Roguebook

Roguebook’s positional gameplay makes for a really fun combat puzzle, but the downside of the two hero system is that player strategy feels less focused than the best the genre has to offer. I enjoyed trying to combine hero abilities in unexpected ways, but the bespoke hero mechanics often weren’t compelling enough to really elevate that. Even so, Roguebook is an entertaining new take on the deck-builder genre, and its new ideas and lovingly realised world make it well worth a look.

Roguebook is, as the name may have already told you, a rouge-like deckbuilding game situated in the World of Faeria. Despite treading old ground, Roguebook does a lot of things right and different. Sadly, there is just too little of it to entertain for more than a few hours. Some technical hiccups also downgrade the experience.

Errors aside, though, Roguebook is still an exceptionally fun experience. It's a very good deckbuilding game hiding within an innovative take on roguelike play, and the charm of its characters and the accessibility of its difficulty will go a long way in compelling people to give it a try. A deeper story, more variety in levels and characters, and some crucial bug fixes would go a long way in giving Roguebook long-lasting appeal, but it's still well-worth checking out for fans of either roguelikes or deckbuilders - as long as they can stomach a few crashes and don't mind a bit of an easier experience than they may be used to.

The pull of “just one more run” is the heart of roguelikes, but lacking even that makes Roguebook little more than just a distraction from better games. Like the junk food you eat between real meals or while bored, it’s enjoyable at times, but will ultimately leave you hungry for something more substantial.

Roguebook layers lots of complex systems on top of each other, which is sadly a double-edged sword as you feel simultaneously powerful and also completely out of control. It’s a classic case of adding a few too many ideas into an already stuffed experience, until the experience is more akin to a buffet than a tightly presented three-course meal.