Design Club: Shroom and Gloom!

[music] [music] Good time zone, internet. Hello and welcome to Design Club Live, the only game design show on the internet that's solely being taken over by a parasitical fungus game. I am your humble host, Will, joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people, Jeff.
Hi to the people, Jeff. Hey, everybody. Hey, I am Jeffrey Zein, the studio director of Extra Credits, joined as always by my lap cat, Perl. There you go. Say hi to the people, Perl.
Yeah, it's much more important than introducing me as the cat.
Well, you get your introduction in a second. [laughter] Studio director of Extra Credits and Extra History and longtime game designer and more importantly for today, lover of Rogue and Rogike games. And Will has promised to show me a new and exciting one that he has been playing that I've not yet seen. Yes.
So, this is pointing the correct direction. Will, our Twitch overlord. Will, what are we going to be doing

today?
Today, we're going to be checking out a very interesting new deck builder that's in early access over on Steam called Shroom and Gloom. Uh, and the reason that we're checking this out is that it does some really interesting iterations on a lot of the core concepts that we've been seeing in Rogike deck builders. And I thought it would be kind of cool to talk about that. So if you are in this space at all, it is inevitable that one compares the majority of rogike deck builders to either or potentially both Slay the Spire and Monster Train. Those are and and potentially Bellatro. Those are sort of like the three giants in if we had a fourth, we could play that song from Majora's Mask and Stop the Moon. It would be fine. Anyway, moving on. Um,
if we had a fourth, it might be Spire one or two/mon monster train one or two since there are now two of each in addition to Bellatro.
Yes,

though we're kind of lumping them together as they are both actually Spire and Trainer Monster are both actually excellent evolutions
with number two of each other where it feels like they took everything they learned in their first ones and said, "What if we start with this and make it even better?"
Yeah, I think that that's that's reasonable. So, um, they share some commonalities in core mechanics, and I wanted to talk about that just ever so briefly before we go in, and I'll explain why.
So, card games in general, in general, and yes, I'm sure there's an exception.
There's always going to be exceptions. We're going to talk ineneral broad swaths of what we generally see,
right? have three resources that you are juggling at most points in time. Okay. Cards either in a deck in your hand. Cards are a resource. They are how you perform actions of various kinds

of resource that those cards cost to play.
Energy, mana, runes. you call it energy as it's an energy mechanic, but
mana, spell points, fuel, any number of things.
And then the last one, and this is one of the places that Sherman and Gloom kind of get starts getting weird, is health.
Health or um we we'll call it health. Some games have like a victory condition resource, but health is kind of going to be our standin for that. and and the really good games have interchange between those three in interesting ways. Right? If we if we go back to Spire for a second, we can think about um example of offering, right? Offering is a way to exchange some of Ironclad's health, six of it, for some energy and some cards depending on how much it's upgraded, right? Um and

by the way, these are the main mechanics. So, we're not talking about things like gold for used to make your deck stronger later or
eggs in slay for the pyroborn. Like
these are the main three things that you use in what we'll call the active or combat phase. Yeah.
Or contested phase of the game.
Yeah. So,
where you are battling against other things,
right? And when you don't have one of those, one of the possibilities is that
you end up in Yu-Gi-Oh, right? which many people love. And I respect that people love playing a game that is inevitably just degenerate combos. It is not for me, but I respect that people love it. Um,
Bolro falls into that too because Bellatro doesn't have an energy mechanic.
Correct. Um, and so, uh, those games tend to

move in that direction very quickly. Okay. Um, so we're going to dive into Sherman Bloom and we're going to start talking a bit about the ways that those mechanics work a little bit differently. Um, so yeah, we're going to we're probably going to be playing pretty slow. We're going to take our time. We're going to talk about stuff. This is not we're going to try very hard. I will acknowledge that one of the things that Jeff and I do is get very excited about new games. And sometimes it is very easy for us to get sidetracked with playing the game versus talking about the game and then we talk about it later or we think about it later. So, I'm going to try and bring that forward as we go today and we're going to we're going to focus a bit. All right, let me turn this.
Do I get to get small?
Uh, you do indeed get to get small.
All right. Uh, let me
I feel like I'm already small. I feel like you're like 10% larger than I am. That it doesn't really matter.
Yeah.
Oh, we

