Deck of Souls is an early-access deck-building roguelite. It’s a tried and tested formula, and while Deck of Souls doesn’t do anything particularly innovative, it does what it does well. The art style is simple but consistent, the sound effects and music are excellent and unobtrusive, and the gameplay has enough variety and replayability to immerse you. Let’s get into it!

What’s the skinny? How does Deck of Souls work?

In a series of turn-based combats, you draw and play cards against a variety of well-drawn enemies. You get to play one card per enemy, so combats feel pretty fair and balanced. Like many games in the genre, success in Deck of Souls relies on building a repertoire of cards that synergise with one another.

For example, on one of my more successful runs, I managed to make a build that relied on piling on armour and block to take enemies down. Of course, it’s all luck of the draw – but isn’t that what makes roguelites fun?

Combats and encounters are linked together on an FTL-style map. You can see what flavour of encounter is ahead – be that a fight, a random encounter, a chance to level up etc. – and choose your optimal path.

Defeating enemies grants you souls of various flavours, which you can use to level up your character’s stats or equipment. Bit grim. But we love it.

Story & Art

I’m a big fan of the art style in Deck of Souls. It’s pixelated, but more than detailed enough to know what you’re looking at. It’s colourful without being overwhelming and super consistent.

My one qualm with the art, however, is the UI. It feels a bit programmer-art, a bit placeholder. I can’t be sure if that’s a stylistic choice or if it’s due to be revisited, though. For now, it’s a bit lacking.

The music is great, really helps to set the grim fantasy vibe.

The story is hidden in dialogue with NPCs you encounter and beat the crap out of. There’s a tale of divinity, rebelling agents of higher powers, and redemption. The joy for me in Deck of Souls was discovering the story as I went and figuring out my own character’s motivations, so I won’t be spoiling it here. Suffice it to say, I really like the writing in this game!

Final verdict: Is it worth a go?

I would say if any of the above appeals to you at all, give Deck of Souls a chance. In places, it still feels a bit unpolished, but overall, it has promise. If roguelites or deck builders are in your wheelhouse, this will be a good entry. It fills a Slay the Spire-shaped hole. At less than a tenner, the price is great too.

As the developers move through early access, they have a roadmap of features that, refreshingly for an early-access game, seem realistic and achievable. I’ll certainly be sticking with the development of this one and returning for future updates.

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It’s a new day, and with that comes another new game. Well, early access in this case. Today, I’m going to be talking about Paranormal Hunter, a new multiplayer survival horror game. Once again, thank you to my lovely friend Kalum for joining me on this adventure. Let’s get right into this one!

What is Paranormal Hunter?

Paranormal Hunter is a first person online co-op multiplayer ghost hunting experience. While you can play solo, this game is much better with friends. It also supports VR, however that is not something I will be trying. VR makes me ill, sorry friends. In Paranormal Hunter, you get to explore haunted houses and abandoned ruins, in search of “symbols of grudges”. Once these are all collected, they are placed in a symbolic, ritualistic circle to banish the evil spirits haunting the area. These spirits can be slowed through the use of UV lights, but banishing them requires the symbols.

Early Days Hunter

Early access is a strange one for me. While I understand and support the concept, I’ve found a lot of games have been taking the step too soon. Paranormal Hunter is on the borderline of this. The base is there, and the concept is fleshing out well. However, we did encounter some bugs while playing. The most prominent was glitching into floors and walls, or getting stuck behind invisible walls. Admittedly, this did cause a fair few laughs. Kalum spawned into the floor on entering one of the maps. I had to lure the spirit over to kill him.

Overall, there is promise within Paranormal Hunter. There was only one real issue that we faced that wasn’t entertaining. Once you enter a game/match, you can’t exit in any way other than dying. There’s no exit or end match button. This was more inconvenience than anything, so hopefully this adjustment will be made down the line.

Down the line, after some patching, I will probably revisit this. However, I can’t see this making its way into my normal rotation. For fans of multiplayer ghost-hunting, this definitely has the potential to be a solid entry to the wheelhouse.

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What is 22 Racing Series?

The world’s first future physics racer (FPR) takes place on an Earth 100 years from today, where climate change has ravaged the environment. Resource-intensive racing series have moved online, limiting their ecological impact and enabling a global sport to be accessible to all.

