Griftlands
Management love a tough negotiation but not with the staff, so Sam Greer will be getting a quick visit from the LXF shock troops right about now…
Management loves a tough negotiation but not with the staff, so Sam Greer will be getting a visit from the LXF shock troops…
Games have always been looking for ways to make conversations as compelling as the combat. Why can’t a tense negotiation feel as gripping as a tough-as-nails boss fight? That’s the question Griftlands seeks to answer. It makes for a compelling roguelike, experience thanks to great writing and characters, but doesn’t quite live up to the promise of its chatty deckbuilding systems.
The t Griftlands are a chaotic place where corrupt law enforcement and criminal syndicates run things against a backdrop that combines science fiction with fantasy. Brutal it may be, but it sure is pretty. You’ll get to love the scratchy, hand-drawn touch to everything. There’s a smart economy to where the embellishments are made, which ensures the game can deliver on its scope without any rough edges. Character sprites have lovely gestures and expressions that complement the writing, while the overworld map is simply littered with tidy icons.
Gangland style
Griftlands’ factions are written in broad caricature, in line with the game’s cartoonish look – which stands out in a good way among the crowd of indie pixel-art based games. However, there’s always a serious undercurrent of scepticism about the status quo. Criminal gangs prove virtuous, while the local police prove to be the most ruthless of all. In this way, developer Klei paints a strong picture of (downtown Bath? – Ed) the world you step into as a ‘grifter’, the game’s shorthand for a smooth-talking mercenary. There are three to play as one, each with their own story, but only one is unlocked to start with: Sal, a once-indentured slave now on the hunt for the woman who sold her.
Revenge is hardly a novel motivation, but Griftlands shines thanks to fast-paced dialogue that fleshes out its characters effortlessly. What a relief it is to play an RPG that doesn’t involve scrolling through paragraph after paragraph of overdramatic guff that happened 1,000 years ago. There’s an immediacy to Griftlands, in both the world-building and the stakes. Life’s short, and only what’s in front of you really matters (sounds like my Monday morning mantra – Ed).
Even the smallest of characters get a chance to make an impression, as you collect an arsenal of subplots en
route to your overarching goal. The writing can be damned funny too, the humour emerging from Sal being just a tad smarter than most of the other thugs she encounters (but not that much smarter). There’s a charm to these cutthroats, who are often acting out of sheer desperation rather than any kind of malice. It’s a world of opportunists, as you’d expect, but there are surprising moments of loyalty and kindness too. We found that the allure of Griftlands’ story was far greater than that of its expanding deck-building.
Fight, talk, fight
There are two modes of play: battles and negotiations. Battles are turn-based affairs where you draw cards for attacks and abilities, and can earn or hire party members. Overall, they’re fun but conventional.
The negotiations are far more interesting. There, your cards are used for building arguments against your opponent. You’re constantly looking to chip away at your enemy’s smaller points, while piling damage onto their core argument. We really felt like we were juggling a lot of plates, in the best way – the pressure was always on to make the most of each turn.
As an abstraction it’s captivating, but Griftlands never quite bridges the space between the actual dialogue and the card game in which debates take place. Compared with something like Signs of the Sojourner, which much more cleverly uses its mechanics to shape and fuel character interactions, Griftlands feels a little awkward. Negotiations are disconnected in a way that turns every interaction into a simple binary of success or failure. We wish we could see the impact of our chosen cards on our relationships or the story.
Worse, committing to negotiation decks will punish you during the game’s handful of inescapable combat encounters. There are side activities to help, but in general, focusing on combat decks is the easier path through the game.
Non-player cards
Griftlands does make good on far-reaching consequences. Recurring NPCs pop up in unexpected places, leading to tough spots where you might have to contemplate a double-cross to achieve your goals. These are also randomised for subsequent runs, to an impressively varied degree. This ensures new runs feel reasonably fresh and that softens the blow when you do die.
You can get a boost on your next run, too – but there’s only so much of the sting it can take away, and despite the convincing manner in which side-missions are generated, the main story remains the same. Failing close to the finish line is never not going to take the wind out of your sails. There is a Story Mode setting for those who want to focus purely on the writing, but it feels like a sticking plaster on some harsh difficulty spikes. We were coasting through the game for the first two days, and then out of nowhere comes a fight several orders of magnitude tougher than anything preceding it. It might make narrative sense, but it’s not very interesting to keep restarting and bumping into walls like these.
Shortcomings aside, Griftlands is another slice of low-key brilliance from developer Klei. Is there a genre it can’t do? The balance of narrative and deck-building made for a much more engaging experience than we’ve often had with card-based titles, even if it feels like more could be done to connect those systems and bolster the storytelling. Still, we’re going to remember our adventures with Sal and the little moments of friendship and betrayal throughout each run. It fits right in here at Linux Format Towers playing as a grifter; it ain’t much but it’s a living.