Tales from Candlekeep - turn-based dungeon crawler based on D&D Adventure System board game

[Arkast]

This is currently free in Twitch Prime Loot until March 31st, in addition to Oxenfree, Mr. Shifty, Superhot, and Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun as part of their Indie Amplifier thing. I played it for an hour and thought it'd be best-suited as a tablet game too. Also, Birdsong is cute.

 

[Grunker]

This is on sale for 4 euros and since I'm running the D&D 5e campaign version of this (Tomb of Annihilation, our group just reached Omu) I always knew I'd have to play it some day.

The tutorial is abysmal and literally only teaches you how to move and how discovering new tiles work, so you kind of have to learn everything else as you play. It seems cool for a 2-hour sessions kind of game, I'm playing with a major hangover currently and it's pretty great for that, at least.

Like J1M, I think it's comparable to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, but that game has a more novel conceit and the gameplay is a bit more addictive because the act of closing locations feels so satisfying. AND it has what I consider to be pretty great character development considering the extremely limited scope - you can actually do builds and such. But PACG is also more of a puzzle game, whereas this actually has you exploring dungeons, finding loot and fighting turn-based encounters with magic items etc.

However also like J1M, I'm not sure I understand the conceit of the exploration mechanic. You go to the edge of a tile, you reveal a new tile, a monster pops up, and it attacks you. That's 70% of the tiles or something to that effect, and since monsters always go first, you just sort of have to sit there and wait for the die roll. It's a little off-putting.

 

[Thac0]

Got this in the Steam sale, refunding it now.
The core gameplay from the boardgame is decent, although it really pushes you to play very aggressively and discovering a new tile for the enemy to run and slash at you really is a cheap way to introduce ressource drain.
What I can't stand is collecting chests of five different rarities in an unlock system which drop 20 kinds of different ressources, all of which you need in the dozens to upgrade your skills. That together with very overstylised xp bars with global unlocks which look like fucking season passes make this game feel distinctly mobile. Everything outside of the actual maps, from upgrading your heroes to being showered with loot boxes, feels like I am playing Clash Royale or some shit. Cheap garbage, by now there are much better fantasy tacticool games on the market, even for similar prices.

 

[Abu Antar]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/663380/view/3190247426157891974

Farewell Adventurers
Tomb of Annihilation will become unavailable for purchase on May 20th 2022.

We are sorry to announce that Tales from Candlekeep : Tomb of Annihilation will become unavailable for purchase on May 20th 2022.

While it will no longer be possible to acquire the game or any of the additional content on that date, players who have the game in their Steam library will still be able to play it and enjoy all of its content.

Grab all the content before it leaves the store. The base game is now 85% off while all the additional content is 60% until the end of the week.

Until we meet again adventurers,

- The team at BKOM Studios=

The game is getting delisted on May 20. Their rights for the D&D license has expired.

Game is on a steep discount if anyone wants to pick it up.

Are the DLCs worth it? I got this in a bundle, apparently.

Edit: Got the DLC. Mostly anti grinding stuff, pkus a druid class DLC.

 

[Grunker]

Game is good for a few hours, but not more. The gameplay is very, very shallow. You should play Gloomhaven instead which is basically an infinitely deeper version of the same board game dungeoncrawl. It's almost an insult to compare the games.

 

[LESS T_T]

So what's next for this company? A better D&D game by applying lessons learned from this game?

https://www.bkomstudios.com/news/bk...ing-blockchain-first-person-shooter-shrapnel/

BKOM STUDIOS IS DEVELOPING THE ONLINE PRESENCE OF THE UPCOMING BLOCKCHAIN FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER, SHRAPNEL

Okay, I'll stop here.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Thats quite the EULA for a single player game.

edit: I knew I remembered this game from the red shell controversy.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/663380/discussions/0/1694923613878978858/#c2788173147750880832

and they are now a blockchain company? How nice.