Griftlands

If you like STS, you'll like Griftlands. It has story, great art and animations, and the debate/combat mechanics are fantastic! Totally worth it for the price.

every mechanic in this game is perfect - either beautifully familiar or magnificently novel

It was interesting enough. 20+ hours so far, for a sale game, and I'm not even 1/3 of the way finished.

I love this game, it is a very fresh and well designed take on the genre. Absolutely worth it, even when not on sale.

Haven't played all the campaigns, but I have beaten Sal's campaign enough times to reach maximum prestige for her campaign (on GOG at least, hence my low hours here; but I love this game so much that I waited for it to be on sale to get Steam achievements). The gameplay consists of doing jobs on the map, be it the main campaign jobs that progress the story or the side jobs that are given to you at random. Each run will be slightly different from each other, since the selection of side jobs while you're in between the main missions are randomly chosen, and who'll be involved in those jobs are also random. The main missions of the campaign are more constant, and even that can have small variations in the details. Pick your jobs wisely, though, as you'll inevitably make friends and also enemies along the way. The former give you buffs whereas the latter give you debuffs, with some effects being more impactful than others. If said people are in the location of a negation or fight, they'll even help or hinder you depending on your relationship with them. Each jobs consists of either negotiations, fights, or both; some even have more than one encounter of each. Sometimes you can avoid fight by negotiating, or vice versa. This is done through two similar but separate card battling systems, with both requiring you to defend yourself and defeat your enemy. For negotiations, this means destroying your opponent's core argument while also defending your own core argument's resolve (think of it as mental fortitude and the strength of your argument). For combat, this means either forcing the enemy to surrender by lowering their HP enough, or killing them outright; though you always have the option to individually execute them if the entire enemy team surrenders (though there are usually consequences for murder; good and bad). You build out and upgrade your negotiation and combat decks as you finish random jobs between the campaign jobs, along with making new friends and enemies throughout the campaign. Each card gains xp when played, and can eventually be upgraded into one of two variations that are randomly selected from a wider pool of upgrade paths. Along with money, each job also gives you one of three rewards from a random loot pool--be it new cards, the removal of a card, or a graft (a unique augmentation that enhances you in negotiations or in combat, though some come with downsides; and there is a limit of 5 for each type). All of the mechanics are meant to force you into being flexible enough to adjust to what you're given each run, and makes each run different and never boring. The only true constant is the Mettle system, which allows you to permanently upgrade your character's stats, starting cards, and flourishes (a unique meter that builds up with each card played in negotiations and battles, allowing you to use a special ability in a negotiation or fight; best used when you know you're about to be squeezed in a boss fight). While I don't want to get into details, the writing is truly excellent. The lore of the world isn't too overbearing, but there's always something interesting to glean from each conversation; all of which isn't mandatory and can be quickly skipped, and thus new runs aren't bogged down with repeated dialogue. The game isn't too difficult, especially if you know how to build your deck for the end of a run. Only the highest prestige levels gave me a run for my money, and even then only the highest level made me struggle with the final boss fight. This is a rather simplistic review that doesn't go into the details. So if this interests you, I recommend you check out Indeimaus' video on it. It shows a good amount of what the game is like.

Maybe the best roguelike I've played. Most notable qualities: - has an insane amount of mechanics, gameplay systems and unique ideas - ALL OF IT is polished and works very well together - this makes for a lot of variety in gameplay and build options - game doesn't just ramp up damage to raise difficulty, it's very diverse in how it gets harder and how you can approach everything Most notable negative: - gameplay systems & mechanics are a lot to get into and overwhelming - but damn it's worth it

Slay the Spire meets RPG. Interesting concept, good writing and decent quality overall. However, the gameplay loop is where this game falls short. 5/10 There is very little variety in gameplay, even with "different" builds every encounter plays out pretty much the same way. Negotiations and Battles are extremely boring and drag on for way too long. The meta progression requires an INSANE amount of GRINDING and most of what you unlock is meaningless. What actually has an impact is Perks but they have their own meta progression tied to "busy work" achievements. It's ridiculous to lock so much content behind a "grind wall" in a game like this.

This game is insane in the fact that the character mechanism, card variety are extremely complex, in a way that many gameplan are viable, the sheer amount of cards together with the depth of card interactions allows players who enjoy rougelike card games to spend hundreds of hours into the game

A good roguelite deckbuilder, the card experience system gives you more flexibility with your deck as compared to other deckbuilders.

I wasn't initially convinced that about the rouge-like aspects, but it brought me round and I've enjoyed my time so far.

BAD character design: that white hired guy is a woman! no seriously! the protagonist is an ugly woman that looks like a buffed up adolescent guy, with the obvious snarky tone to accompany. If i wanted to play a male looking, muscled, short haired unnatractive character I would play dragon age.

The game has good gameplay, but clicking through countless paragraphs of "story" really kills me. I'm also a bit unsure about the balance. I think I was playing on normal, and then the endboss just dealt about 4x the damage of any previous enemy, and I died in 2 turns. Feels like every combat up until then was just pointlessly easy and suddenly the real game starts, but only for 1 encounter and then that's the game.

Classic Klei, fun and polished!

Great game with unique mechanisms

Would you recommend this game to other players? Yes.

good game. grab it while on sales

more fun than it should be,

good story

NICE!

YES