Roguebook Review
A properly paced roguelike will knock you out over and over again, but through compelling gameplay loops, steady progression, or engaging narrative, you’ll be drawn right back in for that next run. However, the only thing Roguebook has out of these is engaging combat, but even that isn’t enough to save it from a pit of familiar ideas and underwhelming execution.
Roguebook is a deckbuilding roguelike that takes place inside the Roguebook itself, a sentient book from which the player must escape. Controlling two of four playable heroes, players use blots of ink they find through battles to clear up the fog of war in each page, while discovering secrets, fighting enemies, and slowly building up their deck.
Unfortunately, Roguebook feels incredibly generic, its world, light narrative and character designs seemingly recycled from the sum of its influences and peers. With the game touting the involvement of the creator of Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield, one would assume that more about the world would stand out. Even the playable heroes Sorocco and Aurora fail to make much of an impression, ultimately blending into Roguebook’s familiar fantasy world.
Not every game needs to present never-before-seen concepts, but Roguebook’s lack of character and charm means that I’m simply unable to concretely remember anything about play sessions I’ve just spent a few hours in.
Redeeming combat
In the midst of battles, however, it can be easy to forgive Roguebook’s unremarkable presentation. It doesn’t innovate on past deckbuilding roguelikes, but it does enough for its combat to become a highlight for the game. Things start fairly straightforward, with each card and enemy simply dealing damage or raising defence. As you progress, more in-depth status effects, buffs, and debuffs are introduced, forcing players to be strategic about the cards they collect and play. Players can also collect a number of items that can permanently impact combat and can stack effects to cards with gems found in each page. All these elements help make each run enjoyable, even if the RNG gods aren’t smiling on you.
Yet what makes Roguebook stand out is its focus on tag team combat. Many cards, abilities, buffs, and debuffs in Roguebook are dependent on a character’s position–either in front or the back. This adds a new level of strategy to combat, as switching out your character to be in the lead at specific moments can mean life or death.
Ultimately forgettable
As a huge fan of roguelikes and deck builders, Roguebook should have been right up my alley. But even after hours spent with the game, there’s very little incentive to keep playing. Finishing runs lets you gain permanent upgrades to characters and invest points into stats to ease future runs, but these aren’t enough since these upgrades feel so minimal you’ll barely notice they are there at all. Progress in Roguebook is hard earned too, meaning you are constantly at the mercy of RNG’s whims for a good run. Rather than grind through its tedium, it’s easier to simply put Roguebook down.
The pull of “just one more run” is the heart of roguelikes, but lacking even that makes Roguebook little more than just a distraction from better games. Like the junk food you eat between real meals or while bored, it’s enjoyable at times, but will ultimately leave you hungry for something more substantial.