Knock on the Coffin Lid

Review

The game starts with you on the back of a cart being pulled by a white horse. Sadly, you’re just one a of a few who have been recently deceased and on your way to the church. Sometime afterwards a strange white-haired man approaches the church. The door swings open with the strange man standing in the doorway as the light beams into the crypt. From here you’ll chose your hero, there are three heroes to choose from, each within their own coffin. However, to begin with you can only choose the hero Persival. You will have to unlock the other two heroes as you progress through the game (if you can).

After choosing your hero another intro will play, the white-haired man who Knocks On The Coffin Lid, bringing you back to life. Next you find yourself on the world map, on this map there are four starting points from the church near the top left corner. A pathway from each of the four starting points will make their way towards the two exit points further down the bottom of the map. The exit points are the gold logos at the end of all the paths, you can choose any start point and finish at either of the two exits.

At regular intervals on each of the paths are various icons, you’ll will interact with these icons. There are around eight different types of icons such as, Skull, Question Mark, Camp Fire, Treasure Chest and a few others. You won’t be able to move on to the next icon without clearing the previous one. Depending on which icon you choose will determine what’s in store for you, a Skull icon is going to be a battle against, some creature, Dwarfs, Elves or Men. Icons with a Question Mark on them is where you’ll test your luck. These icons are random events, you may enter a battle, asked for some help or some other event. Some of the events will offer you a choice of action to take, do you help the Troll with a sword in its back? Do you help the Dwarfs and subdue the Elf? It’s up to you which route you take but remember next time in passing this way things may be different.

There are other icons to help you as you progress, at the Campfire icons you can either Rest or Training. Resting will allow you to recover some vital health. Training however will allow you to upgrade one of the cards in your deck. Treasure chests may contain some valuables such as gold, weapons, armour and items. You can use the gold if you find a trader, where you’ll be able to buy various weapons, items and potions.

In combat you’ll have your deck in the bottom left of the screen, in the opposite corner is where your used cards go. The top left corner is where your Health, Gold, Options and Energy. Slightly to the side of the options icon are three potions spaces, here you can store three potions which can be then used in battle should you need them. If you have more than three potions they will be stored in your inventory. The top right corner is where you’ll end your turn when you have finished your turn.

Your character is on the left while your enemies are on the right in the centre of the screen. There are various backgrounds on the battle screen. Below the battle area is where your current cards are displayed for each turn, you will be dealt five cards each turn. On each card there is some information on the type of card it is, Attack, Block Skill. It also details the actions of that card, “Deals 2 times by 5 damage”, “Gain 5 block. Adaptive” etcetera. In the top right corner of each card is the number of energy points required to play that card. You only have three energy points per turn to begin with, I think you can up the amount with certain cards. I’m unsure on whether you can increase the total amount of energy as you progress through the game as I haven’t been able to do so thus far.

If you defeat your enemy, you’ll gain some reward, gold and may be some other rewards. You will also have the choice to choose one card from three which will be added to your deck for your current game. However, if you don’t survive and you die then you’ll wake up with that creepy old bloke knocking on your coffin bringing you back to life and it’s start all over again. The only problem is with starting over again is that you start with nothing more than what you started with on your first game. You won’t have any of the new cards you may have collected in your previous game. Ok I lied a little you will start over with something; you’ll have some knowledge of what lays below the icons on the map. You can’t take this as fact though, what you do one time may not happen in your current situation.

In the settings you’ll find options for Sound and Music Volume Sliders, Mute Background Sounds On/Off Check Box. Resolution, FPS (30/60) Screen (Windowed or Borderless). V-Sync and Screen Shake Check Boxes, Languages (English and Russian), Rest Progress. Fast-Mode Enabled in Battle and Auto-Select the target if only one target is available.

I like the artwork in the game and have enjoyed playing the game but it’s bloody frustrating. Most of the time you haven’t got a chance progressing, making it to the end and then taking on the final boss is harder than it sounds. I’ve managed to make it to the end a few times currently in almost seven hours of game time. You only start with sixty health and making it to the boss with enough health to defeat them isn’t easy. Even if you happen to make it with all sixty health, your current gear might not be enough. I rarely found enough decent gear to withstand the bosses damage, hell some of the normal enemy damage would be hard to make it through especially if there were multiple enemies to defeat.

The damage I’d be doing was silly averaged around six/nine which is nothing. Out of the three energy points I’d probably be using two of the for defence (block) which left me possibly with attacking two or more enemies or the boss and hitting them for six or nine damage while they would destroy my protection with one enemy and then attack with higher damage thus ending my game.

I understand that it’s Early Access and I do like what I have played so far but I’d enjoy it a lot more if there were some more balancing in the game. I get frustrated when I make it two or three icons on the map only to die. If some balancing can be done as the game goes through Early Access, then I think it’ll be a cracking game.

One last thing I would really like to have some sort of tutorial, something to at least explain what certain attributes of cards do etcetera. There isn’t anything currently to explain things, so you’ll have to figure things out for yourself.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!