all right. So, this is Sherman Gluten. Uh, this is the the the default. I have played some. We will be playing the first character. Um, so as to do the base introduction. Uh, I love
this has a very uh crumb feel on. He's a popular artist from 30 or 40 years ago. And also with the coloration and the art style reminds me of uh Darkest Dungeon.
Yes.
Um but they also were influenced by Crumbs art style.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there are if I click around
Mhm.
we have we have one button here that says new run.
Mhm.
Over here you can see behind me.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah. That didn't actually look hot on my computer.
It it they they they look very cold. Um
but they do.
Okay. Hot meaning a thing that you can click on.
Yes. Um so I actually have an in progress run. These are three different

paths only two of which are in the game. It is in early access. Um
but I did want to call out as we begin because we probably won't be back to this screen. Uh if I play well
back to the middle one. Uh, I see continue and new run and new run.
So, hold on. New run is in the middle. If you go left, I see it says continue and under you it says new run as well.
Yes, there are three different paths. Each of which has their own specific characters.
Oh, okay.
And their own specific save files. We discovered this right before we began the the stream and recording. I have a suspended run in this path that I was working on and I said, "Go back to the main menu because I have to do this show with my buddy Jeff." And it returned me here and said, "Cool. You

could play on the other path if you want. It won't." So, that's cool. All right. Um, so let's click the the only button available to us, which is new run.
Uh, oh, okay, cool. Great. Awesome. Uh, a new run ends your previous run. Are you made like that? Yes. Okay. Very interesting that it won't do it after it says it will, but that's okay. All right. So, these are our three characters. When we when you first begin the game, uh, paper boy is all that you have unlocked. So, we'll be playing paper boy. Um, but I have also unlocked the lunch lady and the concerned parent. Um, I just want to call out here that there's this multi-layer paper craft aesthetic that's going
I was looking at that which this feels a little bit like um what was it? What was the tabletop championsy kind of um nights of pen and paper?
Yes. Yes. I was thinking a little bit like original Paper Mario or just the

Paper Mario series in general, but that very like 2D uh parallax effect, right, is being used very well here. And I like that we've got um motion on the elements and we've also got this, and this is very important. The shadows don't really match the objects. There's sort of a inky blackness that's clinging to them. Ah, yes. This grass also has another one. Wilder has a similar paper style. Wildermouth is a phenomenal game. If you've never played it, I highly recommend it. It's a digital legacy game that you can play by yourself. Phenomenal. Amazing. Anyway, um okay. So, uh let's let's click on Paper Boy. Okay. So, the paper boy got a bit lost on my route.
You've discovered two somethings.
I've discovered two somethings. And I have I see this thing that says foresight.
Mhm.
Healthy after combat heal three health.

So a little bit of the ironclad going on there.
Correct. And uh over here we see that we have fireballs, a number of uses. And by the way, all of these have um have like um tool tips, right? So I can hover over this and I can see it allows prediction or insight into future outcomes. And fireballs has 25 uses. Number of times this card can be played before being consumed. It's a food, which is consume means it's consumed for beneficial effects.
Mhm.
Feed or heal two make. And if I uh hover over burning sensation, I can look at what card it makes. So tool tips here are pretty relevant. If you'd like a um
they're also nested uh a bit. Yeah. If we consider this hover over on the fireballs a tool tip
used to seem like a little like it it

doesn't look like a tool tip so much as a sub card.
Yeah, I suppose these are tool tips but they they are quite small. Um
okay, so we have no choices to make here.
What was the other card by the way? Uh, the other card is a pet rat creature. And then it uh this says triggered if fed make rat gift and discard. And then it has um properties unplayable warmth three and linger. And we'll
I've seen a couple of warmth now. So this sounds toasty.
Yeah. All right. Uh let's let's begin. uh cuz we're not making choices here on this screen which I do find kind of interesting. You have a a selection that takes you to a different screen and then you click go though it does show unlock progress and there are things that are coming soon. Uh again early access game but the the core thing that we want to talk about is already in the game.
Oo that was kind of an interesting fold

effect.
Yes. All right. I need you all to understand that I'm not hiding any HUD. There is no HUD behind Jeff. There is no HUD behind me. There's no HUD that I've disabled. This is the game as it begins, which I think is phenomenal. Um,
looks like you're delivering a note.
Well, I'm holding a piece of paper and the paper says W on it.
Mhm.
So, I can move my mouse around and look around, but I can't click anything. There's nothing to interact with. So, I'm guessing hit the and but we do also know if you played a lot of games WD is forward backward or forward for W.
Correct. But this is a form of tutorialization I really like. Right. All right. And then we put the note away.
All right. And then we get stopped here. And if I hover my mouse around, I'll see uh this little icon says I'll be granted