Players can experience terrains throughout environments most affected by climate change including Florida, Bangladesh, Solomon Islands, and Antarctica. Speed through clocked Time Trials, diverse Circuit Racing, difficult Elimination Rounds, scored Point-to-Point Racing, and a capture the flag-inspired Sector Capture.

Gain a competitive edge by allowing creativity to run free. Fill a virtually unlimited inventory with custom-built vehicles featuring personalized engine torque, tire grip choices, and more in a next-generation adaptive keyframe setup that adjusts vehicles based on speed and action to achieve the ultimate grip and downforce.

Vehicles, tracks, race rules, and tournaments will be available for modders to bring their own racing visions to life, publish them to share with a community, and monetise them via the Pavillion Hub. Construct a brand new circuit using the fast and flexible track builder to create detailed, simple, lengthy, or quick custom tracks tailored to each racer’s style.

Honestly 22 Racing Series from the brief trailer gives me the same vibes Wipeout did when I first played that on the PlayStation so many years ago. It looks like an absolutely trippy blast. The designs are slick and flowing with colour. I love it.

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Explore frightening haunts in this debut playable demo. Enter an abandoned location and scour the facility for cursed artefacts. Collect all the bedevilled items and perform a banishing ritual to quell a fierce spirit stalking the halls. Although, one must be wary. Evil might just be around the next corner.

However, no two ghost hunts play out the same. The game features randomised elements to keep things fresh and exciting. Replay missions to encounter new otherworldly obstacles. However, sanity-reducing effects and a persistent supernatural pursuer are intent on dragging players to the other side.

Paranormal Hunter is set for an Early Access launch in the second quarter of 2022 with full keyboard and mouse, gamepad, and VR support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality device support.

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Inspired by the age-old classics such as Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, Black Geyser borrows a ton of good mechanics. Featuring real-time tactical combat with pause, rich storytelling, deep lore and memorable companions. While all set in a fantasy world totally corrupted with death and illness. 

Black Geyser delivers over 300,000 words of rich dialogue and a huge, open-world expanse to explore. Inviting players to decide on their own race and class. Round up your party and venture into Yerengal. Unravel the mysteries and secrets of their heritage. The choices you make directly impact the story and its outcome. Be it good or evil, if you diver too far to greed the consequences for you and your party can be severe.

Having initially started development in 2015. The team has been backed successfully on Kickstarter in 2018, the game has since grown in size and scope. It’s nice to see when devs can expand due to crowdfunding. Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness can be wishlisted on Steam now in preparation for its release into Early Access on August 26th.

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God of Riffs tasks you to wield a range of musical battle axes as you face off against waves of enemies. Hordes of undead skeletons to your rhythmic swings of fury. The melee combat is fueled by screaming guitar solos and thunderous double bass pedals. The harder you play the more points you’ll earn. So, strike swift and true to soar to the top of the leaderboards.

God of Riffs will debut four over-the-top tunes when it launches on Early Access. Using inspiration from iconic metal album covers. Use the beat to bash skulls while you’re cheered on by a mountain of skeletal rockers. Battle legions of enemies as awe-inspiring sea gods emerge in the distance.

With two difficulty settings and accessibility modes, God of Riffs appeals to all audiences. Having single-handed play, colour-blind mode, and a growing list of modifiers help make rocking out an accessible experience. Boss Music Games plans to release more songs, modes and accessibility options before the full launch.

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The Open Beta will let players get their hands on 13 of the game characters in order to discover, train and fight against AI-controlled fighters or try their luck online against other. The Open Beta will support cross-play between PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

Guilty Gear -Strive- going further than before

An online platform has also been opened, allowing players to register in order to have to be able to access the Open Beta on February 18th, starting at 3:00 am GMT. The registration can be made here, while the offer lasts, as the number of Open Beta early access codes is limited.

It’s definitely exciting times for fans of this acclaimed franchise. The series has always gone from strength to strength, and now that we’re heading into the next generation of consoles I’m sure the fights are going to become all the more visceral and addictive.

Guilty Gear -Strive- will be released on April 9th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC. Players buying the PlayStation 4 version will be able to receive the PlayStation 5 version for free.

