Sounds pretty simple, however there is no ultimate card set that fits all the situations - to survive, gamers will have to constantly come up with new strategies and implement regular adjustments to their skill collections.
Players will collect, upgrade and combine skill cards to compose their own decks of powers. The hallmark of Book of Demons is the character development mechanic – the game supersedes the usual hack and slash statfest with a single solution, a card system.
What makes Book of Demons stand out is the number of twists in the basic gameplay mechanics, paper cut-out graphics, a dark theme intertwined with a fair dose of humor, and most importantly – the unprecedented accessibility. Save the terror-stricken Paperverse from the clutches of the Archdemon himself!
It’s impossible to judge based only on Book of Demons whether the rest of the Return 2 Games series will succeed in recapturing the feeling of classic games, but from what I’ve seen, they’ve got a strong start.Wield magic cards instead of weapons and slay the armies of darkness in the dungeons below the Old Cathedral. Thing Trunk’s Senior Programmer, Konstanty Kalicki’s story was all too familiar to me, personally, saying, “I barely passed 7th grade after discovering UFO: Enemy Unknown,” a situation I found myself in back in the day, and one typically reserved for to-be lifelong gamers. “We build our games with people in mind, who don’t play as much as they used to, who find casual games shallow and unengaging,” explained producer Filip Starzynski. Thing Trunk’s team comes from a background of casual game development, so there’s plenty of experience there, and, as gamers, they know the feel of a good “real” game. The papercraft style is a cute twist, even if it’s no longer all that novel, but Thing Trunk explained that the entire series is based in the same papercraft universe, putting the focus squarely on the gameplay and setting. It’s the tiniest of mechanics, but it does wonders to keep the game from being unplayably simple. Enemies with shields start showing up, requiring you to deliberately click on their shields to destroy them before you can attack the enemy. As you wander the path, enemies will approach you, then you click them to attack until they die. Your movement is restricted to a simple branching path, and the combat is hilariously Diablo-like click-to-kill.
No, Book of Demons isn’t a fully fleshed-out ARPG, but it does find a happy medium between a PC ARPG and a casual clicking game.īook of Demons is something like a hack-and-slash on rails. The devs aren’t just making clones, though, instead focusing on updating the mechanics to be more accessible to time-restricted gamers without sacrificing the depth of our favorite games. The first entry, Book of Demons, uses the original Diablo for its source material. Once they get into the pitch, it gets a bit more frank, and the sell is undeniably a marketing gimmick, but if the series lives up to its ambition, at least it’ll be a good gimmick.Įach of the seven games will be the studio’s take on one of the classics. It’s doubtful that Escapist readers will find anything there that they didn’t already know, but the presentation is delightful.
The first segment is very after-school-special-y or Magic School Busish, which reflects the retro feel the company’s aiming for, and is also a highly entertaining look back at gaming. The team put together a video manifesto of sorts, which I recommend you check out.
Even as an adult with precious little free time, those of us that grew up on the classics still want a robust experience, which is what Thing Trunk’s goal is with the series. As with most things, you should know who your audience is, and Thing Trunk’s new seven-part retrological games series, Return 2 Games, is focused on the generally elusive “mid-core” players. Thousands of games come out every month across the abundance of platforms, but only a handful will be a success story. Making games is hard, but selling games can often be even harder.