Roguebook is not an overly difficult roguelike deck builder, at least not until you start playing around with the game's Epilogue system. More cards will usually be better, although there is still a degree of strategy when it comes to what you should and shouldn't add to your deck. Cards can be upgraded later with powerful gems, which helps scale their power as you head towards the third chapter boss. Cards are earned through defeating a boss or unlocked on the game map via a Vault of Wisdom, but you shouldn't be too worried about adding loads of new cards to your deck. This includes stuff like extra rage for Seifer or a boost to Sorocco's passive buff. These are flat buffs to each of your heroes or a general buff for your party. Talent tiers are unlocked based on how many cards you have. Compared to a game like Slay The Spire, where a twenty-card deck might be the optimal deck, the power scale of your Roguebook runs is actually determined by how many cards you have in your deck. A couple of events let you remove cards for a small fee, and the Alchemists do let you destroy cards and transform them into something else. Unlike other roguelike deckbuilders, there is actually very little card remove in Roguebook. She is extremely squishy with only 20 hitpoints, although she can be healed once per battle by clicking on her.

However, her own damage output shouldn't be ignored, as with a solid frog build (yes, there is such a thing as a frog build in Roguebook) she can pack a massive turtle punch with her swarm of frog allies. This mystical little turtle is the classic support character, with plenty of ways to buff the other heroes. Afterward, you can pick her up at the start of a new run. Tips For AuroraĪurora isn't available until you reach the third chapter. He works especially well with Seifer, and official stats released from the dev team support this: Seifer and Sorocco had the highest win rate in the first week of the game's release. However, Sorocco isn't against dealing damage, with the rotating Headbang combo cards being a great way to stack some seriously powerful attacks. He also receives a passive two-block boost if he finishes the turn at the front of your party. His block cards are some of the best in the game. Sorocco is a swashbuckling toad-pug creature that specializes in defensive play. Seifer has some great sustain which helps balance how much damage he will likely take at the forefront of your two-person party. When the bar is full, all his cards have an upgraded version with extra damage, healing, and other unique boosts.

The bar is filled up whenever Seifer takes damage, although cards like Rage and Sulfuric Barrier also boost his rage. Hopefully, that will be sorted out in the final release, but it definitely hindered the experience a tad not knowing whether or not I’ll lose my run due to a game crash and not lack of slack and poor decision-making like usual.Seifer is a very angry rat armed with two swords and a rage bar. I also ran into pretty frequent technical problems, having the game crash on me multiple times when returning to a run or trying to load up a new one. It added a whole extra genre to the game with its tower defense mechanics, and while Roguebook tries to do something new, it doesn’t go that far. Monster Train was another game that was clearly inspired by Slay the Spire and incorporated a lot of the same or very similar gameplay mechanics, but at the same time, it still felt unique. Roguebook definitely tries to be original with its open-world map and dual-character combat system, but in the end, it just feels like another rip-off of Slay the Spire. The biggest thing that distinguishes a truly great roguelike from all of the others – and trust me, there are a lot of them now – is originality. While the characters are cool, the game doesn’t really stand out – which is ultimately my main problem with the game, it’s nothing special. The same goes for the graphics, its a cute and pretty fantasy game that looks really good but the art style isn’t that unique. The music is nice and atmospheric but didn’t overly stand out as anything special to me.