Draft Of Darkness Preview (Steam Early Access)
This Draft of Darkness Preview shows off this survival horror deck builder with roguelike dungeon exploration. Recruit allies, synergize their decks to create powerful card combos, manage your resources, explore procedurally generated maps and determine the outcome of the story.
Draft Of Darkness Preview Pros:
- Nice pixel art graphics.
- 872.93MB Download size.
- Steam achievements.
- Graphics – fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, graphics preset, frame rate cap, ambient occlusion, and high render distance.
- Screen effects – color bleed, scan lines, noise strips, and pixelization.
- Accessibility options – flashing screen effects and if you use the custom cursor.
- Censor profanity setting.
- Can rebind controls.
- Three characters – Jake, Cara, and Pavel. Each has unique decks and abilities.
- 3 difficulties – Easy, normal, and hard.
- Roguelike card battler gameplay.
- Tutorial pop-ups as you play. (can turn off and reset them at will)
- 3D world you roam.
- Turn-based side on combat.
- You play cards in combat and each card costs a resource and energy to play.
- Each card has a action but also has a weaker alternative action.
- Conservation mode is when you try and save resources/energy and use the weaker actions.
- Enemies drop loot and EXP.
- Timeline shows turn order and if any actions start to decay.
- Drag and drop inventory and equipment menu system. Items will show green or red if the stats change or if it adds any or takes away any buffs.
- Whilst exploring the world you can turn the grid on or off.
- Enemy encounter icons show.
- Cool pixel art graphic cards.
- Hover over enemies to get a stats pop up.
- Earn EXP and level up to put points into your four stats – strength, vitality, dexterity, and intelligence.
- Minimap fills in as you explore and shows any icons in the area.
- Decision events can be triggered and these are multiple-choice interactions that can affect future events and stories.
- After every fight, you get to pick one of three cards to keep.
- Recruit new members – full management of them, you can dismiss them and they come with their own deck.
- The hot bar for items.
- Can set up keyboard shortcuts.
- WASD for movement.
- Death – you get a breakdown of what you did. And you fill in any encounters on a map.
- Credits – you earn these whilst playing.
- Booster packs – buy with credits and they add 3 random cards to your starting deck pool.
- Cool booster pack opening animation.
- You can unlock new booster pack themes.
- Before a run, you can add/remove cards fr your starting deck.
- Handy right-click shortcut to add/remove cards and change equipment quickly.
- Full deck creation support.
- Every run randomizes the map, enemy locations, and loot.
Draft Of Darkness Preview Cons:
- No way to skip cutscenes.
- Card resource/energy amount is on the bottom of the card.
- You have to be so precise with the dragging of cards in combat.
- Menus are needlessly fiddly.
- You have to unlock two characters and hard difficulty.
- Walking around the world is not that fun with doors sticking and no camera control.
- Robotic-looking animations.
- The end turn button is right next to the report bugs Button but also gets blocked by any error messages.
- Very slow-paced.
- The text on items and cards is so small.
- Needs clearer markings for if items are to be played in exploration or in combat.
- Ai can take a while to have their turn even with fast animations on.
- Can’t believe I’m saying this but you get far too much loot that you spend ages dealing with item management.
- Combat is plain and it’s not until you put serious time in and get good cards that it gets juicy.
Related Post: Glyph Review (Steam)
Draft Of Darkness:
Developer: Crawly Games
Publisher: Crawly Games
Store Links –
Summary
Draft of Darkness is a RPG with card battling combat. You play as one of three characters, build a deck of cards and then head out into the open world. You will find loot, enemies and mini events as you play. The loot is plentiful and I might even say its too much, I spent more time item juggling and checking than I did playing half the time! Mini events are like a short choose your own adventure game and can either give rewards or a detrimental effect. Either way the outcome has an effect on how the story progresses going forward. Card combat is like Into The Spire where you drag and drop cards onto enemies and use weapons. The currency used for playing cards is power and resources, power is jut to play the card but resources are things like ammo for your gun. As you play you earn credits that are spent on booster packs which give random cards. You have a selection of booster pack themes and rarity so you can kind of guess what you are getting. Once you start getting cards you can then begin with deck building. The game supports the ability to save and name card decks to make it easier. The combat is good and quick to pick up. Overall its a game that is fun to play but not for multiple play through in one go. I found I would do one long run and then leave it for a few days. I can’t quite put my finger on it at the moment but the game is missing something. It could be some killer hook or the fact that it plays just like every other game on the market? It’s early days but the style is cool and I will be trying it again in the future.