KickStarter Hand of Fate - Cardgame / Boardgame / Action-RPG

[Snorkack]

Released on Steam: Hand of Fate:

Build your deck, enter the world of Hand of Fate, and prepare to face the King of Skulls.

Key Features

• Tabletop card game brought to vivid life.
• A unique take on roguelike gameplay.
• Visceral action-RPG combat.
• Game changing gear and items make every playthrough unique.
• Hundreds of encounters, items, armour, weapons, artifacts, and mysteries to unlock.
• Unique deck building mechanics let you customise your own adventure, as you seek to defeat the Jack, Queen and King of each suit.
• Discover the mysteries of the world of Hand of Fate, as you complete your collection.

Spoiler

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

Looks cool. Anyone tried it out yet?

 

[da_rays]

being the boardgame/card games junkie that I am , currently giving this a try right now ( downloading~ ).

Look pretty leget , and a few good review on steam.

• Unique deck building mechanics let you customise your own adventure, as you seek to defeat the Jack, Queen and King of each suit.

that's ALMOST too card gamey~ . Almost. Gonna try to give some feedback after my third world country interweb finish download it.

Gotta say...the Pathfinder/boardgame they are making is looking more appealing than this.......
but yet again, look can be deceiving.

 

[da_rays]

If someone is curious about the length of the game and the cards pool, one of the dev replied this on steam forum ( yeah i know i should be burn for mentioning that dark and awful place )

The game has a couple of hundred cards to unlock through the course of a 12 hour or so campaign (based on people's playtimes to date). Then there's an Endless mode that is repayable. Some of the cards will take you more than the 12 hour campaign time to unlock, but the core of the game is the campaign.

Once all the cards are unlocked, you're still able to play Endless Mode for the highest score.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I saw someone streaming this on twitch ages ago, thought it was awesome, and then couldn't recall the name and was unable to find it again. Gonna check it out.

 

[Zed]

no connection to this?

 

[Snorkack]

I'm still hesitant because the action rpg parts look equally exciting as in the new Settlers game :/

 

[da_rays]

Always thought that necromancer / Dark wizard wannabe best pet was anything from the skeletal minion to the ghoulish troll overlord.

But yeah, Doberman is a nice choice too

 

[Eyeball]

Right, bought this and played it for like half an hour.

Avoid this. It's extremely stylish, but almost entirely devoid of substance.

Gameplay involves heading through a number of fairly linear "rooms" made up by flipping cards from a deck you can compose yourself. Some cards are CYO type encounters where you get to pick different outcomes, others are straight-up encounters with monsters. You will then fight said monsters in real-time - I'll spare you sometime here: the combat engine is almost completely stolen from Arkham Asylum, only nowhere near as smooth. Left click to hit, right click to stun, space to dodge-roll and Q to counter any attack. So at least at the early stage in the game, you can win by just smashing Q and countering monsters until they die. No idea what happens later, but after having played the Arkham games, this model is clunky and unwieldy in the extreme and doesn't have Batman doing karate backflips to make up for it either.

The good part is that the art direction is fairly cool and the narrator's VA is extremely sexy, but that alone is not enough to carry a game that frankly bored me after half an hour of playing. Spend your money elsewhere.

 

[Snorkack]

Thanks for sharing info. Does the card/deck/character customization part have got anything going for it?

 

[Eyeball]

Doesn't look much like it. You can get some different artifacts and whatnot to equip to launch in combat by clicking 2, but most weapons seem to be just different damage ranges.

Mind you, I've played it for half an hour. Might play more later, but this is not the best 18 euros I've spent in my life.

 

[Metro]

Right, bought this and played it for like half an hour.

Avoid this. It's extremely stylish, but almost entirely devoid of substance.

Gameplay involves heading through a number of fairly linear "rooms" made up by flipping cards from a deck you can compose yourself. Some cards are CYO type encounters where you get to pick different outcomes, others are straight-up encounters with monsters. You will then fight said monsters in real-time - I'll spare you sometime here: the combat engine is almost completely stolen from Arkham Asylum, only nowhere near as smooth. Left click to hit, right click to stun, space to dodge-roll and Q to counter any attack. So at least at the early stage in the game, you can win by just smashing Q and countering monsters until they die. No idea what happens later, but after having played the Arkham games, this model is clunky and unwieldy in the extreme and doesn't have Batman doing karate backflips to make up for it either.

The good part is that the art direction is fairly cool and the narrator's VA is extremely sexy, but that alone is not enough to carry a game that frankly bored me after half an hour of playing. Spend your money elsewhere.

Figured. I anticipated it but without a demo I was unsure as it looked like a shitty Diablo clone. Also the developer suggested there will be multiple DLC so sale-bait it is.

