Trials of Fire - Early Access

The Early Access version of the strategy RPG Trials of Fire is now available:

Trials of Fire

Trials of Fire is a single player, turn-based strategy game set in a post-cataclysmic fantasy realm.

The threat of starvation and conflict are never far away as Trials of Fire combines free-form exploration of an expansive open world, multi-character, card-driven combat and an innovative new fusion of loot, load-out and deck-building systems delivering massive depth of play and unique strategic opportunities for the player on every run.

Trials of Fire also features an extensive range of narrative 'judgement' encounters where the player is challenged to weigh moral dilemmas in a lawless world, assuming the roles of judge, jury and (often) executioner.

The tactical rogue-like design, procedurally generated game events and expanding gallery of playable characters and abilities challenges the player make every decision count as they journey across a dying world... in search of hope.

The hope that will save your forsaken people, the hope to survive in the desolate and dangerous wastelands, the hope that you and your party of heroes will live to fight again and to see the dawn of a new day.

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More information.

Nice! Haven't heard of it before. Instabuy for me!
Will report back, when I have played for a bit.

Instead of buttons we get circles this time. At least it looks like a board game.

Cards, cards, why does it have to have cards?

I'm not a fan of card systems within computer games, so I'll be reading feedback on this one before deciding whether to purchase or not.

Carnifex said:

I'm not a fan of card systems within computer games, so I'll be reading feedback on this one before deciding whether to purchase or not.

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I for one love card mechanics. This is a mixture of the card/equipment system from Card Hunter, turn-based combat and choose-your-own-adventure-books.

I like it so far. The only thing I don't like (in general and with all games that use it), is that you have to throw away cards to move and get "mana."

I'll update once I played some more.

I'll glad to read that someone enjoys that particular kind of system in a game, I will keep an eye out for your further thoughts.

War of the Bottle Caps!

@Carnifex;
I played some more and I have to say even on medium this game is on the more difficult side.

You need food for every day you are on your journey and you need food to rest and it is pretty scarce. Once you are out of food you take damage every day and you get "fatigue" cards in your deck. When you draw them, it basically means one less card.

You can also take injuries (netting you another bad card for your deck, i.e. a broken bone gives you -2 damage for the turn) or lose food during choose-your-own-adventure-events. The events are very varied and I haven't seen any one twice so far. You usually have several choices which can lead to a good or bad ending.
A nice touch are followers you can gather along the way which give you minor passive boni and sometimes offer choices during events.

Combat is also not easy. You have a warrior (tank), a mage (magic damage and buffs) and a hunter (ranged damage mostly). The AI is pretty good at exploiting weaknesses and will swarm you fast. Being flanked leads to free attacks which can be devastating.

Pretty good game overall, but I might start a new run on easy. Mainly because food is too scarce imo and running out will severely hamper you in fights.
Thumbs up and keep in mind this is still EA.

Sounds like a game that would be right up my alley, I'm likely to pick this one up based a lot on your review, thanks for the feedback. Of course I'll be waiting until it's not only cleared early access but also done with most future patching/content updating.