Thing Trunk’s old school-inspired hack & slash deckbuilding RPG Book of Demons will be leaving Early Access on December 13th.
The game first launched back in July 2016, and is the first in a planned series called Return 2 Games that seeks to emulate classic PC games distilled down to their most basic form. Book of Demons, the first title by Thing Trunk, is inspired by Diablo, but features a few interesting twists.
Most notably, all your items and skills are tied to cards that are used to construct a deck. You still have a basic auto attack, but your more powerful abilities are tied to these cards that are drawn as you raid a dungeon, giving the game an element of resource and hand management unlike your typical ARPG. You can check out a trailer above.
Here’s a rundown of the game:
Book of Demons is a Hack & Slash deckbuilding hybrid in which YOU decide the length of quests. Wield magic cards instead of weapons and slay the armies of darkness in the dungeons below the Old Cathedral. Save the terror-stricken Paperverse from the clutches of the Archdemon himself!
Key Features:
- Procedurally Generated Dungeons
- Roguelike Mode for fans of extreme challenge
- 70+ different types of monsters, with different traits and custom mechanics
- Xbox and Steam controller support
- 3 underground realms and epic Quest Boss battles
- Monthly and all-time Leaderboards, 200+ Achievements
Book of Demons is the first installment of Return 2 Games – a series of original mid-core titles, inspired by the early golden days of PC gaming.
More Features:
- Cards and Deckbuilding – It’s not a card game, but items, spells, and skills are all expressed as cards. The strategy lies in adapting your hand to each situation. Cards can be upgraded with runes and you can find many variants with diverse bonuses. Legendaries are the most epic but hard to acquire.
- Tailored sessions with Flexiscope – Book of Demons respects your time. It features the Flexiscope engine which allows you to divide the game into sessions of any size. It even learns your pace of gaming and predicts the time to complete the next session.
- Unique Mechanics – Simplified movement and fight mechanics is where Book of Demons differs the most from other hack & slash games. There is often not enough time to click-remove all of the obstacles such as monster shields, enemy spells, poison, or knocked cards, so timing, card selection and order of execution are critical.
- Hack & Slash in the world of Paperverse – Book of Demons takes place in Paperverse, a world that exists entirely inside a pop-up book.
It’s a tale of good and evil about saving the world from the ultimate devilry. Sounds familiar? Inspired by the dark and gloomy atmosphere of the first Diablo game, Book of Demons is part tribute part parody of hack & slash classics. - Comfort of Gameplay – Many Book of Demons features were designed with gameplay comfort in mind. Points of interest are marked at the top of the screen and get revealed once you get closer. Your character leaves footprints, which can be used to track your way back or notice paths already visited without opening the map.
- Challenging Endgame – On average it takes about 10 hours to complete the campaign with a single class, but maxing out a character and mastering all of the higher Freeplay difficulty levels and Quests takes much longer. The Roguelike mode offers another level of challenge with permadeath, restricted healing and even more obstacles to overcome.
Book of Demons is available on Windows PC and Mac via Steam and the Humble Store for $19.99, and the Steam version is currently 50% off. There’s a free demo available if you want to give it a shot.
