As a true fan of pretty much everything roguelike, I relish unexpected challenges, a need to balance risks and rewards, and simply new takes on well-known styles of play. While not every title going in this direction can pull off the balancing act necessary to make the game original and compelling, while still at least somewhat approachable, I almost always applaud the effort. While there’s a deckbuilding element at the core of The Royal Writ, I’m happy to say that its approach and strategic gameplay are wholly unique, no matter what at least managing to set itself apart from the competition.

Don’t let the game’s almost Richard Scarry-esque (a deep cut for children of the 70s out there) art style fool you, this isn’t a game that coddles you. In fact, with its two campaigns playing quite differently, in some ways it feels like just as you’re finally beginning to grasp the nuances of its rules and strategies, you’ll end up needing to practically start over again, adapting to new ones. What should jump out at you quickly is that this isn’t any sort of deckbuilder you’ve gotten used to, instead having a far more tabletop format. Your task will initially be to overwhelm your opposition and you’ll do that by setting up the cards you have in successive columns, looking to combine synergies and leverage buffs.

The really odd part though is that honestly for quite some time I didn’t feel like I really understood the vital details of what I was doing, even when seemingly stumbling into reasonable success. For something that veers this far into its own distinct direction, it’s critical that the game helps you get up to speed, putting the power to succeed in your hands. It unfortunately does a middling job of this at best though, feeling like it gives you some high-level basics but then expects that you’ll work out quite a lot on your own. To be fair, many deckbuilders that are more mainstream tend to do this as well, but that’s because the general rules of the subgenre have been thoroughly established at this point. As this is a step in a new direction, it does not have that luxury though, and its greatest failing is not being sufficiently invested in helping new players find success. People who are determined, or perhaps stumble into online assistance, can still persevere, but hopefully the developers will do a better job of providing more adequate in-game help with some patches to assist people in realizing the potential that’s obviously in place here.