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Hand of fate logo5/30/2023 It's a setup that would quickly grow boring and predictable if left alone, but Hand of Fate wisely complicates things by letting the dealer tossing in curses that sap life or food, or, in his better moods, friendly priests that can undo the damage. At other times I might uncover the Winding Trail, which might toss me into real-time battle for the chance to win access to one of the weapons I'd woven into my deck. Early on I preferred the Helpful Priest card, which grants blessings if you give the poor sap half your food (the resource needed to make the jump from card to card). My customized deck determines the possibilities of each level, and it's stuffed with cards for both weapons and encounters that I've won from tokens awarded after victories in the roughly 10-hour story mode. At the same time, it usually works so well in part because it's not completely random. It's crafted so well that, early on, it does more to recapture the open-ended nature of old pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons sessions than games that bury you under arcane stats and scripted scenarios. It sounds a tad complex on paper, but it's easy to learn the rules and quirks just by playing. In a sense, he is: his face-down placement of the cards resembles the rough outlines of a dungeon map, and progression hinges on moving a golden gamepiece from card to card, turn by turn. Always quick to deliver a dour quip in a sonorous voice ("For eons I have waited for an more appropriate player it seems there are more eons ahead," as he says during a lull), he plays less like a Magic: The Gathering deckmaster and more like a tarot reader, revealing my fortune in familiar spreads like the Celtic Cross. He's there for the duration, and it's a good thing that he's likable despite a faint air of menace. My in-game character spends all of my sessions seated across a game table from a guy who looks like Richard the Warlock from the LFG webcomic, watching as he throws down cards with attractive art that draws obvious inspiration from Renaissance woodcuts. It certainly doesn't hurt that this world oozes with personality, created by presenting a game within a game. The key triumph of Hand of Fate is that, despite some complications with the action, it manages to juggle such motley components without dropping and shattering them and the fun. It's a competent collectible card game on one level, yes, but it's also an action-RPG with little sprinkles of choose-your-own-adventure stylings thrown in for good measure.
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