a foresight choice from my draft. And then this bouncing backpack highlights when I hover over it. And if I click on it,
I get to loot the corpse. Um, and we're going to go through these in a second. So, I'm just going to take them for now.
Um, because
is there any option to take less?
No.
Okay. So, this is your starting deck.
Yes, this is your starting deck.
Okay.
Okay. So, now we get UI. We see we have some elements. So, um, we have skills, we have a pick,
we have another skill. Over on the left side, we have a map.
Uh, the number three and a blue bubble. We have
This looks like some sort of energy or mana,
right?
We have this key thing, this key object.
Mhm.
Um, we have 25 uh over 25. And this says it's health. Make it to the gloom without losing it all. And then a broken

key. Is there anything you'd like me to dive into before I keep pressing
the little in the lower left the eyeball with the one?
That is your foresight.
So we can see that there are three pi there are three icons up here. Yellow is foresight.
Green is your uh draw pile of camping cards. And then one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this game This is your combat deck because Shroom and Gloom
has two decks, one for shrooming and one for glooming sort of. And the interplay between them is very interesting. So, we'll get we'll get more into the crunch of that and why I think that interplay is so interesting here in a bit, but suffice it to say, um, if you see a purple card or a card that has this pointy, um, side to it,

uh, so the the little bar on the top, the name plate, shows what kind of thing it is. Attacks have the stab, the skills have the little break. If we go over here, tools are also skills, but they're green skills. Um, and so on and so forth. I like food has a little bite out of it. Uh, and so on. Um, so, uh, let's go forward.
Show me the map actually real quick and then
absolutely. So, if you were playing for the first time, all of this would be dark, but because I've played before, it fills it in. Um, so it shows you a little arrow. It says
the path doesn't change unlike many other
correct. Um the some of the encounters do in an interesting way. Uh but I like boss and gray caps a choice of rare cards and so on.

Foresight chest pick up foresight. We can also see our character's hand covered in in blue gunk here. and a spike bracelet.
Yeah. Okay. So, we've got some options here.
If I hover over this lock, I can see that I have two
break it,
right? I have a break and a and a thing. And this is looks unlockable and looks breakable. And then I was moving my mouse around and I also saw that this is digable.
Looks digable.
Something is digable. But
you don't have a shovel.
Correct. Um, and I don't have anything to reveal in order to draw a card. So, in this case, we're going to have to pass this by. So, in order to un uh every camp card
Mhm.
usually has some combination of relevant keywords. So, a key unlocks.

Mhm. So this unlocks and oh you always get A or B uh or or the first part you might make a choice. So it could be like A or B and you always get the last part. And in this case it's consumed. The card is destroyed.
Okay.
Um
what was the handy thing?
Handy is will always always be drawn first and can't be removed from the deck.
So you always get a key here.
Yes. Uh, you will always you will always have a key to open this because you could bash it to break it, but we take five damage.
So, we're always presented with a choice at this door as this character between unlocking and consuming our key or breaking and taking five damage.
Quick question for um since you've played this a couple times, will there be later ones where like breaking something makes you take more damage? Bash is a card in our deck that is just

a flat break and take five damage.
Okay. So, for the moment, I would use the key because
that that is a perfectly sensible um beginning. All right. So, we have opened the door and we get to continue onward. And as we continue,
can you go backwards?
Uh great question. A little bit, not a ton. Okay. So now we've wandered into an encounter
and our deck is immediately swapped to the other deck. We keep the energy count,
we keep the health, but now we've immediately swapped to the shrooming deck. So let's look at the parts of the shrooming deck.
We have uh attacks and we saw these roast attack deal three damage if fatal will trigger if the card cause if the damage caused by this card is fatal. make a toasty. And the toasty is a zeroost food that says heal five, consume.

