The Fool King is dead, long live the Deckbuilder King. The Decking, if you will. Publishers Yogscast Games have announced that festive card-based roguelite The Royal Writ will launch on 7th August.
The Royal Writ seems pretty spesh, and yet, we have never covered it before, because we are blundering philistines. Sorry about that. In our defence, this is yet another cousin of Balatro on some level, and there’s only so many of those I can process in one year before my thumbs and eyes swell up in protest. But based on a quick snort of the Steam demo, The Royal Writ stands apart thanks to 1) immensely jovial animated storybook visuals 2) an interesting set of card sacrifice mechanics. Here is a trailer.
Watch on YouTube
The Royal Writ might look like the opening number for Disney’s Robin Hood, but it’s actually rather grisly. Each lane-based battle is a sort of slaughterhouse line. As the king implied by the title, you place unit cards on the left who advance from turn to turn, column to column towards the enemy outpost on the right, dishing damage as they go. As regards the early battles, at least, columns nearer the enemy give your cards a boost. All fine and dandy, but if those cards actually reach the final column and make contact with the opposing fortifications, they’ll be obliterated instantly and vanish from your hand forever.
As such, you’ll want to arrange cards so that you build a multiplier and overcome your adversary’s health pool before your forces advance too far. Except. Except that sometimes letting your merry minions perforate themselves on the defences is beneficial. For example: there’s an affluent Widow card who racks up a fat pile of cash as she advances along her lane. You’ll be able to ‘inherit’ that coin if she dies. So maybe don’t win too early, eh? I like the pervasive evilness of The Royal Writ, which elsewhere comes across in resourcing opportunities such as the ability to trade a soldier’s teeth for upgrades.
Find the Royal Writ demo on Steam. The game is the work of Save Sloth Studios, who are also working on Sixth Sun – an action game set in alternate 1500s Mexico, with similarly luxuriant visuals. Incidentally, if anybody knows of any other upcoming or new-ish games featuring kings (not 9 Kings or The King Is Watching, which we’ve covered already), please sing out in the comments. I’ve done three king-themed games today and I need a fourth to finish the poker hand or I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
