Book of Demons

[h1]This is not a deck builder.[/h1] [h1]This is a clicker game.[/h1] Let's deconstruct the short description at the top of this page: [code]Book of Demons is a Hack & Slash Deck-building hybrid[/code] > Hack & Slash Movement is on rails. See those paths in the screenshots? Your character is restricted to them and slides along them. Want to swing your weapon at everything in your path? There's some of that, sort of. But then icons appear above enemies that you have to click a bunch to break their shields. Get stunned? Click another icon a bunch. At its heart, this game plays like a clicker game and NOT like Diablo or Torchlight or Path of Exile. >Deck-building The longer description now says, "It’s not a card game, but items, spells, and skills are all expressed as cards". It's as much of a deck builder as any game with an inventory is a deck builder. There is no shuffling. There is no drawing. Cards are just an abstraction over items & skills without any of the gameplay implications you might expect. It's easy to see some of the aspects of this game and get a wrong (but appealing) idea of what the game is about. If you're looking for a clicker game with a picture-book version of Diablo 1's plot, then great! But if you were looking for anything remotely like a deck-builder or the gameplay of Diablo, you will be sorely disappointed.

After literally thousands of hours spent in Action isometric RPG's (and others) like Diablo (mostly - like 3k+ h easily :P) , Path of Exile, Titan Quest, Champions of Norath (and Return to arms) - and so on - been there, love it, seen'em - kill'em all. This one however didn't attract me with graphic at all, yet I thought - let's give it a chance - sometimes those smaller productions have great climate - mood going along with us on adventures. And It happened! Great - just great at it's soothing and deeply relaxing yet perfectly paced at it's difficult march through the hell spawns :D Now some feedback for developers; - I played on standard difficulty for good couple of hours without dying once on rather fast route through the enemies (all 100% clear) - quite satisfying with the loot - especially how rarely better items drops - great! yet to this rather calming game I would either put some dis-balanced combat more often forcing us to retreat or push forward instead of clearing the rooms one by one. (at least in the first few hours) - Second and last issue - in my personal opinion is the graphic - great idea for the paper figures and setting - yet after the great success I hope You will achieve quite soon - I hope for "real" 3D included with some stunning and eye catching visuals to back up this already great game's core.

[b]Good:[/b] The player can select instance size based on estimated session time. The art style is interesting and not unattractive. The core gameplay loop is fresh and fun for one or two runs through the dungeon. [b]Bad:[/b] The game promises but fails to deliver on Diablo nostalgia. All three classes play the same. Mechanical complexity is lacking; there is no fun to be had in theorycrafting builds. Movement is on rails for the player; this feels cheap and unfair as enemies can move freely. The player cannot grind or farm at will; the only way to play is to go deeper. Gimmicks such as shields, dislodged interface components and element-type health soon become cumbersome and tedious rather than challenging. [h1]Extremely Bad:[/h1] [h1]in-game ads[/h1] There are [u][b][i]in-game ads[/i][/b][/u] (on every launch by default unless specifically disabled in a text file hidden in the game directory, and at least once during game-play). I got this game as part of Humble Choice, after having it on my Wishlist for some time. If I had bought it directly, rather than getting it through Humble Choice, I would have sought a refund immediately upon seeing advertisements in what is supposed to be full-featured, paid software. This is inexcusable. [h1]Do not buy this game.[/h1]

I like the concept but unfortunately the game just isn't very fun. It is extremely repetitive, which is fine if the gameplay is fun. But it's not, movement is very slow and clunky and most of the mechanics are more annoying than anything else. Most mechanics aren't challenging or fun, they just slow the game down in various annoying ways.

