Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale

This is a strange game to talk about, as it largely feels abandoned at this point. Don't get me wrong, this is a finished product, and one that has some decent stuff going for it, but if you try to search information about this game, you'll most find dead wikis and posts from 5+ years ago. Meterorfall: Krumit's Tale is a deck-building rogue-like that was released before the genre became as oversaturated as it is today. You're goal is to survive a series of 9 "areas", defeating the Uberlich final boss. While you may initially unlock other heroes to play as or cards to find in future journeys, ala Slay the Spire, you'll most just unlock new difficulty levels, meaning that how much you get out of the game will boil down to your enjoyment of the core systems. There's no "ending", and that's by design, as has been stated by the Slothworks team in the past. The way in which this game plays is the most noteworthy aspect of it; rather than players drawing a hand of cards from their deck, their deck and cards that represent enemies are shuffled together and slowly trickled out into a 3x3 grid. You can interact with any of the 9 cards on the board, allowing you to equip items (if you have the cash) and fight enemies (which earns you cash). Combat shows a series of actions the enemy will take, with different enemies retaining the same attack patterns across runs. You'll need to find ways to defeat these enemies while taking as little damage as possible, which often requires thoughtful use of equipment, which has limited uses. Each hero will engage with equipment differently, allowing you to engage with the puzzle differently depending on who you're piloting. This aspect of the game is familiar and not worth lingering on too much, as you'll naturally discover the heroes you have a predilection for. At best, the grid system leads to interesting choices, as you'll find interesting ways to ping-pong between defeating weaker enemies to afford equipment you couldn't otherwise grab to then defeating bigger enemies. The more efficiently you clear a grid, the more gems you'll get, which allows you to afford adding stronger cards to your deck. Between areas, you'll also get perks (passive effects) and a card from a selection of 3 that you don't need to pay for. Most of my issues with the game comes from the length and at times crummy RNG. Each run of this game feels like a bit of a drag, with each area becoming a longer commitment to fight through due to the stronger enemies and the more thoughtful decisions you'll often need to make to survive. While it's great to have tough decisions to make, there often is a "correct" answer that you can find if you look hard enough. Between the perks, your hero's base ability, and the cards you've bought during the run, you'll have a solid gameplan by the time you reach the last area. What makes this tough is how cards are randomly thrown into the grid. At the start of each area, you'll get a random assortment of enemies and equipment (presumably balanced in some way to not completely screw the player over). Because you have no cash at the start, you'll need to be able to defeat weaker enemies without dying or willing to throw away enough stuff on the grind to have the money to afford equipment. This can lead to situations where you run out of equipment before the end of the area and succumb because you had a bad "opening hand" if you will, or it can lead to every enemy on the board being overwhelmingly tough when you have no tools at your disposal. Often, you'll need to lean far more on your perks to build up momentum if you have a chance of lasting in the last few areas of a run, and often there are perks that are outright better than others. It can lead to the game feeling grindy at points, especially as you rank up difficulty levels. But when you're doing well, it can be really easy to just coast through entire areas. In the last game I played as Bruno, the traditional knight character, I got a combo of perks that healed me each time I defeated and enemy and froze enemies once per fight so they don't deal damage for a turn. This allowed me to, without equipment, demolish certain enemy types without losing any resources or health (or minimal health that I could easily make up for), meaning that there were certain areas where I didn't need to think or try. This is further exacerbated by the fact that every action an enemy will do is public knowledge before you start the fight. Where something like Slay the Spire only shows an enemy's next activation, here you can see the full gamut of what to expect, meaning that you can perfectly map out how a fight will go and how much health you expect to lose. In other words, every fight is in a state where either you know you will win or you know you can't lose, so your choices feel streamlined in that sense. Once you get a mathematical sense of the game, there's no tension, and it becomes something of a therapeutic experience more than anything else. With all that being said, I do think the game is fun enough, and if you find the primary gameplay loop compelling, it's a solid game within the genre for a decent price. The art style and tone, cribbing from Adventure Time's ledger, is charming and still brings smiles to my face. While this isn't a game I will visit often, I do see it as a game I would be willing to return to occasionally.