Trials of Fire is an RPG, a card-battler and a lovely digital book

Trials of Fire is a video game that is also a card game, a card game that is also an RPG, and an RPG that is also a book. This last piece is surprisingly important when it comes down to how lovely the whole thing is to interact with. The book is a great fiction. The game's title screen is stamped on its cover, and the early pages - the front matter, as they say, wonderfully, in the trade - is where you find tutorials and party stuff and all of that other front matter jazz. Adventures see you turning pages as you make choices, overworld maps or battle arenas rising out of the paper itself. When you want to go back or forward or muddle around with your equipment you can use bookmarks to get you there. Books, it turns out, even when they're digital books like this, are pretty great technology.

And the choice of a book isn't accidental. Trials of Fire takes notes from the likes of FTL as it tells procedural stories that unfold as you move from one node to the next. In Trials of Fire these nodes crop up as question marks as you shunt your party around a map, and each node gives you a bit of narrative - just a few paragraphs generally, but more than FTL or many of its followers opt for. Choices crop up quickly, and there are plenty of chances to scavenge for food or take a rest - hunger and tiredness being the things you're generally managing as you set off across the game's scarred landscape following any of its quests. There are also battles, growing in difficulty as you work your way closer to the story's goal. The battles, reader, are wonderful.

Each party you take out on an adventure is composed of three people - classes, I guess, ranging from spellcasters and archers to melee specialists. Each class comes with its own cards, three of which are dealt at the start of each turn. That means that you have nine cards to play with each round, although you won't be able to use them all. Some cards come with no costs, while others need a certain amount of Willpower - the game's version of mana - in order to be played. This can be built up by binning off cards, so there's a bit of tactical stuff in the mix from the very start.

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