Runespell: Overture

In a sea of imitators, it’s always nice to find a true innovator. With Runespell: Overture, Mystic Box gives us a familiar fantasy blanket covering a truly new and engaging game mechanic that most anyone will be able to enjoy. And this being the developer’s introductory release, it’s probably safe to say that they’ll be sticking around for a bit if they so desire.

In Runespell, things kick off in the shoes of the standard amnesiac protagonist. You take on the role of a mysterious Changeling who begins with no recollection of who he is, where he came from, or how he got to this vast, icy mountain range. You’re presented with a map overview that has specific paths with bullet points along the way, reminiscent of a game board. The very first space you can move to triggers your first battle, and the game wastes no time in introducing you to its calling card (pun intended).

Runespell: Overture hangs its hat on a card game it calls Mythic Poker. In this game, you face off against an AI opponent. Each of you has a deck of standard playing cards spread out in seven columns a la Klondike Solitaire. Each of you also has a set number of hit points. You take turns moving cards around, three moves per turn. Attacks against your opponent are made by grouping the cards into sets of five that form a playable Poker hand or Yahtzee combination. Each hand is worth a specific number of hit points, depending on its value. For instance, group five cards of the same suit and you have a flush which you can use to attack your enemy. But be a bit more patient and try to match a full house or a 4-of-a-kind and you’ll do more damage to your opponent.

Of course, there are a number of twists to Mythic Poker. For one, while you typically have three moves per turn, one of those moves can be to steal one of your opponent’s cards and stack it on top of one of yours. The catch here is that once a stack has been started (more than one face-up card in a column), those cards cannot be separated again, and they cannot be stolen. This can be used as a defensive tactic, as if you suspect that an opponent may attempt to take a particular card, you can stack it on another ahead of time to make sure that they can’t have it.

Another notable difference that Mythic Poker has over pretty much any other card game is that there is no limit to card amount. This is not your standard 52-card deck, as you’ll quickly realize the first time you see two of the same exact card in play, or when you manage to create a 5-of-a-kind stack. Every time you move all of the face-up cards off of a column, there will always be more face-down cards waiting to be played. No re-shuffling needed here. Must be magic.

Finally, there are the Power Cards. These are cards that have special functions that can be played using one of your moves during your turn. They can be offensive and deal out specific types of elemental or melee damage, or they can be defensive and used to protect against an expected attack. There are several other specialized cards that are discovered as you make your way through the game, and it can be satisfying just to go about trying to collect every card. However, using these cards during battle costs Rage Points, which are earned when attacking or being attacked, but much more so when attacking, so it’s effective incentive to keep on the offensive as much as possible.

Mythic Poker is a brand new concept with a lot to learn, but Runespell never lets you feel daunted. The tutorial is well done and does a good job of teaching you how things work while you play, easing you into the mechanics without making you feel like you’re wasting time with some arbitrary help system.

In between games of Mythic Poker, you’ll almost be fooled into thinking that you’re playing an RPG. Winning battles will earn you Silver, the game’s currency. Silver can be spent in towns on new Power Cards, or on “uses,” effectively re-charging used Power Cards that have a limited number of uses associated with them. You’ll also meet several allies who will travel with you, but they really just shape up to be unique Power Cards that you may or may not choose to employ. There are conversations with characters throughout the game that explain the plot and are somewhat amusing at times, but while none of it is very engaging, it doesn’t intrude on the gameplay, either.  I actually spotted a couple of spelling and grammatical errors, but they were thankfully very few, far between and not particularly obvious.

There are even people in towns who will hand out quests, but the illusion of RPG openness dissipates soon after. The “quests” always boil down to another card game against an opponent that may or may not be slightly different than one you have faced before with a different set of Power Cards. Furthermore, every one of these quests is mandatory, with no optional side quests to be found. The only break from linearity is the ability to go back and battle anyone you’ve already beaten again for fun or Silver. There’s no leveling system, so you won’t be grinding for experience. The only sense of character advancement that you’ll get is when you’re awarded new passive Power Cards that will raise your maximum hit point and rage point levels.

It will take about 10 hours or so to get through the campaign, but Mythic Poker is good enough on its own to stay engaging throughout. Runespell is not very difficult for the majority of the game, but the last handful of battles manage to get rather challenging, and dare I say, nail-biting. On more than one occasion, I could literally feel my heart pounding as I waited to see what cards would be uncovered next, down to my last couple of hit points after a solid 15-minute back-and-forth battle. Those moments made the entire campaign worthwhile.

The game looks pretty nice, too. Your Changeling and your enemy are smoothly animated during the battles, and the characters during conversations are depicted by attractive illustrations. The soundtrack in particular is fantastic, putting many much bigger-budget games to shame. The only thing worth complaining about here is that it’s certainly not varied. Every single battle in the game is accompanied by the same song save for the very last showdown. Fortunately, that same song is long, exciting, and dynamic, so it’ll take a while before you get bored of it.

But as much fun as Mythic Poker is, Runespell doesn’t really do much to keep things interesting other than give your opponents higher hit points and stronger Power Cards later on. A bit of a heavier injection of RPG elements could have gone a significantly long way to give the campaign some staying power. It would have been great to be able to choose between a few classes for your character, or maybe items that would adjust attack strengths and styles, or even elemental vulnerabilities for certain enemies. The game is probably intentionally simple so that it is easy to jump in and out of for anyone, but that mentality also unfortunately ends with a game that you’re pretty much done with when the campaign is over.

This brings to light some less forgivable design decisions. For one, there’s only one game mode: the story campaign. Mythic Poker is a lot of fun, but if you want to play more of it, you need to go through the same campaign again. If nothing else, a simple “Play Now” mode with a randomized enemy and Power Card set would’ve been very welcome. But more importantly, I’m baffled as to the omission of a multiplayer mode. Slap on some online matches, tournaments, and a ranking system, and you’d have people playing Mythic Poker until the sun came up. Instead, you’re left to playing the same tired AI opponents over and over again, and that’s if you’re ok navigating the same light RPG elements every time you just want to get down to business. Yeah, there’s a leaderboard, but it’s ranked by point totals versus AI opponents. It might as well be a ranking of how many hours each person spent playing.

Still, Mystic Box got the most important thing right: the core game mechanic. Runespell: Overture introduces us all to Mythic Poker, and if you give it a chance, I’d venture it’ll make a believer out of you, too. The problem is that when the campaign is over, you’re probably not going to feel much of a reason to play any more, and that’s somewhat of a travesty. Luckily, the campaign ends with a painfully obvious reference to an impending sequel, so perhaps Mystic Box will find a way to introduce some much needed variations on the card game, and hopefully some online multiplayer. However, right now, Runespell: Overture will thrill and entertain you with Mythic Poker, but you’ll find yourself wanting a reason to play again and likely coming up short. Even if you only play once, though, you’ll be glad you did.

Runespell: Overture goes live on Steam for purchase at 10 AM PT on July 20th, 2011.