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While they are aware that Early Access is called that name for a reason, they want to ensure everything is polished and bugs are squashed before you begin your adventure in Avalon, and they need to a little more time to do that.

The Early Access version of King Arthur: Knight’s Tale will now launch on the 26th of January.

Based on the Arthurian mythology, King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a turn-based tactical role-playing game – a unique hybrid between turn-based tactical games and traditional, character-centric RPGs. King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a modern retelling of a classic Arthurian mythology story filtered through the dark fantasy tropes, a twist on the traditional tales of chivalry.

Main features of King Arthur: Knight’s Tale

Your Fights – Control a small team of heroes and fight gruelling, but satisfying battles with a deeply engaging, tactical turn-based combat system. Choose from more than 30 heroes of 5 diverse classes and combine hundreds of skills and artefacts to assemble an efficient team.

Your Heroes – Gather your own Knights of the Round Table and send them on knightly quests. These heroes are the most important resources and the most complex gameplay elements at the same time. But beware! Death is always final! You must manage them at the Round Table accordingly, planning ahead before going into battles.

The character progression system is designed to be as deep as in the traditional RPGs: heroes level up on unique skill trees and the complex loot system provides unique options to fine-tune their tactical capabilities. Each hero has a distinctive personality and their loyalty is constantly changing through the decisions made by the player –  in certain cases, they can even leave the Round Table and turn against you.

Your Kingdom – See the entirety of Avalon presented on the Adventure Map, observe all the territory, select your missions and explore various places. Management in King Arthur: Knight’s Tale focuses on rebuilding Camelot and expanding the mystical Stronghold with new buildings that each unlock various upgrades, and also offers different ways to heal up and manage the heroes of the Round Table.

Your Legend – Play as Sir Mordred, the former nemesis of King Arthur. Explore the mystical island of Avalon, venture on knightly quests and make decisions in various encounters where you’ll need to make moral choices, as in most RPGs, which all have an impact on the story and your Morality. The end of the campaign opens up new endgame content for the bravest of all: tough new challenges appear on the map with challenging, mythic boss fights and random quests, loot, and character progression ultimately leading to the banishing of Balor, the monstrous god-king of the Fomorians himself.

Beyond the Legend – Complete more than 50 unique points of interest on the Adventure Map, including 20 story missions and various side quests, taking place on diverse terrains. Journey to dark castle dungeons and the forests of the Sídhe, all built by using photo scanned environments and complemented by high-quality mocap animation, then rendered inside a modern PBR engine utilizing DirectX 12 to support strong, atmospheric effects. Challenge 7 enemy factions, fight more than 50 types of enemy units, overcome 10 incredible boss fights throughout your quests.

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If that doesn’t tell you enough – which is fair – picture this. Imagine Stardew Valley, Dreamscaper, and Always Sometimes Monsters walk into a bar. Nowhere Studios are sat at the next table over eavesdropping. They catch bits and pieces here and there, write down what they hear, and make it into a game – voila, Circadian City. As a result, the game feels a bit like pale reflections of all of those games.

Firstly, like Stardew Valley, it has plenty of people to talk to, develop relationships, and get to know. However, none of the characters are very interesting or deep – everyone is super one-note. Secondly, like Dreamscaper, your character spends their nights in a dreamworld with reflections of their real life. Unlike Dreamscaper, unfortunately, Circadian City‘s dreamworld is neither exciting to explore nor does it have much in the way of interesting mechanics. Like Always Sometimes Monsters, Circadian City interrogates the experience of life in a big city. Thirdly, where Always Sometimes Monsters paints a too-relatable picture of city life, the titular Circadian City is a weirdly halcyon place to live. It’s clear they’re trying to go for a “life is tough” shtick, but the game is so easy, that aspect falls a little flat.

Where does Circadian City fit?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily think Circadian City is derivative or that it doesn’t have anything new to offer. What CC has that the other games don’t is its open-ended style. What the above examples offer are a curated experience and relatively inflexible stories. Circadian City offers a story purely rooted in your character’s actions. Nothing happens unless you make it happen. Emergent storytelling is a brilliant rhetorical device, and plenty of games execute it really well. What all of the games that do emergent stories well have, however, is deep interactive systems.

