I'm torn between being annoyed that roguelike deckbuilder Bramble Royale: A Meteorfall Story lets me poison skeletons and finding it genuinely hilarious. I suppose it would take an unnecessary amount of setup to hide the fact that my agility fighter, Mischief, swaps her normal poison for bone-chilling juice when fighting skeletal undead. So, you've got a pass for now, game. Here's the trailer:
Watch on YouTube
The name Meteorfall may sound familiar to longtime members of RPS's deeply nurturing program of supporters. Matt Cox (peace RPS) found a lot to love about the mobile roguelike. Or rather, a lot to soak in. “Fuck you, John,” he wrote. “You can't go around recommending games like Meteorfall — not to people who've given up most of their lives to The Spire.”
While it's more traditional tower-like cardwork, Bramble Royale combines elements of party-heavy turn-based tactics with some board positioning. You'll have a pool of energy each turn that you can spend on immediate attack or guard actions, or queue up equipment to use after being counter-attacked by enemy fighters. You're given excellent instructions on what to expect, and you can freely change grid positions if, for example, you want your powerful fighter to take a hit intended for your fragile mage. You'll also occasionally get requests from the crowd to perform abilities – the classic 'do something a little unintuitive or specific for a nice bonus'.
There's a huge amount of inspiration from Adventure Time in both the art and the humor, which is fine by me, I'm a huge idiot too. Also, this isn't some straight crib work – it's very lively and well-made in its own right. Let's see what the Steam page says. I know you like to 'know' about the 'games' you 'read' on our 'website'.
Play cards, maneuver with your allies, and fight in fast-paced battles.
Winning Bramble Royale isn't about fighting fair – it's about winning. The crowd demands a show! Utilize Wild Cards to change the rules of the fight and use them to your advantage.
- Create powerful combos by mixing and matching multiple upgrades on a single card
- Impress the crowd and become stronger in battle by completing challenging achievements
- Build your dream team of 3 heroes (from a pool of 8), each with their own unique card set
- Discover over 200 cards to turn the tide of battle in your favor
There's a demo coming “in the next few weeks,” and my official clickman opinion is that, yes, it's worth a click. Look at that bear, man. It's seen some shit. Poisoned skeletons, for example. My favorite comment about skeletons is when Kingdom Death creator Adam Poots, who I once heard on a podcast, goes on a long rant about how useless skeletons are. Poots said there are 206 bones in the human body. At that point, a wizard could use all that energy to throw 206 knives at you. You can't poison the knives! It just makes them stronger.