So, we could have bashed that lock. No. Um, if you were a more experienced player, knowing that you were going to be able to get some immediate heals,
correct? We also have a stab that just does four flat damage. We have the flash on our phone, which can only be used 10 times, but adds three vulnerable. Um, each vulnerable adds 50% additional damage.
Okay,
so fire,
right? Except instead of stacking duration and
instead of excuse me, only stacking duration, it stacks duration and degree.
Oh, okay.
So, if I get 20 vulnerable on something, which I did in one of my previous runs, that thing takes a,000% more damage. So it's then more like melee and spell weakness from monster train.
Yes, that is a very good way to put it. Um and then if we look at our enemies, we have uh the the the very well understood, very well-known, very

wellestablished intents, right? This will deal three, deal six, deal three. And then down here we have is timid will cancel attack if damaged.
And we have uh two enemies with five health and one enemy with 10 health. Interesting. Um, most games put a health bar above heads. I'm guessing they're doing below because of the different sizes of um, opponents.
Spire also does below right. Am I completely off my gourd?
I might be forgetting. If I was spire does below, let us consult. Yeah, spire is uh grass says spire is below.
Yeah, spire is below. H I hadn't really thought about it. I guess I'm just used to seeing health bars above heads, but yeah.

Yeah. Hi, Clover. Yes. Okay,
so let's see here. Obviously, damaging small guys can both eliminate and keep them from attacking.
Um, we don't have block, but it looks like there's some sort of mechanic where you get health back if you kill in certain ways.
Mhm.
There's a lot of if fatal.
Mhm. So determining what card
um we are using like determining what card we're going to kill and planning your whole turn is very important, right? Um as anyone who's played with feed or sack dagger or what's that one from there's a couple of cards like that in monster train where
sacrificial knife.
Yeah, right. Exactly. Um where using those uh is important. So
So let's see. So, flashlight makes it do 3x damage, correct?
150% more.

Oh, sorry. 150%. So, for example, stab would go to eight. No, hold on. Stab would go to six.
Yeah, it's 2.5.
Wait. Oh, okay. So, stab would go to 10.
Yes.
Okay. So that would kill the big thing and we could theoretically roast the other two and we would take zero damage this round.
Correct.
And we just use up all of our mana.
Yep.
There's other ones where we could kill smallers and get heals in our hand,
right?
To save for if we took did it a different way. But yeah.
Correct. Okay. So that does 10.
We have a They leave the corpse.
Uh correct. It's Yes. And then when I do like this, when we're out of energy, out of cards in our hand, we get a special card. Um, we can press space to end the turn or we can get a pocket lint, which is special and ends your turn. Um, and

it has two important I I kind of like this. Um, even this special card has keywords temporary. This is destroyed when leaving your hand in any way. discarded, exhausted, what if it's gone, it's destroyed
and trivial. Playing this does not count as playing a card,
which means that there are things that playing a card counts as, and I want to make this sure that that's clear.
Yes. Um, and correct, Driftwood. There is no uh damage prediction on the cards when debuffed. I That is going to be one of my pieces of feedback.
Okay, so we It's usual. We draw four. Oh, so this is a draw four game.
So, um
I want to roast one just to see what happens.
Okay, we immediately get into our hand the toasty which has heal five consume and is a

what I'm curious is did that just get added to our deck? Like if we finish off something with the stab, does that stay for later? It's
a great question. Would you like me to finish this off with the stab?
Let's find out. Yeah. Okay, so we get to choose a reward and these are camp cards. So we just did combat and now we're getting camp cards as our rewards, right? So we're already getting interplay and we're going to go back and forth between camping and um and combat as we go. Uh, so I'll tell you for free. Yes, that Toasty is now a until we play it and consume it, that Toasty is a permanent part of our deck.
Cool. So, we basically stocked to heal for later at the expense of a card draw.
Correct. I did have a run where I had way too many toasties. I had 27 of various kinds of toasties and I

definitely had several turns where the only thing I drew was a pile of four toasties and it was bad, Jeff. It was It was bad. Um, okay. So, we've got three choices here. They're all camp cards. They all cost two. Um, we have a strange geode, a kitchen, and a grimoire. Um,
build a structure.
Build a structure to season your weapons. Gather gloom to empower your attacks. Make a dark crystal. And a dark crystal is a one uh mana skill with six uses that reveals and stores one gloom.
Mhm.
Um, also this has camp deploys a reusable structure in your camp and reveal to reuse in future explorations.
Kind of interesting. Um, this has no key. This has no uh explanation for the kitchen, but this is

