The last few years have seen roguelike deck builders get their time in the sun. Obviously, last year’s indie breakout Balatro has taken the world by storm, destroying the productivity of cogs in the capitalist machine worldwide, but we’ve been seeing the genre grow since Slay the Spire launched in 2019. Since then, we’ve seen countless games follow in its stead, adding compelling elements to the formula – Inscryption, Monster Train, and Wildfrost are just three that come to mind.
Real-Time Combat, With Cards
Golden Swirl, which I played at Taipei Game Show, is another game in this vein, adding layers on top of the roguelike formula to create something fresh and compelling. A lot of things about the game are typical of the genre. Each journey into the game’s dark fantasy world is a fresh one, mixed up with procedurally generated dungeons, enemies, and treasures.
You’ll build your deck by selecting cards to cater to your specific playstyle, whether that be long-range or intense close-up melee. You can also further fine-tune your build with gear and relics, adding even more flexibility to an already impressive variety of customisation.
What it does differently is more interesting to consider. In this indie’s case, the added layer is real-time combat. Everything in Golden Swirl requires a card, from casting spells to movement across a level. When you go to use a card, combat will pause, giving you time to choose the right card, direct its effects, and activate it.
Things will continue to move around you otherwise, allowing you to react dynamically to your opponents’ movements and attacks. The whole gameplay loop feels fairly seamless, forcing you to evaluate your priorities according to how much mana you have available while also necessitating quick thinking and reflexes.
The attributes of the cards you collect can also affect the options you get within the game and story branches that will appear, which creates even more cool synergies within Golden Swirl.
Another twist is the game’s depravity system, which is triggered every time a choice is made in the game. When you choose to interact with an NPC, pick between rewards, and make other choices that I didn’t get to experience during my own playthrough, you trigger the ‘Swirl Breaching’ mechanic, making the depravity level rise. In turn, you may suffer unpredictable effects and trigger events that affect gameplay progression, which essentially means that making your character stronger will also lead to unexpected consequences.
You can wager depravity or other buffs you’ve gained for new cards, relics, or currency, balancing all of these moving parts to build the best deck possible for your chosen playstyle.
A Dark Fantasy World
Less refined is Golden Swirl’s world. The Steam page says that “an ancient and enigmatic swirl” that “distorts the boundaries of reality” has appeared in the world, “consuming countless lives and souls”. The player character is a trial seeker trying to reach the Golden City and uncover its connection to the swirl.
It’s hard to glean all this from the game itself, though – as it stands, Golden Swirl is sorely in need of English localisation and more contextualisation. This might just be the nature of the demo, but I had no idea what was going on in the game as I played it. Who am I? What am I doing? Who are all these weird creatures saying incredibly foreboding things? It makes no damn sense. Compels me though.
And it is, still, compelling. While the NPCs were repetitive and the story itself fairly confusing, its Eldritch horror vibes and solid core gameplay loop had me hooked. I’m not quite sure what progression will look like past the first act, but there might be something solid here with a little more polishing. Since Golden Swirl will be launching in early access later this year, I’m hopeful that this polish will come with a little more time and player feedback. You can wishlist the game on Steam here ahead of its Q2 launch.
- Developer(s)
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Snako Production
- Publisher(s)
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Snako Production