Roguelite, roguelike, roguish, rogue-esque; anytime I see the word rogue within a game’s description I’m almost immediately turned off. There is something about the thought of working your way through a game, dying, and then restarting to do it again for the 23rd time that repulses me. As such, you won’t find very many of these games in my library, up until Roguebook, that is — which is surprising because it literally has that dreaded word in its title! Roguebook is a deck-building roguelike developed by Abrakam Entertainment and published by Nacon, and is by all accounts, everything I wouldn’t be interested in for a video game. So, the fact that I’m now gliding past my 20th hour within the game’s titular Roguebook world is the best surprise I’ve had from 2022 so far. The game’s story is fairly simplistic: a group of heroes have been magically transported inside the Roguebook, a realm made up of three worlds, filled with creatures, and navigated via the use of hexagonal tiles. The heroes must defeat the end boss in each of the three worlds to reach the end of their journey. It’s a fairly small realm, but the randomly generated enemies, stat boosts, and card drops make it pretty difficult to predict, and as such, keep each run feeling fresh.To start, you choose two heroes of the five available characters to attempt a run with. Each hero will earn its own selection of cards to use — additional cards become available each time they level up — which focus on a different playstyle, such as damage dealing and defence. Some of the heroes are more desirable than others to pair up, but due to the random nature of the card distribution within the levels, no team is guaranteed a clean run. Due to Roguebook being co-developed with Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic the Gathering, I found the gameplay to be extremely beginner-friendly and not require a whole lot of previous experience with card games to understand, which is a large reason behind my continued enjoyment.Once you’ve chosen your team you can begin making your way through each of the three worlds, with each area rocking its own theme. If you’re feeling particularly brave you can walk straight to the world’s end boss if you want to, although it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll receive an epic beatdown for your arrogance. You begin each run with a tiny number of cards available with simple attack and defend properties. To successfully make your way to the final boss you need to find various upgrades that will give you a fighting chance. Each map is littered with treasures that give you permanent buffs for that run, along with cards, enemies to fight for rewards, and small story pieces that expand on the game’s lore and give you special items for that run. Each world offers you a straight path between the starting gate and the world’s end boss, while each side of the path is covered in the fog of war, which can be uncovered by using brushes and inks to reveal the hexagonal tiles. The difficult part is making sure you have enough of those items on you to get where you want to go because they are limited, so careful navigation is key to grabbing everything you need for your run. Almost all battles will reward you with inks or brushes for that purpose, but they’re all risk-and-reward-based. Your health doesn’t regenerate between battles — unless you find health orbs or are lucky enough to unlock a perk for that run — so any damage you sustain during the turn-based combat sequences will stay with you for the rest of the run. It really made me question whether I needed to get into another fight or whether I had already collected enough items to successfully take down the boss. One major prize from entering combat is the chance to find Embellishment pages, which unlock permanent bonuses from the main menu and carry between all of your runs. It’s a fairly robust upgrade system that can make the game a breeze if you want it to… but where’s the fun in that?The gameplay is pretty simplistic and once I managed to nail the basic formula of Roguebook I was flying through the three worlds with a whole lot of confidence. Well, that was until I unlocked the Prologue difficulty levels within New Game +, which can make your runs punishing if you so choose, and I found I needed to hold off so I could level up my characters a bit more. The Prologue challenges in my opinion are exactly what the game needs for hardcore roguelike players, and it really gave Roguebook interesting gameplay alternatives that helped to flesh out the game’s short run cycles.I never thought I would say this about a roguelike, but if you enjoy deck-building games or repeatedly playing the same sections over and over again — see, I couldn’t help but add some sarcasm — I really recommend you give Roguebook a go, no matter if you’re a beginner or veteran of the genre. Be aware, though, that it will take a fair amount of time to unlock all of the Roguebook achievements, due to the fact that it requires you to complete the highest Prologue difficulties, complete the game with each possible pair of heroes, and a ton of other extremely time-consuming endeavours. I think it’s worth it though, and, surprisingly, I’ll enjoy settling in for the long haul.
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