fixable. And then the grimoire uh is also no explanation and is revealable just like the strange geode is.
Your thoughts? All of them look fun.
Yeah. And that and that I I think is a place where it's important to focus on that with deck builders, right? Like are all of the choices interesting? Cuz one of the one of my complaints with Spire, and I don't know how how you feel about this, Jeff, or how other people feel about this, is that occasionally choices simply aren't interesting, right? Like at some level you see a gajillion card choices in your climb up the spire, right?
And they stop being interesting unless you see like a really choice uncommon or a rare card or an upgraded something or whatever. It kind of stop

being interesting at like the end of act one, right?
H I don't know if I we could chat more about that later. I disagree. Like I think the choices are interesting.
Mhm.
But it's also Spire very specifically has a none of these choices are good. I'm going to not execute on one of them and pass.
Yeah.
option that is very core to its gameplay.
I think that is true. Um all right. Uh I've I've taken all of these. Uh I'll tell you right now
what's more fun for this run.
I think it's probably It's probably one of the reveals because we have a campfire and we'll explain why that's important. Um, let's take the grimoire cuz that like between the two it's simpler. Um,
okay. So, uh, we can use S to back up. We can only back up so far. We cannot
you can't back up and hope you draw the

shovel for that uh,
correct
dirt pile you passed.
Correct. Now, as we walk forward, we get a chest. And the chest pops out. and the thing and then all right here we go. So we choose one of these three. [clears throat] When you bash, heal three health and start the next fight with pissed off. Pissed off is a passive when you deal damage plus two rage.
Mhm.
Rage is a a buff that gives you additional damage and it's temporary and unplayable. So temporary is it is destroyed when it leaves our hand and we can't play it. So it just stays there and its passive triggers.
Okay.
Or ready to scrap. We simply draw an extra attack at the start of each combat. Or
more draw is always nice.
Ready to snack. Draw an edible at the start of each exploration.
And I'm guessing exploration is what

they call the non-fighting part.
Correct. And so assuming edibles are free, that's free healing. Assuming they're not, it's going to take some mana for what we could otherwise be doing.
Yes. I think the most straightforward the most straightforwardly good is ready to scrap.
Mhm.
Um I think ready.
So since we used our did we use up our key or is that a returnable?
We consumed the key. The key is gone.
Yeah. So hard-headed is also good because we I do know we have a bash in our deck that c takes that damages us,
right? But we've also already seen that the relationship that this game has with your health total is different than many others, right? Like I I struggle to think of another deck builder in general, let alone a deck builder rogike, that is willing to be like, "Yeah, if you kill someone with this basic attack that starts in your deck, you heal for of for uh 20% of your total

health pool."
Mhm.
That's that that is very weird to me, right? That that is
it's their version of shields.
Correct. Because this game doesn't block, right? That's not a thing the game does. Doesn't block, right? But we do have things like the little guys have the intent where if you hit them they won't do damage. So that's it feels like they've taken one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is it's so interesting to see something that has sort of been a fundamental conceit of deck builders for a while now. This block mechanic
just yeed just throw it out and see what we can do with
that instead. Right. I mean, they're basically turning. This is a drain tank.
Yeah.
So, yeah, let's take the middle one then. Also, because we put that zero cost heal in our hand.
Yep. Okay. So, now we have
exploration. Oh, our mana bar refilled.
Our mana bar refills.

It did not before. It was at one at the uh chest.
Yes. And then I also want to draw your attention to uh this this is a new UI element. No effect. Warmth and threat are balanced. So, this is an
So, I see lots of locks.
Lots of locks. We got four locks.
Mhm.
Um, two of them are on chests. Two of them that are moving and are drawing attention to themselves are on home of a curious mole shop for explore cards and
home of a battle mole, shop for combat cards.
And then we have obvious uh interactables here. We have this uh dig dig spot
shovel spot. And then if I hover over them, we can also see that I could light these torches if I wanted to.
Does um that cost anything? Just
Well, we'd have to find we'd have to find a card that
Oh, okay.
has a on it, right?

