As I amble through the quaint meadows and peaks, I meet a stone-faced little girl who has only goats for friends and a hysterical priest who babbles on about demons, his church defiled with scrawlings of hellish retribution. As they let go, I look down at my hand to see that it’s turned burnt and black like scorched tree bark.īut the troubles of my first day in Mundaun don’t end there. That’s not all that lurks inside the barn, and within the ashy remains, something grabs my hand – a ghost, a phantom, or something else entirely. I search what is left of the barn, and my soul leaves my body as I come face-to-face with old grandpappy himself, the white of his open eyes standing out against the charred remains of the rest of his body. I search what is left of the barn, and my soul leaves my body as I come face-to-face with old grandpappy himself, the white of his open eyes standing out against the charred remains of the rest of his body.Īfter leaving the safety of the bus and a short hike later, I finally arrive at Mundaun and I’m immediately greeted by the burnt husk of my grandfather’s barn. The local priest has written that Curdin’s grandfather has tragically died in a barn fire, but don’t worry-the funeral and burial have all been sorted, and there’s no reason why you should ever need to return to Mundaun, ever. The game’s heavy charcoal hand-drawn visuals really should have been my first clue that this was not going to be the getaway I had envisioned.Ī little bit of context: you play as a young man named Curdin, who has returned to the secluded rural village of Mundaun after receiving a troubling letter. My first day in town has been, in a word, surreal.
But in the horror game Mundaun, instead of being charmed by Swiss countryside, my first day in the snowy Alps ended with me scrambling around in the dark fending off monstrous wicker men with a broken pitchfork. Switzerland’s rolling hills and snowy peaks seem like the ideal destination for a bit of peace and quiet. But where other teams might have gone for something like a retro pixel-art look or basic 3D models, Trials of Fire instead leans into its roots by representing all characters with counters. As a modest budget game from a relatively small team, it was never going to be a graphical powerhouse. It feels like a platter of established concepts given an exciting new flavour by some inventive seasonings.īut my favourite thing about Trials of Fire is that it’s not just inspired by its cardboard-and-paper predecessors in mechanics, but in its visuals too. Clever twists-like having to burn cards to gain the ‘willpower’ you need to fuel other cards, constantly forcing tough decisions-make all the difference. Despite combining so many well-worn ideas (and having so much competition in the rapidly expanding roguelike word salad genre) its fights feel like a refreshingly different take on turn-based strategy. Turn-based combat over a hex-grid, like a board game character actions dictated by the drawing of cards from a deck, as in a CCG levelling up, loot, and narrative events that trace their origins back to pen-and-paper role-playing.Ĭlever twists-like having to burn cards to gain the ‘willpower’ you need to fuel other cards, constantly forcing tough decisions-make all the difference. Trials of Fire is a roguelike that combines about as many mechanics inspired by tabletop games as you possibly could. Since the very beginning of the hobby, videogames have been hugely influenced by tabletop games – but some certainly wear that influence a lot more on their sleeve than others. Making a token effort in Trials of Fire – Robin Valentine It’s just so wholly unique-and that’s a hard thing to come by, especially in big-budget games that are typically made to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. I still haven’t quite beaten it yet, but Nier: Automata is quickly becoming one of my favourite games ever. This time around, I’m skipping a good chunk of them and focusing on the story and it’s coming together in a much more engrossing way because I’m not taking hours-long detours between each twist. I painstakingly completed as many of them as I could the first time around, I think that’s partly why I ultimately abandoned the game before properly finishing it. One of Automata’s weaknesses is that it buries you under a mountain of sidequests which are mostly forgettable. The story is hitting a lot better for me too. Friction is fun-especially when that friction forces you to engage with a game in unexpected ways. But over the past few years I’ve really come to adore games that aren’t obsessed with being perfectly balanced and smoothed over. The first time I played it, I think I just found this all a little confusing and odd.
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