 

[da_rays]

Pretty much what Eyeball said , look nifty , shiny , but lack soul in lots of different way. A few positive things tho, Nice voice acting , fit very well and is nicely done. Deck building let you mix weapon , armors , encounter , ennemies (well i say deck...12 cards total to be exact in the 3 runs that ive done) . The leader then mix his deck with yours , and a few cards are thrown on the table . You need to progress on each card, moving on adjacent one each turn , to uncover a new encounter / battle / item . Pretty much solid stuff until you do your 1st encounter. Thats what totally killed the game for me...

engage combat , mash LMB , push Q and spacebar when needed and/or danger arise. Wash , rinse , repeat. Weapon and armors can change combat a bit...( more dmg with X weapon , more def with X armor but with less speed ). Good in theory , but wehn combat is dumbed down like this , wht bother? Granted , played only with the 3 first ''boss''. Might give it another go later. But i just cannot recommend this to someone who like/love Card game and boardgame.

Tactical TB combat would have been nicer to have then that real time fighting , that would have given a chance for the equipment swapping in the deck to at least make a bit of sense....

 

[Pope Amole II]

Played it for about an hour, kinda hate it at this point. My issues are:

1. The game is fucking CINEMATIC. Therefore, everything takes a couple of seconds more than it should have. And that surely adds up - you spend more time in the game trying to click through repeating small animations (which are somewhat cute, I give it to them, but it's still annoying) than actually savoring the gameplay. It also really annoys me during the combat - the models and animations in the game are rather shitty and they don't look good during the slomo. I mean, this shit doesn't even work in AAA titles like Dragon Age and this shit does not have a DA's budget.

2. All this card game stylization is pretty much a lie - the game is just a CYOA with action-RPG combat. Yeah, sure, you can raise up your chances to win by putting the good cards (i.e., the encounters that favor you) in the deck but I'm not even sure if that's a good idea because it leads pretty much to min-maxing without giving much in return. I mean, the very thrill of CYOA is that it is random and high stakes, why would you want to destroy that thrill? Of course, the dealer adds cards of his own to the play so you'll never have the 100% risk free journey but still, just having the player to define his future path in the CYOA is really dumb. I mean, it's like reading the CYOA book first, page after page, then trying to play it.

3. Controls are shit. SKipping the animations is a chore, everything is 100% gamepad oriented, managing shops & invetroy takes too much time, GUI is absolutely confusing to the mouse users (as it has the word "BUY" written to buy stuff, for example, but to actually buy you need to click in the other area). Camera is also shit, especially when there are both monsters & traps on the arena.

4. Combat is shit. Maybe that'll change once you gain more trophies & monsters will become more potent, but in the start it's just a boferest with Twitcher 2 style barrel roll mastery ruling them all. But, tbh, considering how horrible the controls & camera are, I hope it stays easy.

Why this has so many favorable reviews is beyond my comprehension. It's popular in the real life or what?

 

[Phage]

I'm guessing on the only person on the entire codex who has played this game longer than an hour.

Anyway, the reason why people like this so much is because it's absolutely oozing with flavor and personality. Anyone who says the game isn't charming and well presented needs to stop tryharding. That's seriously the reason why it sold so well after initially leaving early access. Unfortunately, none of the individual pieces of this game are particularly great except for the presentation - and even that could really use the option to skip more stuff (watching the dealer setup the game for the Xth time gets pretty old)

So, I was able to get past the arkham combat and whatnot. People complaining about the controls are just plebbing it up. It wasn't designed for a gamepad considering the game literally didn't have gamepad support for the majority of its time in Early Access and was ported from PC to console very late in development. The controls themselves are fine. The actual problem is that it's very repetitive (arkham style) and later on when it does get tough you can't cancel animations in time to properly block. so yeah, the combat itself isn't good by any stretch. it'll come down to if you like the arkham / sleeping dogs / etc combat system or not.

That leads into this game's biggest problem for me. The fucking final level. Holy fucking shit. You fucking babbies would probably all get stuck on the second row of bosses, let alone the shitshow that's the final row (king of plagues board in particular was mind rendingly difficult to get through). Then you get to the final level. I have no idea how on earth anyone was able to finish this game without cheating. Getting to the final boss itself is insane. The final card level is the most treacherous bullshit due to the assrapingly massive number of curses strewn onto your person and the pain cards all being take 10X number of curses damage. Then, if you somehow by the skin of your teeth make it to the final boss...

Minor spoiler:

Spoiler

The final boss is the dealer himself. He summons literally every single boss in the game in succession (all 12). In 4 waves (3 bosses at a time). without any breaks in between them or any way of healing. Then you fight the dealer himself. In a great twist, you remain tiny sized while he's 'regular sized' shooting magic missiles and lazers at you as you chop at his hands. In a fit of frustration, I took a look at that battle itself (I couldn't get past the waves of bosses after being beaten down by the trek to get there) and it's pretty fucking insane on its own.

Anyway, maybe I will try to git gud / git lucky and actually finish it. Haven't touched endless mode - might be some decent content there. I got this game back when it was in a bundle in November I think. A fantastic pick up there, certainly wouldn't plunk down the $25 or whatever it is in the steam store today though.

 

[Pope Amole II]

I have no idea how on earth anyone was able to finish this game without cheating. Getting to the final boss itself is insane.

Eh, it's all about simply getting the proper cards early in the level. Nymphs of the Sweetwoods? Kk, you're safe. Soul gem with a bit of luck? Kk, you're safe. Enough fast gold encounters to pay that curse away? That requires a bit more luck, but still, kk, you're safe. It's all about restarting the level until RNG is merciful to you.

