


The basic mechanics of battle are simple, but they lead to increasingly complex tactical decisions based on your enemies’ powers and weaknesses, and by the end of the game, you have a bewildering array of options. Planning your turn around this bonus move is almost always a good idea, but you may want to break the chain for special combo cards that increase in power if you’ve played a card from a specific ally in the same turn. This can be a special attack, a group heal, or a powerful defensive spell.

If you play three cards from the same character, they also perform a bonus move determined by their weapon. Every turn, you draw up to six cards and can play a maximum of three.
#STEAMWORLD QUEST STORM BUILD FREE#
Some cards, like basic attacks or simple defensive abilities, can be played at will, but more powerful cards require “steam,” which you build by playing those free cards. Each character in your party (you start with two, but quickly add a third) must have eight cards in their hand at all times. In combat, your team and the enemy team take turns playing cards, just as you’d expect, but it doesn’t play out like any other card game I can think of. Once you do find an enemy, you can initiate a battle by simply walking into them, or perform a sneak attack, which will do a bit of damage to them before the fight even starts. What story there is consists mostly of banter between your party members that adds character, but isn’t the real draw of the game. Don’t go in expecting the kind of epic story you’d find in a traditional RPG, though. I wish these sections had been developed more, but as they stand, they provide a nice break in the action and allow time for the game’s charming, whimsical story to unfold, complete with loads of Image & Form’s signature corny humor. In later stages, this structure lets you choose a path to avoid certain enemies or solve some light puzzles, but it’s a minor part of the game. There’s not much to these areas you can uncover hidden chests or hack up the scenery to find coins, but otherwise you mainly just walk through them to find enemies.
#STEAMWORLD QUEST STORM BUILD SERIES#
You explore Steamworld Quest’s world in a series of 2.5D side-scrolling sections.

Before you ever draw a hand, you’ll first have to find your opponents on an overworld map. To start, Steamworld Quest isn’t a pure card battler. That’s not to say that Steamworld Quest is necessarily the best card game out there, but it approaches essentially every aspect of the genre in a novel way. I immediately wrote that off as nothing more than a marketing pitch, but having played it, I have to agree. Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech continues that trend, and while it may not rocket Image & Form to super-stardom, it’s yet another win for the developer, and it may make a few folks who are normally turned off by card-based combat reconsider the genre.īetween Steamworld Quest’s announcement and its release, Image & Form described the game as being (I’m paraphrasing here) a unique take that was unlike any previous card game. Every few years, a new Steamworld game appears, and while none have taken the world by storm, they’re all tightly crafted, mechanically inventive takes on familiar genres that haven’t disappointed yet. Image & Form Games may not usually top the list of people’s favorite developers, but with every game the studio releases, it’s building its case for being one of the most consistent in the business.