Um so, uh we have a flashlight that reveals and draws a card. We have a campfire.
We have a tool and a bash. Um where what are we thinking Jeff?
Um can you look at the map again? Like do we have to open one of those doors to proceed?
Yes, we will be opening one of those doors.
Okay.
Now it's also worth noting fascinating that the right path has an additional option.
The left path forces us to go towards the middle. The right path says we can either go back towards the middle or take this additional right path,
right?
Yeah. Typically, I would pick the one with more options.
I agree. So, when we're done, um we'll uh we'll we'll head we'll plan to head to the right.
So, theoretically, like so we don't get stuck here, we should probably open one

of the doors first. Though, I'm curious. There's also I'm I'm kind of curious. Does your you can just tell me will does your run end if you cannot continue forward like if we unlocked both chess
great question. So the um the way that the game handles this is very interesting to me.
So no effect warmth and threat are balanced ties in with this rest for the night. Beware of creeping danger. We when we begin the turn will get a number of how threatening the environment around us is and that is the amount of damage that we will take when we sleep. And when we sleep we get to draw a new hand of four cards
and three more energy
to do things with.
So basically it's a new turn.
Correct. But we have to balance that new turn against how much damage we're going to take because the damage is the same damage, right? You've got and so you can

take damage in exploration, you can take damage in combat, you can heal damage in exploration, you can heal damage in combat,
right? So basically no effect. So we can rest to take zero damage. So we can use our entire hand and take a rest.
Correct. Um, so, uh, shall I bash one chest open and use the tool to open the other?
Sure.
Bashing a chest. We have the traditional choose from three. Hold. Um,
we have three options. Skin and bones passive. When warmth increases, gain one energy. Unplayable and replenish. This is when drawn draws an extra card.
Also fascinating. immediately. You can't play it and it's not a power that stays in play. It's a passive, but many passives have this replenish keyword, which I think is really interesting

because they don't count against your deck size. So, it would be a bad card if I drew this card and three other cards and that was it because it would be taking up a whole lot in my hand. But these don't, which I think is is fascinating um to me uh as a as another concept. Um and then we saw warmth before. This is warmth and it protects you from danger. So your warmth is um what counteracts the threat, right?
Um so we have skin and bones. When our warmth increases, we gain an energy. Jersey I if it would be discarded by another card instead make lingering warmth which is uh a hot water bottle and it's a passive that says if you ignite increase warmth by up to three and then fireball which is feed or heal two and make a burning sensation. Burning sensation is a zero cost skill which ignites and gives us warmth 10. We literally eat a fireball and then light

something on fire with it. Um Driffin Carver has a great question. Let's back to hand size. I'll let you know when I find it. We'll talk a little more about this when we get there, but the game treats hand size very interestingly as well. Another thing that I'd like to bring up when we get there. So, uh, what are you thinking, Jeff? A passive, a a food item. [snorts]
We have fireballs in our deck already, right?
No, that was something that we had seen, but it is not in our It is not in our draw pile.
Oh, that's right. Um, since this is my first and only run, Will, why don't you pick one for us just to keep things interesting?
We'll take this fireball. Um,
and then I'm going to use the tool to break the other chest open. Okay, now these are combat cards. So, we just got exploration cards and now we're getting combat cards both in the exploration

phase. So, we've got this deep I really do love how deeply intertwined it is. I saw someone mentioned Grifflands earlier and it's true that they have um they have two different decks for social and combat and it's very different. Um I agree that that's really cool and it is a thing. The thing that I was struck with here was how interesting and intertwined this is, right? Like everything does like you can do stuff to both decks all the time and it gets more extreme in a second. and I'll show you. Um, so, uh, we have a skill that gives plus two damage on all cards. Exhaust. We have slather hot sauce on enemies, which uh, will spawn one spicy toasty upon death exhaust. And then we have a replenish unplayable if you eat, which is to consume a food card, make a toothpick, which is a two damage temporary attack.

shiv people when you eat.
It's funny. One of the things about this game that I think will help the longevity but hurts the initial bit is there's a unlike say Spire and Monster Train, there is a lot to learn and a lot of new terms and a lot of new concepts all right from the beginning.
Yep.
And that does make some people tend to bounce
fairly quickly,
but it also tends to give you deeper gameplay.
I agree with that as well. It's a risk. It's kind of a risky like you have to do it really well to pull it off.
Yes. For instance, one of the things it does not tell you that is very important to know very early on.
Mhm.
Card alterations are never temporary.
Mhm. [clears throat]
This forced growth card that says plus two damage on all cards exhaust.
Mhm. When I play that and buff my handful of attacks, they all get plus

