Intentions to release the game on mobile this year feel baked into it from the start, with a few action mechanics that are clearly optimized for fingers instead of mouse pointers. The cards may look enticing in screenshots, but they come off like placeholders for gear and spells in any other dungeon crawler, rather than some kind of thoughtfully inspired deckbuilding system. The challenges presented are primarily centered on stats and gear-checks, and the optional roguelike mode is a mixed bag, especially when certain rooms can all but insta-kill the player on entry (regular modes offer revival options). The problem with pushing such a thoroughly player-guided development path is that Book of Demons rarely comes off as particularly novel or engrossing, and more like a casually-minded game designed to appease as wide a player-base as possible. How this works in practice is hard to intuit, but the game’s early access status has given Thing Trunk considerable time to massage the basic effects of this system for approval. Shorter games offer fewer rewards and gold, longer games offer more, though there exists some invisible balancing algorithm that tweaks drop quality to level out the length options. Pushing the player-first philosophy further, the game offers a sliding scale of game size, which can be adjusted after every section of a dungeon is completed. All of this feeds into the game’s predictable inspirations, though target distance is nebulous and requires some time to get accustomed to, and dodging projectiles while being forced down a linear path of movement is completely clumsy there will be plenty of times you are simply bopping away backwards through rooms to avoid a single projectile that was specifically fired along your exact path. Each player character has a basic attack, which can be improved through equipping and swapping certain cards, as well as special card-based skills like arrow barrages for the Rogue and a spinning attack for the Warrior. The player moves through predetermined linear paths in cardinal directions, clicking on the free-range enemies and dodging attacks, projectiles, and area-of-effect spells, while countering with their own skills. So what is there to focus on, here? The player’s goal is to make it through a series of subterranean levels, split up into different sections full of enemy mobs, minibosses, treasure, and 3 chapter bosses (including the Archdemon himself, a kind of cutesy pop-up book version of Diablo’s titular Prime Evil). There’s no way around how strange it looks, with these characters bopping around to and fro as if being moved by invisible hands on a game board, somewhat reminiscent of 2015’s Card Hunter. There’s a pop-up book quality to the 2-dimensional artwork (heavily referenced in the animated intro as well), with each character and enemy represented as a 2D cutout constructions navigating isometric levels. The Book of Demons design aesthetic initially feels like a drastic shift from most other games, but you’ll get used to it quickly. The overarching intention here is a game that seeks to respect a player’s time, but it’s hard for Book of Demons to avoid getting overwhelmed in the balance between casual access and actual depth. Book of Demons represents the first of these games under the Return 2 Games banner, serving as a kind of hodgepodge of genres and classic gaming inspirations, including a considerable amount of outright Diabloappropriation. The members of the new Polish games studio Thing Trunk are certainly ambitious, with a full slate of seven (!) “mid-core” titles projected in the coming years.
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