And that "oozing with flavor" thing is very questionable. There is no setting, no story, no motivation, no meaning behind your adventures. No personality behind your character. No reason why do you even have to battle the dealer. No ending behind it all. No sense. Sorry, but I honestly can't see how can there be flavor under such conditions. It's all just amorphous and vague. And while you can say that being some sort of the faceless stereotypical adventurer in the endless cycle of repetition is the flavor here, even that should be developed somehow. Like, why the fuck are we even trying to kill the dealer?

The atmosphere of the great game can be nice initially, but there's nothing but emptyness past that.

 

[Phage]

I have no idea how on earth anyone was able to finish this game without cheating. Getting to the final boss itself is insane.

Eh, it's all about simply getting the proper cards early in the level. Nymphs of the Sweetwoods? Kk, you're safe. Soul gem with a bit of luck? Kk, you're safe. Enough fast gold encounters to pay that curse away? That requires a bit more luck, but still, kk, you're safe. It's all about restarting the level until RNG is merciful to you.

Don't have those cards at all. Kind of blew through the game until this point so I didn't have to grind encounter unlocks or anything like that. Not too sure how I would get those, and also not sure if I want to spend a significant amount of time specifically unlocking them just to beat the ridiculous final level.

And that "oozing with flavor" thing is very questionable. There is no setting, no story, no motivation, no meaning behind your adventures. No personality behind your character. No reason why do you even have to battle the dealer. No ending behind it all. No sense. Sorry, but I honestly can't see how can there be flavor under such conditions. It's all just amorphous and vague. And while you can say that being some sort of the faceless stereotypical adventurer in the endless cycle of repetition is the flavor here, even that should be developed somehow. Like, why the fuck are we even trying to kill the dealer?

The atmosphere of the great game can be nice initially, but there's nothing but emptyness past that.

Nah, it's not questionable. This is not a story driven game. If I thought the story was strong I would've said that. I said that the presentation (aside from unskippable antimations) and flavor of the game are top notch. Which they are. Flavor is, definitely very buzzwordy. By flavor I am referring to the way the concept translates so strongly into the atmosphere - the way the cards literally unfold in front of the screen and you do really feel like you're playing some bizarre magical game of fate. Until you've done it for a few hours, then the mystique inevitably fades a bit.

As for your complaints about the story, these things are intentionally vague, and the game is better for it. If you actually had to fucking sit there for 15 minutes during an opening cutscene about how DIS IS DA BATTEL FOR UR SOUL!!! the game would have been significantly worse for it.

My only issue is a couple of somewhat contradictory statements by the dealer - namely how the cards are supposed to be forged by your memories, but he also was supposed to have made the entire game... or rather found it and perfected it.

Either way, the reason why it is so popular is the fact that it feels somewhat magical at first - at least for those of us who aren't completely consumed by the edge.

 

[Pope Amole II]

at least for those of us who aren't completely consumed by the edge.

Lol, dude. I can't say I recall a lot of your posts, but I have the impression that you yourself are quite edgy (not to mention that codex is not a hivemind and not everyone here is actually edgy). So look who's saying. All I see here is just a special snowflakism - oooh, I'm so special, that's why I get this game and you don't. Lol.

And I don't mind anyone liking any kind of a game for what it is - the fuck do I care? But what's stupid here is all this "ooh, I'm so against the flow and you're so edgy". Yeah, sure.

 

[Phage]

at least for those of us who aren't completely consumed by the edge.

Lol, dude. I can't say I recall a lot of your posts, but I have the impression that you yourself are quite edgy (not to mention that codex is not a hivemind and not everyone here is actually edgy). So look who's saying. All I see here is just a special snowflakism - oooh, I'm so special, that's why I get this game and you don't. Lol.

And I don't mind anyone liking any kind of a game for what it is - the fuck do I care? But what's stupid here is all this "ooh, I'm so against the flow and you're so edgy". Yeah, sure.

No. I unique in that I am the only person on the entire website out of its 14,000 members who isn't edgy. ME ALONE. ONLY PHAGE. PHAGE THE PURPLE MONKEY FROM DRAGON QUEST!

 

[Metro]

You're Edgemaster-In-Chief.

 

[Kraszu]

This game is fun but flawed, it is simple but the choices are meaningful when difficulty ramps up, and you have more cards with more interesting choices. The counter button is completely imbalanced but if you self gimp yourself by selling shield at first chance, and never using shields (you don't have a pop up that warns you about melee attacks then), and you can't do counters without shield. Rolling alone doesn't win you fight like countering does. Also I had played very early version, and they did improve waiting times allot, animations that play before you can choose what to do with the card are decently fast now.

"and later on when it does get tough you can't cancel animations in time to properly block."

You shouldn't be able to cancel animations when you start to swing your weapon you can't just cancel momentum, it forces you to plan your attacks better. This is broken by counter button that overrides everything so don't use it.

 

[pakoito]

I've finished Jack of Plague. Does the combat get any better? It's easy mode galore so far, and the bloody difficulty settings are behind a fookin paywall.