After maxing out the game, I have mixed feelings. It is not possible to post a neutral review, so I have opted for the “recommended” option, but the majority of these lines will be about the mechanics that made the game less enjoyable for me. [h1]What kind of game is Book of Demons?[/h1] The game's store page, especially the pictures, may be misleading to some people, possibly suggesting that it is a card game. Our characters have certain abilities, which are indicated by these cards. However, it's no different from a normal ARPG or RPG where you can place a certain number of abilities on the active action bar. If I had to define the type of game I would describe it as a mix of the top down shooter and hack and slash genres. However, in these games it is important to plan the right escape route and to kite your opponents, which is not possible here as your character can only follow a fixed route. This was the first thing that, although it may seem novel, made the game less playable for me. [h1]Randomized dungeons[/h1] Nowadays, this is a requirement for games like this, and it's happening in Book of Demons. This randomization is partly controlled by you, because if you want to progress through the game, you can set how much progress you want to make, how much area you want to explore, so if you have 10 minutes to play, you can create a dungeon for that time, if you have an hour, you can create a dungeon for that time. [h1]Raistlin wouldn’t need Caramon in this world[/h1] If you are not familiar with the above two names, it is not necessarily your fault. The two heroes of the Dragonlance books, Raistlin Majere is a mage and Caramon Majere is a warrior. Caramon always defended his brother while Raistlin was busy casting spells. We know from role-playing games, fantasy, AD&D, etc, that during the casting of the spell, the mage's success can be hindered by interruption. Well, this is not the case in this game, which I find very hard to get over. If an enemy casts a spell or uses an ability, they become immune for that duration, and can only be prevented from doing so manually or with a targeted ability. Interesting enough, there is zero chance of interrupting the mage with damaging attacks and even his health remains intact during spellcasting. If that weren't enough, it's not uncommon to see that these summon hundrest of smaller, weaker monsters, and there's no chance to reach a distance where the manual spell interrupt can be performed. I'm sure that the balance of the game could have been handled a bit differently, because this type of spellcasting really ruined the atmosphere of the game for me. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] As the game supports the playing of shorter sessions I kept playing this as breaks between works. It is not a bad game, but I have higher expectations from Book of Aliens. [b]Visuals:[/b] 8/10 Game looks unique and more than enough to not find it ugly. [b]Atmosphere:[/b] 6/10, ohh the damage immunity during spellcasting ruins it. [b]Difficulty:[/b] Depends on your goal. You could finish it easily on casual difficulty, roguelike mode is very challenging. [b]Amount of crash:[/b] Zero in my ~100h playtime. [b]Bugs:[/b] Not found any, but the game is now several years old so probably all major problems, if the game had any, are now fixed. [h1]Hey, I am an achievement hunter![/h1] [b]Perfection Difficulty:[/b] All, except 12 achievements could be earned just by playing the game on the casual difficulty. The hardest part is the roguelike mode achievements. [b]Perfection Time:[/b] Mine was ~100h, I doubt it is possible to get all achievement legit in less than ~85h as I already used the less grind method I share with you in the next few sentences, but I was extremely careful during roguelike mode. [b]How to grind less:[/b] Usually, after reaching LVL 50 with each class you still need to grind a lot for upgrade cards, so you can upgrade all your abilities to LVL3. Unless you know a small trick I would share now with you. There is a card, Remedy. That one required 2 random upgrade cards to reach LVL2. Then you can downgrade it to get back 2 random upgrade cards, but those random cards could be upgraded upgrade cards, otherwise, with regular card fusing, you will need 2 regular upgrade cards to get one upgraded upgrade card. This method allows you to upgrade all cards of each class by farming only about 60% of the upgrade cards you would need otherwise. [b]Roguelike mode:[/b] Oh boy, this is quite annoying. I recommend the rogue for it because it is the only class that could damage enemies from very very far away. Be careful, be extra safe and try to avoid going too deep. The worst part is to die 8 times with the same character, and resurrect successfully. Resurrection costs gold (first is 1k gold, then it gets multiplied by 2 always, so 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, 64k, and last required is 128k), but if you die you will lose additional gold, based on your progress. For example if you finished the story, then progressed to massacre difficulty realm depth, then you will lose 5 cards and 50% of your gold (resurrection cost taken away first if you have the gold for it). It is highly recommended to do more deaths while still on normal or hard depth difficulty to decrease the gold loss factor. It is also important to farm extra gold and upgrade cards without risks. Replaying storyline bosses with keys is safe, even on roguelike mode. Dying there is safe, you won’t need to be resurrected for gold, so you could farm gold, experience, upgrade cards there, so you could be stronger before farming the regular depth levels after storyline. So start it for 1 key, kill the boss, loot up the items and then make yourself killed by the remaining trash mobs. That way you got loot, some exp and you still can replay the same boss quest again for 1 key, instead of locking the quest and being forced to do the next one for 3 keys. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30168383] If you like to earn achievements, but in enjoyable, fun and entertaining games, then please follow my Average Achievement Hunter curator or just check out our curated games if you looking for some gaming tips:-) Thanks[/url]

