Hand of Fate

[schild]

This seems like something we should be playing.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/266510/

[Rendakor]

Looks interesting, but $25 for Early Access seems a but steep. Xmas sale fodder for sure though.

[schild]

Yeah, not a fan of that price.

[schild]

Someone with more money than sense buy this and be a guinea pig plz.

[Strazos]

Review code?

[schild]

Already emailed them, heh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[schild]

Ok then, let's do this thing.

[WayAbvPar]

Manos?

[schild]

If only.

[schild]

Well, this is pretty sweet. Needs some optimization, but if they smooth out the combat, it's roughly the same style as Mordor.

[schild]

Ok. This is pretty goddamn cool. it ramps up a bit faster than I expected. I kinda wish Endless mode started unlocked though.

[Quinton]

So what's the gameplay exactly?  How do the card bits and the bits interact?

[schild]

Ok, here are the moving parts:

1. Boss Cabinet - I don't remember what they call it in game, let's call it Boss Cabinet. Houses... 12 bosses. Each one has a name. Loosely based on face cards in a deck of playing cards. You pick one, and it randomizes the dungeon based on...

2. The... event deck? Anyway, you have an event deck which houses all the possible places you can encounter on a run through a dungeon. You select what goes in the deck and the game sprinkles flavorful bits at will into the deck based on the boss, and through this area you'll find...

3. Pieces of your equipment deck. You also make this deck, and the game will add some things (I think? I don't know yet since it's random).

So it's a nice mix of known information with unknown information. I assume Endless mode is wildly random. But I don't know yet since I have to beat the Something of Plague (King? I don't know/I forgot).

It's actually closer to playing Dungeons and Dragons than anything else.

But I suppppppose it could be called PnP RPG meets LCG meets Action RPG.

I'm sad there's no obvious character generator or other characters to choose from. I'm sad that my character doesn't seem to have any sort of persistent advacement. I'm double fucking super sad that there doesn't seem to be player-created dungeons.

[Bungee]

TB gave it a look.

[Sophismata]

It's a lot of fun, and the theme and flavour are amazing.

[schild]

Oh man, thanks for reminding me about this game. I was waiting a few patches to get back to it.

[Khaldun]

I like it so far. They need to fix the opening movie, though--Mr. Veil's mouth keeps flashing through his veil.

[Xuri]

I thought this thread was going to be about Legend of Kyrandia : Hand of Fate. :P Watched the TB video, and this looks pretty cool!

[KallDrexx]

I got the game and played it back in August.  I think it was the $15 tier of some humble bundle.

I liked the concept at the time but I had some issues with the execution.  The practically single path maps were a turn off (felt pointless for me to manually move through the map) and it did not seem like there was that much of way to meaningfully create a build to mitigate the hard slap of randomization, which took the fun out of deck building and made it feel meaningless.

That being said, it was August so I wouldn't be surprised if it's improved a ton since then.  I might reload it and give it another shot.

[Tannhauser]

Just got this yesterday for $20 after watching TB's review.  It's a lightweight, fun game that oozes old school atmosphere.  It's not as 'sticky' to me as it was to TB however.  I have cleared the first tier of bosses and in no hurry to continue.  This will probably replace Card Hunter for me, a quick 10-20 minute fun game.  $20 might have been too much though, wish I'd picked it up on sale.  I might change my mind the deeper I go however.

[Pezzle]

Quick Time Event at the end.  What the fuck?

[schild]

Quick Time Event at the end.  What the fuck?

I haven't gotten back into it, but that would ruin the ENTIRE fucking experience for me.

Fucking scar tissue from Metal Gear Solid 4.

[Pezzle]

Save yourself the trouble then.  Not sorry to spoil it.  A pity too, because it gets really fun.  Maybe endless mode?  Wait for a sale. 

[Setanta]

First boss second tier and food or the combat seems to get me. Especially if I drop onto the boss card before gearing up. I'd love an option to back-pedal the hell out of there.

Combat is ok, borderline average but it seems to be a case of block, block, dodge hit on the bosses. I would almost have preferred this to be turn based card flipping with animations.

I hate the food system and I despise the punishment when you pick a "you lose" or "fuck you - you lose" card.

Also if I have the gold cap on and kill the last bandit, I can't pick up the gold dropped WTF?

There's so much that's good about this game but it also needs some tweaks, especially in terms of difficulty T1-> T2

[Sophismata]

First boss second tier and food or the combat seems to get me. Especially if I drop onto the boss card before gearing up. I'd love an option to back-pedal the hell out of there.

Combat is ok, borderline average but it seems to be a case of block, block, dodge hit on the bosses. I would almost have preferred this to be turn based card flipping with animations.

I hate the food system and I despise the punishment when you pick a "you lose" or "fuck you - you lose" card.

Also if I have the gold cap on and kill the last bandit, I can't pick up the gold dropped WTF?

There's so much that's good about this game but it also needs some tweaks, especially in terms of difficulty T1-> T2

A lot of the randomness is heavily mitigated by blessings, so try to get as many as you can into the event deck. Also, during events of you watch the cards carefully you can vastly improve your chances of securing good results, which provides tremendous aid.

[Setanta]

Oh ok, I thought the cards were RNG and was picking at random. Time to get back into this - thanks

[Khaldun]

The outcome cards can definitely be watched--there's essentially two shufflings, one of which in which it is quite easy to track the card you want to pick (or avoid) and then a much more intricate shuffle where it's much harder to visually track the one you're trying to watch.

[Falconeer]

Save yourself the trouble then.  Not sorry to spoil it.  A pity too, because it gets really fun.  Maybe endless mode?  Wait for a sale. 

It IS on sale. Should we get it?

[Pennilenko]

I also need to know if I should buy it. Somebody tell me what to do.

[KallDrexx]

It's enjoyable and probably worth the $12 it costs. 

After 8-9 hours though (end of the 3rd tier) I got frustrated with getting screwed on the RNG.  I haven't had too much luck keeping track of cards and just feel when I get it right I had a good guess and just keep hoping I get the "try again" blessing, but I usually don't.  I really wish I could lower the amount of equipment cards I could bring into an encounter as 25 is too many, as it's rare to get more than 5 or so pieces of equipment on the runs I've had. 

Dunno, I just can't seem to mitigate the randomness enough to not frustrate me and finally uninstalled it.

[Druzil]

It's enjoyable and probably worth the $12 it costs. 

Kinda late for the recommendation, but I agree.  The combat is pretty sub-par but the card game parts and the different quips from dealer carry the game.

[Tannhauser]

For me this is just another indie game whose charm wears off about two hours in.  See Windward.

Too much randomness, lack of meaningful choices.  89 minutes/played