’s on mobile (or at least tablets), so I recommend that to anyone enjoying this game!
I played the browser version last night… and fuck, I’m going to have another game to play this year, huh? This game is really inventive and clever. How long do y’all think there’s a mobile/Switch port?y
Bought it and won my first run! This game is my fucking game.
Shout outs to a precursor of this genre Hand of Fate. Came out five or six years ago, and matched this style of game (deck-building roguelike) with Arkham-style combat. Absolute delight.
i’m completely stumped by inventor. i get that she needs lots of items, but that’s about it. what i’ve been doing is holding on to the starting hammer and spanner and upgrading them, and trying to fill other slots with weapons, but i always end up short of damage on some late enemy. i feel like i must be doing something completely wrong if i’m barely using her limit break at all. also i’m starting to think paying gold for upgrades is always a bad choice?
also, what are people doing as jester?
in battle it feels like he’s meant to be cycling most or all of his deck every turn to get to a few powerful cards, but… he kind of doesn’t start with any? and adding singles to the deck generally makes this harder? i did get a win when the game offered some fire-related cards, since then i had a clear combo to aim for (flame blast is busted), and apart from that i’ve only taken cards i could use without using up a die. duplicate in particular is essential. it seems weird that the only cards you’d want should come from level ups and later a unique booster pack pickup that gives you more of that first level up’s stuff.
anyway, like, what are you keeping, what are you destroying, if anything?
no actually witch is the best
she was probably definitely the best back in alpha when glass cauldron returned a six, anyway. massive thunderstorms all day every day. just like real life. () and then you’re freezing a bunch of dice on top of that, plus shock, rendering your opponent mostly harmless in the fleeting moments before their demise.
she can still kind of do this with duplicate and blizzard… it’s decidedly less broken, but freeze is still a very powerful effect.
i’ve just tried her parallel universe yesterday and it’s a trip. fruit bowls? snapdragons? mana??
very excited to play more of that.
i do like robot though. generating loads of dice has the same feel as drawing lots of cards and that’s his baseline mechanic. and then he gets heat sink so he can make even more dice.
also thief. his second episode is basically blue mage and it’s terrific. that’s the one where you can get sneeze. and ice age. and dire wolf howl. it’s also the only one i’ve played so far where inventory space became an issue, haha.
i think the only character i don’t care for is warrior just because there’s not much going on there. he does gain some depth in his second episode, so maybe he has other interesting episodes waiting.
Now I’m thinking I should jump back in. I played the Warrior and thought it was kind of dull. Beat it right away. Then jumped in with theif and lost feeling pretty powerless.
But the other classes sound really neat!
) and then you’re freezing a bunch of dice on top of that, plus shock, rendering your opponent mostly harmless in the fleeting moments before their demise.