Therein lies the crux of the matter. Circadian City has a long way to go before its systems are able to carry the experience.

Eat, Grind, Sleep, Repeat

There are a few things to do in-game. You can explore, work at your [insert generic office employment] job, chat to people, take classes. These activities, however, have 2 problems. The first is that the game doesn’t really give you much motivation to actually do them. There’s no challenge to any of it – click a button and your character does the thing. The reward for balancing these things is to level your personality skill tree, but there doesn’t feel like much of a point in doing that. Secondly is that once you’ve done a task, that’s it. There’s no variety if you do it again. It’s all just time skips and fades to black.

Seeing as there are so few things to do, so little reason to do them, and basically no challenge or entertainment value in the activities themselves… Eventually, they all just feel like a slog. The dreamworld sections are the same – it’s all just super basic material collection and crafting.

A grind needs a reward, and it needs, well, fun. People grind in Pokémon and Final Fantasy because you’re able to feel the progress in real-time, collect drops from monsters, see the exp bars move up. Crucially, you’re actually doing something in those games. Imagine if you levelled your Pokémon by clicking a box that says “Fight”, the screen fades to black, and then it’s over. That’s a bit how the core gameplay loop of Circadian City feels.

Click to view slideshow.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck

I’ll quickly run over the visual and audio designs of Circadian City. Long story short: they’re fairly competent, but nothing special.

If you’ve ever played a game made in a top-down pixel art style, you’ve seen everything Circadian City has to offer. Similarly, the music and sound effects are bog-standard for the style of game. Nothing stands out as particularly beautiful, nor does the game have a super unique feel to it – but, by the same token, nothing stands out as done poorly.

Circadian City – In it for the long haul?

There are plenty of reasons developers release games as Early Access. Most claim they want feedback so they can continue to develop, but most of the time it seems like they need to or they’ll run out of money.

I truly hope Nowhere Studios continues to improve Circadian City over the next year or so and ends up with a polished, enjoyable product. At the moment, the game has maybe 2-3 hours of fun gameplay in it before it turns into a slog. That’s a long way from the “game that is intended to be played hundreds of hours” which is the intended experience.

I’ve not included a review score on this piece as so much feels like early phases of iterative design. Monochroma was a competent entry from Nowhere, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Watch this space, and who knows?

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2020-08-19

When I first read about Dreamscaper, I’ll admit I was a little sceptical. As a topic and a game mechanic, dreaming has often been hit-and-miss in the history of game design. Only a few games have really done dreams and trips into the subconscious well – pieces like Psychonauts, Among the Sleep, and Catherine. It’s easy to slip into clichés, hollow tropes or, worst of all, Alice in Wonderland references. I’m happy to report that Dreamscaper has avoided all of the classic pitfalls. Despite being an Early Access release, Dreamscaper feels polished, rich, and well-realised.

The star of the game is Cassidy – Cass – a small-town girl who has recently moved to the big city to work in corporate marketing. Reserved and unsure of herself, throughout the game the player guide’s Cassidy through her waking and dreaming lives to fight her demons and integrate herself in her newfound home. Afterburner‘s debut title is, in this writer’s opinion, a resounding success already, despite technically being in early access.

Shanking Demons and Making Pals: Gameplay in Dreamscaper

Combat

The gameplay loop in Dreamscaper is simple but compelling. Each night, Cassidy falls asleep in her bed and disappears into the world of her subconscious. Once Cass has entered the world of dreams, you must fight a series of monsters in a randomly generated dungeon, building up your equipment as you go. It is incredibly satisfying to find new combinations of ranged, melee and “Lucid” attacks and defeat enemies. The descriptions on the equipment are always brilliant as well – many give a glimpse into Cass’s past or subconscious. For example, several pieces of equipment are inspired by games of D&D Cass has played, while others draw from her favourite video games, movies or hobbies. These little glimpses into Cassidy’s personality and history are always worth a read.

The combat itself is satisfying, if uncomplicated. Lucid attacks, which are essentially spells, give some flavour and variety, but ultimately it’s a game of hack, slash, shoot and dodge. Later fights and bosses get a little bullet-hell, but that’s about as complex as it gets. Ranged combat doesn’t feel quite as polished as the melee and Lucid attacks. That said, you have to love any game that lets you blow enemies away with finger-guns. Dodging and blocking/parrying are both matters of timing and are super satisfying to pull off successfully.