two damage for the rest of the run. That is not a temporary change. That is a permanent change.
Yeah.
And so it it is very interesting that they've um I saw someone also mention that like um there are very few cases in most deck builders where you alter your deck in an encounter, right? Spire's got that uh Spire one has that very weird encounter in act three with the writhing mass where if you're on if you play poorly, you can get the curse and that's one of the very few cases, right? Where like actions in combat directly give or remove a card from your deck permanently. Um Necrobinder in two has the one power that gives you a remove when the fight is over. Right.
But it is sort of an established thing that you're
on the hunt for silent that gives you an extra card.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Um
so actually I have a quick question.
Yeah.
What are the little circles and diamonds and X's on the very top of the cards?
I'm going to be so for real, Jeff. I have no idea.
I believe it's rarity, but I'm not sure. I believe this is common, uncommon, rare, but I am not 100% sure on that. That is another thing that hasn't been explained because it it's never come up.
Yeah.
Um, pick a fun one. Again, like this is harder for me because
Yep.
the I can't I'm not going to sit here and do huge amounts of reading.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
While we're playing. So, um, we also have this this this campfire, right, which we'll use.
Uh, and we put it out and we gain a spark. It's a skill. It's a temporary skill that reveals or ignites. Sparks are great. They're one of my favorite things. So, we can like ignite this torch. And we see that these give us a total of eight warmth. Um, I'm going to

eat a fireball. Uh, we have warmth 18. We could stay here forever. And then I'm going to pass the turn. So those cards you had in your hand go away so you don't get to keep them.
Correct. And now some interesting stuff.
You do have a shovel. Oh, and
so we have this can be revealed.
And we have the gloom beckons you forward. If you rest, you take two damage. So every exploration phase is press your luck. Cuz you're absolutely right. We could have smashed the lock and walked right out and not done any of those things that we just did in the last turn, right? Or we could have instead of opening both chests, we could have only opened one and smashed the lock and walked away, right? But all of the explorations have this press your luck thing to them, which I think is really cool.
Um
um the five on the campfire, is that interactable or is that just saying you
It gives five warmth. It is It is

showing us its effect. Um, I'm going to put out our Grimoire.
Okay.
Select a card to gain. If a fatal, gain one energy.
So, one of your one of your stabs is going to get a little better.
Correct. Also important to note, I didn't get to choose a stab versus a roast, right? And I probably would have wanted it on a roast because the roast already has a fatal thing.
Yeah.
And I will tell you that it is not. You can have multiple if fatal clauses on the same item.
Cool.
Uh, and so it that was just luck. Um, okay. I'm gonna
How about we shovel the Yeah.
Yeah. I'm I'm a shovel. Okay, great. We have a zero card.
We have a zero cost. Draw two cards. I play the card, the pot of greed. It allows me to draw two cards. Um, we have Distant Shadow, which evolves as we play it. We apply two spell weakness to an

enemy and that enemy will take two damage whenever we play a card. That's why the trivial cards matter and it becomes lodged in an enemy. We'll insert itself into a being. Once the being dies, the card returns to hand and it evolves.
These are really cool. I like these a lot. We're probably going to take this one.
Yeah, that does seem neat.
But this is another example of how the game treats scaling. Scavenger Blade deals five damage, but if you eat while it's in your hand, it gets plus one damage again for the rest of the run. So, if we're just sitting there with the scavenger blade in hand scarfing down Toasties, eventually we'll have the sword that can pierce the heavens. Um
Oh, so it adds plus one damage to the scavenger blade.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah. uh all plus ones like if it doesn't say plus one or plus two to something it means to itself generally speaking
right cuz that also could have meant like you're dealing damage while you eat

Yeah.
or eating deal Yeah.
Yeah. Um so let's grab this distant shadow and then uh we're out of energy but we're still positive so I'm going to rest again. We'll take another turn. [snorts] I'm just pushing my luck. And a very lovely thing that I do enjoy quite a lot is that the shadows grow over time. So some of it, right, this this 15 um darkness, we can uh do things like um reveal we can reveal this and get rid of it.
But it's a very culty kind of thing. Yeah.
Okay. So let's reveal one of those. Show me what those are doing.
I actually Oh, I can heal. And then actually I don't know that I can I can only I can only ignite. I don't have a reveal card unfortunately. Um Oh, I can rat jerky I guess. Okay, here we go.
If you bash a lock, does that make you go through it?
No.
Okay, so you could bash it um before we