UPDATE: Finally got to the last boss, and I'm really, really disappointed. This is where the game's fatal flaw is. Not only is the boss fight tedious, but you're lucky to have enough gold to fill your healing potions (If you've been spending it properly to unlock cards slots and upgrade things). Additionally, this is where the big weakness in the "click move" mechanic becomes painfully apparent. Irritating as hell trying to move when you click somewhere and your guy just STOPS unless you keep the button clicked and even then, he sometimes won't move. They really need to fix this mechanic. I started playing this game back in Early Access when it was on my wishlist and a friend gifted it to me. I don't often do EA titles, mostly because I've been burned (as you have, I'm sure) by the games remaining perpetually in EA, unfinished and sometimes abandoned. I am really glad that is not the case here. I have to tell you, if you like fantasy RPGs and dungeon crawlers, you will LOVE this game. It's not a traditional ARPG like Diablo/Torchlight/Sacred etc., but it's unique and it works. It's a combination of grid movement exploration and battle, and cards. Three class archetypes to choose from, with varied difficulty levels: fighter, rogue, and spellcaster. Much like with a tabletop RPG of old, they layout is grid based and you move on the grid. Kind of like rails, if you will, but you can attack anything you can see, on the path or not. The paths make it easier to see where you've been (footprints) and which directions are completely explored (gold footprints). You can let the game autoattack for you, or you can speed things up and attack manually. Your skills and equipment are represented as cards you collect. You can upgrade them, and they have different rarities. The rarer, the more powerful they are. You have a limited number of card slots in your "deck" to start, but you can unlock more slots with the gold you collect in the dungeon. You can also have multiple sets that you can switch between as the situation dictates. Weapon cards and armor cards you simply "wear" and you gain their effects. Spell cards and special attack cards you have to activate. The combination of cards you can equip and use is dependent upon how much mana you have. Mana is used for both equipping and spending on spells or special attacks. The game is quite literally a dungeon crawler, and you just go further and further into the depths, triggering some special quests along the way when you get deep enough. You can choose how big of a dungeon you want to clear, and the game eventually learns fairly accurately how long it will take you to clear what size dungeon. So, if you have all afternoon, go for a big one. If you have just 15 minutes or so to kill, make it a small one. Larger dungeons competed give you more progress in the overall quest of clearing the dungeon of evil. There's a great variety of evil monsters to kill, and the game has a bestiary and a running tally of kills of each kind. One thing I really like about this game, other than the "dynamic" dungeon/adventure sizes is the art style. It's almost like 3D paper. It's REALLY well done, and rather unique in my experience of game playing. I personally haven't seen anything quite like it, and it really shines when it comes to ares of fire on the floor, for example. I'd call it cute, but if that turns you off, think of it as "bad***" instead. So far, I haven't found it terribly difficult, but there is enough of a challenge that you can't just waltz in and click everywhere and survive. Especially with bosses, there is some strategy involved. I'm also a completionist, so it's really nice to have the adventure tracker at the top of the screen, so you can keep track of monsters and undiscovered loot. With that, combined the footprints mechanic, you won't miss anything. I'm having a LOT of fun with this one, and am looking forward to playing the other classes once I get good enough with the warrior to feel comfortable with the game mechanics.

