Roguebook
Another chapter in the story of deck-building roguelikes
THE CREATOR OF MAGIC: THE GATHERING, RICHARD GARFIELD, IS CO-DESIGNER
Last year there was Monster Train, before that Slay the Spire, before that Dream Quest. The digital deckbuilder is in the ‘ Doom- clone’ stage. All these games about constructing the perfect set of cards to survive randomized battles, victory based on some huge combo, differentiated by their looks.
Aesthetically, Roguebook is a winner. It’s designed by Abrakam, responsible for the under-rated CCG Faeria, and Roguebook shares its setting as well as visuals that are part Miyazaki forest, part children’s fairytale book. Glowing orbs waft through trees, sinister beasts with antlers emerge from the undergrowth. A Disney witch crooks her finger and a louche ogre king lounges like a Skyrim jarl.
There are a lot of fluffy yak creatures.
I’ve been defeated more than once by raccoon jerks who fling yaks out of a catapult. I’ve learned to fear the yakapult.
A TOUCH OF MAGIC
Before roguelike deckbuilders were a thing there was Shandalar, a 1997 videogame based on Magic: The Gathering where you wandered the land fighting battles to earn cards. I bring that up because the creator of Magic, Richard Garfield, is co-designer of Roguebook, bringing us full circle.
And while it does feel like another clone at first, Roguebook reveals some depth as you go on. It gives you control of two heroes (in this demo, a half-ogre who specializes in blocking and a dragonslayer who is better at offence), and your deck is split into cards for each of them like colors in a Magic deck.
Some cards let them swap position, with the dragonslayer causing more damage when she’s in front and the half-ogre gaining two points of block if he ends the turn there. That suggests bringing her in to attack before bouncing him back up, which synergizes with a card called Blade Dance that does more damage the more switches you pull off.
The difference that feels most impactful is that Roguebook doesn’t reward you for winnowing your deck. When I goof another run at the Spire it’s because I added too many cards to my deck without trimming the fat, resulting in turns where I don’t get access to that one overpowered combo before being engulfed by a slime monster.
Roguebook rewards you for having more cards. When you cross deck-size boundaries, you earn buffs, leveling-up your heroes. The boring, safe choice of deleting cards until you’re left with a perfect nub of smoothed-down efficiency is no longer the only option.
I burned out on MonsterTrain because of the need to plan an upgrade path and surgically remove everything that didn’t fit, so a deckbuilder that encourages choosing fun options, experimenting even after finding that broken combo, might hold my interest for a much longer time.
There’s also an overworld inside a magic book (hence the name), a hexgrid with fog of war that’s rolled back by spending the ink and brushes you earn from winning battles. As you explore you find shops, gold, piñata faeries to wail on for more gold, and short text adventure scenes. Like HeroesofMightandMagic, or indeed Shandalar, it puts context and a little story between the fights.
I’d like even more. After racking up over 100 hours in Hades, I want every roguelike to put more effort into the narrative, to make each loss feel less like a punishment and more like the beginning of the next chapter. When I (once again) die to the yakapult in Roguebook I get to spend some of the book pages I found on the map unlocking a perk for the next run, but I want quite a bit more than that. I want to talk to the yaks.