Game: Runespell: Overture

Platform: PC, Mac

Publisher: Mystic Box

Developer: Mystic Box

ESRB: T

Genre: Poker fueled casual RPG

Players: 1

What's Hot: Combat mechanics are an interesting twist on poker and solitaire, novel setting

What's Not: Little variety to spellcards, little to no RPG elements, unsatisfying ending

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Review by: Brandon "Changeling" Cackowski-Schnell

As an avowed fan of puzzle-RPG games, you would think that Runespell: Overture, the indie mash-up of solitaire, poker and casual RPGs would be right up my alley. It was, at first. The combat was interesting, the world map was comfortingly familiar and the story set in an alternate take on medieval Europe had enough hooks to keep me playing. Unfortunately, once you’ve played this game for an hour or so, you’ve seen all that it has to offer as the combat isn’t deep enough to allow for many strategic options, the spellcards are cosmetic variations on the same handful of attacks and the story is secondary to the point of allowing the player to skip all of it.

You play as the Changeling, a supernatural being who wakes up with no memory of who or what he is. Confused, disoriented and stuck in a blizzard, you fight your way to a small settlement where you hook up with some allies and learn that your fate may be tied to a giant castle called the Skullgrim. Gee, that’s not the least bit ominous, is it? The story is set in an alternate medieval Europe with plenty of references to actual historical events as well as a smattering of Beowulf references for good measure. It’s an interesting mix, however you get the feeling that the developers don’t care enough about the story to make you want to read it as you can skip every conversation and move on to the next encounter with no change to your path. I’m all for player convenience, but at the same time, if you don’t care about your story, why should I?

If you choose to take part in the conversations, regardless of which response you choose, you’ll eventually be thrown into a battle and the game’s Mythic Poker combat system. Combat is a combination of poker, Yahtzee and solitaire. You and your opponent have cards laid out in front of you solitaire style. From these cards you build poker hands that, once complete, act as attacks against your enemy. You can steal cards from your opponent’s layout, provided they aren’t part of a hand, however your opponent can steal as well. This makes for some annoying moments where you may uncover a needed card with your last move of a turn only to have your opponent steal it, screwing up your plans in the process. Doing attacks causes direct damage against your foe as well as provides Rage Points which fuel your runespell cards.

The biggest problem with the combat system is that there’s not a tremendous amount of flexibility. Playing a defensive game is difficult as there are too many cards and card combinations available for you to really play defense and the AI is more than happy to hit you with smaller attacks if big ones aren’t available. Mid-game the best bet for winning is to build straight and royal flushes however while you’re waiting for those hands, your opponent is steadily dealing direct damage as well as building up mana to hit you with spell cards.

It certainly doesn’t help that your opponent usually has more health points than you do as well as more spell card uses than you do, meaning you’re always going up against someone stronger than you. If the game had the usual RPG elements, you could solve this by doing some monster grinding, but the game is an RPG in name only. There is no leveling up, with health and mana increases doled out only when the story wants to, and you can grind for gold or spell cards which will give you more opportunities for magical damage, but the amount of money you get compared to the cost of buying an additional use makes grinding even more of a chore than usual.

You can change combat somewhat by equipping different combinations of spell cards, but even those cards are somewhat of a misdirection. Sure there are cards for fire, ice, lightning and nature damage, but none of them have any lasting effect and your enemies don’t have a weakness to one element over another, so there’s no reason to switch between the different elemental cards. Better to go with whichever card you have the most uses for and call it a day. Similarly, there are other cards that can reduce your enemy’s mana points, or lock down a spell card, but as you progress through the story and get better powered versions of these cards, the mana point cost is so high they tend to be less useful, especially if you’re focusing more on building heavy attack hands rather than constantly attacking.

And that brings me to my biggest complaint about the game, namely that it doesn’t have the flexible, play as you want style that I’ve come to expect from the genre. As you progress through the game and hit the higher tiered enemies, choosing different battle styles doesn’t work as well as staying with one strategy and hoping for good cards. Eventually the game ends, rather abruptly I might add, with no real story resolution, and you can choose to wander the wintry plains killing the same enemies as before, but why would you? Runespell: Overture is good for an hour or two, the size of the demo conveniently enough, but beyond that, there’s just not enough there to warrant spending the additional time playing it.

Brandon Cackowski-Schnell is a regular contributor to GameShark and is the cohost of Jumping the Shark , GameShark.com's official podcast and co-founder of No High Scores.

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