Quite a nice game with an interesting game design. It looks like a new take on Diablo. Unfortunately I expected more long term gameplay value and that is not there or better stated, it is there, but without the satisfaction. The balance between the classes is not as good as it could be near the endgame and whilst the concept is nice, in its current form I find it a bit shallow. All in all fairly good, but not absolutely awesome.

This is a game that comes from the mind of a mobile developer. One of its selling points is the option to have a short play session—an issue that often is crucial for mobile, but hardly relevant for a PC gamer. The control scheme also feels like it was made for a touch screen. There are many mini-games that boil down to grabbing things floating on the screen. To heal poison, you have to click the bottom left with your cursor, even though normally you keep it to the center of the screen—an idea that would be handy of the game was controlled with your fingers via a mobile device, but doesn't translate well to PC. A lot of its other elements feel clunky as well. While you can instantly teleport to the end of a dungeon when it's 100% clear, looking for that one pesky pile of gold you've missed means backtracking—excruciatngly slow backtracking. And pray that your final enemy isn't a gargoyle or a ghost: both can hide and must attack first... or ignore you, making you run past them a dozen times, groaning. As for the presentation, I'm pretty sure that Deckard Cain voice is borderline copyright infringement. [i]Book of Demons[/i] also borrows heavily from [i]Darkest Dungeon[/i] with its combination of stylized visuals and gritty narration. Does it all mean that the game is bad? No. It's all right. The treadmill does its job, injecting you with satisfaction via a steady stream of achievements and other small rewards. The idea of a small-budget simple Diablo-like is laudable, and you get enough fun for the price. I do, however, feel that the 'Overwhelmingly positive' rating gives the wrong impression of [i]Book of Demons[/i] being some sort of a hidden gem. It's not. It's just all right.

Surprisingly nice, charming and quite easy to play hack and slay with good controller support and a rewarding and motivating card system. The graphic is unique, might be not everyones cup of tea but i like it a lot and it let me come back again and again. You can choose your own gameplay time, 8 min or 16 min or you want 46 min? A great feature. Overall a relaxing experience with just the right difficulty to keep you going! High five Thing Trunk for this awesome experience! [h1][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26335619-Adult-World-Gamers/] Follow our AWG Curator [/url][/h1]

