I was curious about how the game was presented to me ... "A deck-building hack and slash adventure, where it's the player who decides the length of quests!"
Well let's dive and see what this is all about.
Diablo or not Diablo ?
Take the first episode of Diablo , transform his gothic and oppressive universe into a papercraft version and you'll get Book of Demons. But without falling into total pomp, Thing Trunk, the Polish studio, tries to bring its vision to the genre.
Book of Demons is also part of a collection of 7 games bring up to date game universes dating back to the 1990s. Book of Demons is the first in this series Return 2 Games . The other games were revealed to the players by the studio.
In the game, you have access to three character classes. There is the warrior, the magician, and the rogue. You must necessarily move with the warrior. The magician becomes playable from the moment you reach the fifth level and the rogue is coming soon The
Introduction to Book of Demons
You play a young man. At the time of your adolescence, you went to commit yourself as a soldier in the treatment castle. Your dream then was to climb the ladder, become the Captain of the Guard and marry the Duke's beautiful daughter. it is 15 years old at the castle as a soldier, it is never going to rise in the rank. You are 15 years old at the castle as a soldier, at 25 years old, you are still soldiers and if you do not make any decision, at 65, you will always be a soldier!
You decide to go home, in your small village. Upon arrival, you are greeted with eagerness by the young and handsome innkeeper. She invites you to see the village sage who summarizes the situation. The wise man, the innkeeper and the villagers need a gunman to attack the treaty dungeon where the forces of evil are installed
This dungeon is filled with increasingly strong monsters but there are also treasures, magic items and magic cards.
Some points around the game
The Village
In the village, there are four people to help you. The innkeeper who will make potions in his cauldron that will increase your characteristics (from materials you bring back from the dungeon). The wise will give you information about the monsters but also on the maps for which you have difficult understanding the use (it will also unlock the ability to use more cards). The fortune-teller who will reload your cards and the healer who will ... take care of you!
Card system
Manna can be used to use some cards, but will also be useful for cards that consume electricity mana (such as the magic shield, or regenerative armor).
The equipment and skill system of our character will depend on a set of active and passive cards . This means that in order to strengthen your power, it is not the levels that you will accumulate through experience that would really count but the cards that you will add to our deck
The cards plan any artifacts, objects or spells. There are cards that are used for combat, others for permanent use, others for healing or fleeing, and so on.
The good idea of this system is that the more the player equip passive cards - sword, armor, shield - and the more mana gauge he have to cast spells or skills diminish. It will therefore be necessary to proper counter its build between attack and defense . Additionally, as the adventure unfolds, you will find out about the rune cards. These runes can then be merged with any other card to reinforce its power by making it pass levels. Simple and efficient.
Boss, boss and ... boss
In each level, you will have at least one end level boss to face. At the beginning, level bosses are easy to fight, but they are getting improved and enhanced deep you get in the dungeon.
By dying, what can happen, you lose all your equipment at the place of your death (in the form of a grave). You wake up in the village, take a potion of care and go back to the dungeon. The good news is when you get your equipment back, everything goes back to its place and all the monsters around are knocked out for a few seconds ... enough to make a massacre!
One last thing ... you will sometimes find altars with either the life potion or the mana potion. When you drink it, your life or mana goes up to the maximum. A few minutes later, the altar again has potion to propose to you The
A Hack'n slash on rail?
Another seductive idea of Book of Demons: the adjustment of playing time . Roughly, for each new dungeon exploration session, we will choose how long our game will last . Book of Demons is the perfect game for short sessions, knowing that at any time it is possible to leave a dungeon to come back later.
Well, we talked about everything that revolving around the game but what about the gameplay itself, that is the necessary of exploration and combat in the dungeon ? This is surely where Book of Demons will divide because of its desire to stand out, to propose a level design consisting of paths . Unlike any other hack'n slash, it is indeed impossible to deviate from its route to explore the slightest corner of the area. Imagine that you are in a rail attraction with branch lines and that will guide you exactly where the game wants you to go.
If this is sometimes frustrating - we let you imagine the difficulty to dodge arrows and spells when you're stuck in a corridor - it eventually gets better (Learning curve is not that steep). The reason is simple: if Book of Demons does not have the ambition of a traditional hack'n slash, it remains coherent from end to end . I had fun, I took pleasure in seeing my character gain in power and this is the essential. If you want to test the concept by yourself, know that a demo is available on Steam
My conclusion
Book of Demons is an excellent independent game. I took a lot of fun there. Music, graphics, development, everything is good!
You like role-playing, you have a tactician's mind, you are ready to do anything for the beautiful eyes of a young innkeeper, you find it important to fight evil, so do not wait and give yourself a nice gift . The Book of Demons is available on Steam
Book of Demons has been available in Early Access since July 2016 on Steam. The final version is expected early 2018.
