''Trials of Fire'' is a

roguelike deck-building game A roguelike deck-building game is a hybrid genre of video games that combines the nature of deck-building card games with procedurally generated randomness from roguelike games. Gameplay aspects Most roguelike deck-building games present the pla ...

developed by Whatboy Games and released for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

in 2021. It blends card mechanics with

turn-based tactics Turn-based tactics (TBT) is a sub-genre of strategy video games. They are turn-based simulations of operational warfare and military tactics in generally small-scale confrontations as opposed to more strategic considerations of turn-based strateg ...

in a fantasy world.

Gameplay

Gameplay includes elements of

s and

tactical role-playing game Tactical role-playing game (abbreviated TRPG), also known as strategy role-playing game or (both abbreviated SRPG), is a video game genre that combines core elements of role-playing video games with those of tactical (Turn-based tactics, turn-b ...

s using turn-based combat. It is set in a post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy world. Players recruit adventurers to explore a

overworld An overworld or a hub world is, in a broad sense, an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other video game genres, such as some pla ...

map that has been

procedurally generated In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated content and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. I ...

. Up to three adventurers can be in the

party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

out of a roster of up to nine characters. As players discover points of interest on the map, they are given the option of choosing various courses of action, which may depend on

skill A skill is the learned or innate ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. Some examples of gen ...

s. Combat takes place on a tactical map. Each character has a deck of cards, which allow them to attack and move. To play a card, players expend willpower from a pool shared by all characters. Although some cards generate willpower, it is most commonly gained by discarding cards. After winning battles and completing quests, characters gain

experience points An experience point (often abbreviated as exp or XP) is a unit of measurement used in some tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's life experience and progression through the game. Experien ...

and can gain new, more powerful cards. Finding powerful equipment can also give players more cards, and traveling on the map eventually adds useless cards to characters' decks to simulate exhaustion. If the entire party dies, the game ends, but new characters and cards can be unlocked for the next game.

Development

''Trials of Fire'' entered

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

on May 3, 2019, and was released on April 9, 2021.

Reception

''Trial of Fire'' received positive reviews on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'' wrote, "''Trials of Fire''s list of features may read like a videogame word salad, but the resulting combination makes for a fine RPG feast." In an end of the year retrospective, ''PC Gamer'' called it "perhaps the most compelling strategy game to come out in 2021". In recommending the game, ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

'' described it as "a complex but seductive deck-building strategy game about sculpting the perfect RPG team".

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.whatboy.com/ourgames.html 2021 video games Windows-only games Windows games Single-player video games Indie games Dark fantasy video games Digital deck-building card games Roguelike video games