[h1] Book of Demons is a very interesting hybrid of hack and slash, deck building and dungeon crawler games. It has super addictive gameplay with tons of interesting mechanics that will grant you dozens of hours of fun. [/h1] [b] Pros: [/b] + Procedurally generated dungeons + High level of replayability + Very fun and addictive gameplay + Hack and slash mechanics + Huge variety of monsters with different abilities and powers + Interesting deck building mechanics + Ability to set up your game session according to the amount of time you have + Satisfying upgrade system [b] Cons: [/b] - The story is pretty dull and shallow - Playing on Casual difficulty makes the game a bit repetitive and boring - Some of the cards feel a bit weird or overpowered Book of Demons is a game that stayed in my game library for a long time and I was not sure either I should play it right away or just wait for the end of the Early Access. The majority of my friends were not so happy with this game, so I was not ready to test my luck. And when the game was officially out and the review score looked pretty good, I decided to give it a chance and have a look. [h1] Story [/h1] The story is the weakest part in this game, something that you will not remember at all. Basically, there is no storyline in Book of Demons at all. There is a lonely church situated in the village with a dungeon system located straight beneath it. These dungeons lead deeper and deeper under the ground, where you have to face and slay the main enemy. To do this, the player has to clear procedurally generated levels, divided into three sections. During the game, the player always has a chance to visit the village between cleaning the dungeon floors and talk to its habitats. They can tell you a bit more about the lore of the game but it still doesn’t feel enough. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] In its core, Book of Demons is a classic dungeon crawler with an interesting mix of card deck building, hack and slash, and a few RPG elements. One of the most interesting mechanics for me personally was the ability to tail a perfect dungeon run based on the free time that I have. Before each journey, you can set the duration of your run, setting a short, long or big one, with a different amount of time from 5 to 40+ minutes. The whole gameplay thing is very simple and it’s presented as a simplified hack and slash game, where you control the character through the procedurally generated levels. Your moves are limited by the path you have to follow and you can’t turn off from this path. Player has to attack enemies by clicking the left mouse button on them or simply hold this button to continuously auto-attack them. Sounds pretty simple and trivially, but there is a twist! The player has a set of special cards that greatly helps him during the exploration of these dungeons. Cards are divided into four different categories: special cards, artifacts cards, item cards, and spell cards. Special cards are needed to upgrade the main cards that you use directly during the battles. Artifact cards grant you some great passive skills like a critical chance, chance to ignite the enemy, restore mana, etc. Items cards let you use a variety of different items like potions, the portal to town scrolls, throw a bomb to the enemy, etc. And finally, spell cards are the main active cards that do the whole damage and bring some fun to the game. It’s important to understand that you will have to find and build your own powerful deck for being able to complete the game. Some of these cards can be completely overpowered or just weird in its mechanics, but I guess developers will continuously patch them from time to time. The variety of demons in this game is simply impressive. I really enjoyed the battle effects made in this game. Enemies can freeze you, put you on fire, poison and stun you. The player can interrupt most of them if he is fast enough to click the shiny icon above the enemy’s heard. Stunning is the most fun part in this list - when this happens, you must complete a mini-game, where the player has to gather starts flying around the dark screen to become conscious again. If the hit is too powerful, your cards can be even disabled and you have to enable them again by clicking on them. After you finish your dungeon run and gain enough experience, your character will level up. You have to distribute one point to either enhance your health or mana. Also, when you level up, it’s a good idea to visit the town and have a talk with its habitats. They can offer you their services in exchange for money. Basically, the town is the main place where you make your character stronger and prepare for your next run. Here you can replenish your health and mana, upgrade your cards, identify the unknown cards and charge them. One of the most interesting offers is a magic cauldron that gathers all the useful stuff you gather during your runs. In order to obtain this stuff, you have to pay some gold and every next time will be more expensive than the previous one. Magic cauldron contains extra points, rare cards, and gold. Keep in mind, that every time you die during your journey, your cauldron will be emptied. If you are a streamer, then you will be happy to hear that developers recently added a new feature that allows your audience to participate in your game during your streams. The player can freely set which type of viewers are allowed to do certain types of actions such as setting traps, spawning demons or help you click on the abilities at the most intense moments. This is a very interesting addition that lets you communicate with your audience on the brand new level. Be aware that if you play on the Casual difficulty your game can turn into one big tedious and repetitive routine, where you will kill every single enemy easily. If you like to have a bit more challenging game, consider the idea of setting a game on the Normal difficulty. [h1] Graphics [/h1] To support the idea that the game is actually a book every single character, demon, building and all the items lying around on the dungeon floors are made with folded paper. It looks pretty unique and interesting. All these graphics effects of freezing, poisoning, setting your character on fire and screen shaking after the enemy rally on you are designed in a simple way but perfectly fit the whole atmosphere. Developers also made this really cool design of footprints that you leave behind yourself which turn into gold once you complete the area to prevent you from unnecessary traveling here and there. [h1] Sound [/h1] I really appreciate the voice acting in Book of Demons, it sounds pretty professional and polished. All these sound effects you hear during your journeys like goat bleating, fireball throwing, screen frozing, and many others are designed on the highest level. The only thing that can be annoying for players is how the hero repeat the same phrases again and again until you complete certain levels. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] Book of Demons is a truly interesting game with a great mix of different genres and mechanics perfectly implemented in one place. This game is a good choice for both casual and veteran players. It has a great replayability value and challenging gameplay on the higher level difficulties which can make your gameplay experience last for a very long time. Highly recommended for the hack and slash fans and someone who is looking for a good dungeon crawler game with an interesting mix with other genres. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/23741321/]Follow our curator page,[b] Alexander's Club Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]