Throughout the dungeon levels, Cassidy collects 3 crafting materials – Insight, Solace and Bliss. You can use these in one of two ways. Firstly, you can use them to craft equipment to guarantee you start with that gear on your next run. Secondly, you can use them to craft gifts. We’ll get to gifts, and their receivers, in a moment. Cass wakes up either when you finish a stage or die.

The Waking World of Dreamscaper

Once your time in the dream world is finished, Cassidy awakens in her bed. A good night’s sleep the night before – meaning you finished the stage – means Cass is well-rested. A poor night’s sleep – that is, one that ended in dying – means Cass didn’t get a good rest. This affects how much time you have to live your waking life before Cass needs to return home to sleep. This section is much slower-paced and more intimate than the combat-heavy dreamworld. Cass walks quite slowly, her animations are demure, and fixed camera angles give a sense of stillness. In this game mode, Cass has the opportunity to meet the residents of Red Haven. Through conversation and homemade gifts, these characters slowly open up, revealing more of themselves – and Cass does the same.

The dialogue and characterisation of these NPCs are absolutely stellar. Despite having no faces – everyone in Dreamscaper is rendered as a sort of mannequin – the residents of Red Haven are each unique and distinctive. That’s not to say they’re cartoonish – with the possible exception of Bruce, the historian. Dreamscaper‘s NPCs feel like real, living people. People of the kind you’ve met a thousand times before in real life. It may seem counter-intuitive, but they are refreshingly mundane in a medium that frequently bombards players with larger-than-life characters. The cast includes a sketch-artist barista, a bartender with travel stories to tell, and a local news writer. As mentioned above, Cassidy can craft various homemade gifts to present to her new friends, as well as just chit-chat to slowly grow their relationship.

Friendship Isn’t Just Its Own Reward

Beyond their compelling dialogue and refreshing realism, befriending these characters will unlock “Influences”. Influences are equippable aspects that improve Cassidy’s combat skills in some way in her dreams. “Eve’s Perception”, for example (the first you will unlock) improves your ranged combat skills. These bonuses are powerful buffs that allow you to specialise your build. Metaphorically, I love this idea – as Cassidy gets to know these characters, she learns from them and grows as a person. It’s a wonderful mechanical expression of character growth.

Once Cassidy has spent a few hours socialising, she must return home to sleep, and her run either continues (if last night, you completed a stage) or you begin a new run from the beginning. This refreshing take on the rogue-lite genre lends a sense of progression and persistence that is often missing from the genre.

Click to view slideshow.

The Sights & Sounds of Dreamscaper

As you can see from the screenshots above, Dreamscaper is breathtaking. The waking world of Red Haven, especially, is gorgeous. The lighting, the use of colour and detail, and the level design are all masterful. It feels real. There this sort of watercolour quality to the textures that gives Dreamscaper a beautiful and unique visual quality. What you can’t see from the screenshots is the soundtrack. Afterburner has composed a simply astounding OST. The music is rich and euphonious with a consistent thematic core. The animations and sound effects are spot-on. I’d particularly like to call out the transition from the waking world to dreams and the reverse – the camera work and animations there are very well done.

The character designs for Cassidy as well as each of the NPCs is distinctive and unique, visually, without being caricaturish. The decision to not include faces for any of the characters may seem strange, but it just works with Dreamscaper‘s unique visual style and highlights other unique design choices for the characters.

In Conclusion

Overall, Dreamscaper is a brilliant, well-realised design. It’s clear that it is a labour of love. The level of polish and sheer joy of playing the game is above the level of some AAA games on release. That’s saying something for a brand new indie studio’s debut game – particularly a studio of just 4 people. Dreamscaper is in early access, but as far as I can see, the only reason for that is for Afterburner to engage with the community on continued fine-tuning and additional content. I have spent some time on their Discord server, and the level of responsiveness is exemplary. If you’re interested in engaging with the developers, or just see how people are enjoying Dreamscaper, you’ll find their Discord server here.

I will absolutely continue to play Dreamscaper as development continues, and I am eager to see what Afterburner comes up with next. TL;DR: Dreamscaper is a dream come true.

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