Developer: Mystic Box
Publisher: Mystic Box
Rrp: £7.99 (Steam)
Released: 20th July 2011
Available on: Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Welcome to the first review for this festive season! All the games from here until the end of December have been chosen specifically because in some way shape or form they all match with the season, at least to me.
And now with that said on with the show!
White. Everywhere you look all you can see is white. Then comes the cold, sharp and biting painfully on any flesh that dares show itself. Slowly you trudge following… something, a sense or feeling that that is the only way to go. After a while the white clears and before you lies a valley and in the distance a great castle that looms over it all. It’s here that you start to almost see what you can feel, a path, both there and not, that’s leading you to your destiny.
Runespell: Overture is… it’s sort of a… kind of… damn this is hard. Best I can say is that this game is an adventure puzzle game in a similar vein to Puzzlequest, but rather than use match three mechanics opts to use poker hands instead.
You play as a character who is simply named Changling and fight opponents while travelling along your linear path on the world map to the end using hands of poker.
For those of you who are familiar with the way poker works you may notice from the screenshots that the way the hands are built is very unusual. The reason for this is each pile of cards is where a hand of cards can be built and each time a card is moved from one pile to another a new card is shown. In theory you could have seven hands built at once, though that would be very difficult.
Each successful hand allows you to attack your opponent and lower their HP. The better the hand you have the more damage you cause. If you happen to not know how to play poker there is a crib sheet you can use by clicking the ‘Poker Help’ button on the bottom of the battle screen.
You always need five cards to attack. This means it is sometimes necessary to use a card that is of no help to allow you to attack, unless you feel like waiting for the perfect card.
The number of moves you can perform per turn is indicated by the blue orb on the left of your card area, generally this is set to three although there are some runespells and abilities that can change this.
As you fight and discover treasures you will gain powers, known as runespells, that end up in your inventory. Runespells are abilities that can be used in battle once you have enough Rage Points (or RP) and charges to cast them. As you play you also gain allies that allow you to use their abilities. Using these abilities will use up one of your moves and some RP. Unlike runespells these abilities can be used infinitely but have a cool down time.
Rage Points are shown below your life bar. At the beginning of any battle both you and your opponents will start with zero RP which will increase as you deal and sustain damage.
As you defeat enemies you’ll also acquire silver, this is the currency for the game and allows you to purchase runespells and add charges to existing spells. Runespells have a limited number of uses and will require recharging through a trader at a camp for silver.
As was mentioned earlier Runespells that you acquire are placed within your inventory, the inventory screen can be accessed while on the world map, at a camp or just prior to a battle. It’s within this screen that you can equip your character with the runespells that you attain. You have only eight slots for runespells to be equipped to. Thankfully you can swap them out any time except for in battle.
On the whole I liked this game, there were times that I got a bit frustrated because it just seemed that the AI opponents always got exactly the card I needed but I quickly realised that it was more that I wasn’t being observant. It’s not all that long a game lasting about six hours for the main campaign but it was six hours I don’t regret spending time playing.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Hand of Fate
Forced Showdown
Poker Night at the Inventory 2
