Roguebook is an upcoming card battling game by developer Abrakam Entertainment and publisher NACON. Deck-building and card battlers are one of the most popular gaming genres, one that even spans outside the virtual world of video games. They have existed long before virtual video games existed however now with video games moving to digital, we have seen tons of amazing card-battlers and deck-building titles on PC and consoles. Roguebook is one such upcoming card-battling that combines deck-building with roguelike mechanics. We got a chance to experience the pre-order demo for Roguebook and this is our preview of the demo in which we try out this brilliant combination of deck-building and roguelike mechanics.
In Roguebook, you are trapped inside the Book of Lore of Faeria where each page of the book represents a challenge to you. While originally this book was known to carry all the world’s legends, it was contacted with some evil spirit and now this book has become the Roguebook and you are trapped inside this book. While the story of the game does not matter that much, it essentially combines two very popular genres together which are roguelike and deckbuilding. Battles are fought with cards while the levels in the game are procedurally generated. Your every playthrough in the game is called a ‘run’ which indicates that you must complete it without dying or else you will need to start from the start.
Your party consists of 2 heroes. The full game will include 6 heroes however in the pre-order demo, I had access to 2 heroes. Each hero in the game comes with its own unique set of cards that you will use in your decks. Switching to a new hero will give you a fresh set of cards and during combat, each card can only be played for the hero to which it belongs to. There are some neutral cards as well but most of the cards in the game are hero-specific and you can only use them for the heroes they belong to. For guaranteed success in the game, you will need a strong deck and you can unlock better and powerful cards by various means in the game such as spending some gold at the Vault of Wisdom.
Each hero also comes with their own unique strengths and weaknesses as well. While these are mostly dictated by the cards that you use in the game, you will often find certain heroes useful in the game for certain aspects such as offense or defense based on the gems or treasures that they have currently equipped. You can also choose different abilities for these heroes which make them even more effective during battle. In addition, you cannot simply depend on one hero for your success, you have to combine and make strategies using both of your heroes to ensure that you have the right hero at the front for absorbing damage and the right hero at the back for maximum damage dealing.
The gameplay of Roguebook is essentially comprised of two aspects. First, you have the exploration phase where the roguelite mechanics come into play. Each run is considered a solo run for you because if all of your heroes die, your run is over and the next time you start the game, the map will be different and unique because maps are procedurally-generated every time you start a game. This keeps every run fresh and it brings a different challenge every time you start a new game. The map of Roguebook is in the form of hexagon tiles and to unlock more tiles, you have to use your ink which is earned as a reward for winning battles. Ink is pretty rare in the game so you have to be watchful for it as I ran out of Ink and was unable to open up new paths for more battles to become powerful enough to fight the bosses often and I had to restart the game.
On the map, you find tons of things to explore. Scattered around the map in each chapter are various merchants and shops that will sell you upgrades and new cards even. There is no limit on moving around on the map and you can explore as many tiles as you want. As you paint more of the map with your paintbrush, you will unlock and see what the new tiles are hiding for you. Sometimes you will get pickups such as health or gold while sometimes you will uncover new merchants and random encounters with enemies. You can head over to the Alchemist to transform your cards or visit the Wandering Merchant for some new gems, treasures, and cards.
Clicking on a random encounter, boss fight or Elite Encounter will trigger the second phase of the gameplay which is combat. For its combat, Roguebook follows the card-battler formula and this is where your deck comes into play. You will have two heroes and a random number of enemies that you must defeat in each combat scenario. You will have a set number of moves and a set number of cards available in each round. Depending on your deck, you will get a good balance of both offense and defense cards and the rest of the combat depends on your skill and how efficiently you use both of these cards to survive and win over your enemies. While the starting enemies are pretty easy, battles get really tough as you progress through battles and chapters of the game. The hero on the front side will absorb all of the damage of incoming attacks however some attacks damage both your heroes or enemies as well so they will attack all.
Gaining shields will keep absorbing incoming damage until they run out. Combat is extremely dependent on how good your cards are in the game so you must try your best to find and use the best of the cards in the game. Apart from your cards, you can make your heroes more efficient by purchasing various skills from the Skill Tree or each hero’s own unique skill set. Certain treasures and gems collected will also grant certain buffs to your character. Some of the cards played also give buffs or debuffs to your enemies and to yourself so your deck still plays an important role over your gems and treasures.
The cards in each hero’s deck range from both offense to defense. You have the standard attack and shield cards but in the mix, you can also unlock some special cards that include powerful attacks and special defense that grants damage resistance beyond the normal shield cards in the deck. There are various ways of unlocking new cards in the game with the most common way is to get them from the merchants or spend some gold at the Vault of Wisdom. I got some of the best cards from the Vault of the Wisdom during my runs. Your main goal is to defeat the boss in each chapter which is really hard so you must first explore the rest of the map, upgrade your team and then finally head to the boss to progress to the next chapter.
Roguebook adds a new mix to the deck-building card battlers with a unique exploration mechanic. It combines two interesting mechanics together roguelike and card-battler which in return delivers a pretty decent title. While it surely looks promising in its early form, the full release of the game will come packed with more heroes, cards, and areas for you to explore in the game. I did enjoy my bit with the game, and I am sure that I will certainly be spending some decent hours in the full release when it comes out. If you like card-battlers and deck building games then Roguebook is a title that will surely interest you with its unique roguelike mechanics thrown in the mix.
