Since departing Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield has lent his renowned skills in the world of tabletop game design to a number of titles, both physical and digital, over the last two decades. The latest of these ventures, a roguelike deck-builder in development at Belgium-based studio Abrakam, has recently entered private alpha testing following a successful Kickstarter campaign and aims to combine the addictive nature of deck-building with turn-based combat mechanics where actions and abilities are dictated entirely by the cards you own.
You can check out some in-game screenshots of the gorgeous-looking Roguebook down below, and anyone familiar with Slay the Spire will immediately recognize a number of similarities between Mega Crit’s acclaimed indie title and Abrakam’s Garfield-designed adventure, though mechanically is where the two begin to diverge.
Players begin each run-through of Roguebook with two heroes and a barebones deck. New power and ability cards can be obtained by defeating monsters and exploring dungeons and then added to your deck’s reservoir to form a so-called Fat Deck. The name is derived from Roguebook encouraging the player to keep hold of every card they come across instead of discarding those deemed weak in order to accrue passive buffs and increase overall strength. True to its status as a roguelike, should both champions perish in battle, you’ll be sent straight back to square one and required to start from scratch.
Publisher Nacon (which recently revealed a ton of other upcoming games for next-gen consoles) says Abrakam is aiming for a full launch of Roguebook on Steam in summer 2021 and you can stay up to date on development by heading on over to the game’s dedicated Kickstarter page by hitting the link below.
Published: Jul 9, 2020 11:27 am