camp.
Uh yes. Uh but we're probably leaving. I'm going to be honest.
Okay. Shape lighter.
Shape lighter reveals it and it goes away. Now, interestingly, when we reveal these shadows, on occasion, we do get cards. We do get effects.
That's what I was curious. So, the five going away just uh means that you take less damage now if you rest.
Correct. And if I done it to this 10, it would reduce by five. So, it it's it's sort of a re one reveal is minus five gloom on that specific instance of gloom. And they're always in fives, which is nice. Okay, we're going to bust this open. We're going to go this way. And interestingly, I don't have direction control. Once you open a lock, you can't open the other one. So that when you hold W, you can only go in one direction.
Okay. And we have another fight.
We have another fight. Um,
we're still at full health,
correct? Um, I'm going to motion that we stab

roast roast this guy in the middle because these two aren't doing anything to us and that will kill this guy and give us a toasty. Okay. And then we'll pass the turn.
Mhm.
Uh, do you have a second Toasty in your hand?
Correct. or deck.
Yes.
Distant shadow.
Yep. Apply two swell weakness to enemy become lodged in an enemy. So I'm going to lodge it in this guy
and then I'm going to slather everyone in hot sauce. So he's going to take two. Uh I'm going to take three here. That's okay.
If you if you toastied um he would take two more damage,
right? And go to one. Yes.
Okay. So, we've taken our first damage of the uh run.
Yep. But I I'm actually kind of

surprised it took us this long because it does feel a bit like we're just meant to take damage. I don't know.
Yeah. So, if you roast the first one, it'd be fatal.
Correct. If I Yeah. If I I actually have to roast roast because if I stab roast, then I uh it dies to the spell weakness. Uh, and I want to do this to show that.
Okay, so this is the other really interesting thing
because it was slathered in hot sauce. I got a spicy toasty which heals three and deals three to all enemies. Wild. But I also now have two toasties. Identical cards stack in your hand because as to the best of my knowledge, there is no upper hand limit. So I can have a pile of five toasties. Is that telling you you have two in your hand or does that play both of them?
It is telling me I have two. I don't have to play both of them, right? But it is very interesting to me that we have

this like foresight about screen real estate and how
many cards they expect us to have. Um, and then we have
so you can distance shadow for free.
Well, this evolves now. It wriggles in our grip. So, it's shaking. And if I drag it out, it evolves into the dark uh acquaintance. Evolves to apply two spell weakness to enemy become lodged to enemy evolve. But it only costs two. We'll take that and then stab this guy. And then I'm going to pass.
No healing up.
Uh no, for reasons that we'll get into momentarily.
Okay.
Um I'm actually going to do something that looks really weird. I'm gonna flash roast this guy because I want to get both of those toasties for a reason we'll discuss momentarily.
Oh, that's right. We also heal six or three between fights.
Also true.
Um, okay. So, we have Flint, which draws

a card and makes a spark.
A loaf of bread, which gains two energy and makes breadcrumbs, which is a zero cost that feeds or reveals. We have a We have a splintering shovel, which is um break. We break something and dig for treasure. Make a stone pick. Uh I really like splintering shovel, so I think we'll we'll grab that.
Okay.
Okay. I'm here.
These torches are lit.
These torches are lit because this is a shop.
Okay.
Oh, food is currency. Correct. So food cards in our deck are both the health that is keeping us alive and bloat in our deck and the currency that we need to sandbag in our deck to purchase better cards at shops.
Interesting.
I love this mechanic. I think this is so

interesting. Um, I think this is a really cool way to to like have this tension between deck size and um uh and and healing, right? Because block cards aren't a thing. It also means that we care a lot more about cards that can trip, right? Because we're going to want some amount of card draw to draw through the stuff because we can't just not leave them in our deck or we're foregoing shops entirely. So, we've got this very interesting tension that's going on. Um,
so I'm not going to read through all of these just to keep the stream going. So, I will definitely say pick what you think is. So, you have six food.
I have six food. So, I could do
um a four, a one, and a one. Kind of like that idea. Um,
what's the one cost thing up to your left that's wiggling?
This is a toad. We lick the toad to

forget a card. Oh, okay. So, it gets rid of something in your inventory.
That's correct. This is the deck fitting mechanic. Um, though, also worth noting, you saw we had two paths at the beginning.
Haven't found the deck thinning mechanic for the lefth hand path yet.
Don't know what it is.
Found the what? Sorry,
the deck thinning mechanic for the lefth hand path. There is no shop and no food in that one. So, it's quite odd. Anyway, um I'm going to take the inferno. Uh, I think we're going to give up for regular toasties. Oh,
I was curious if it was going to let you pick which ones you
You do indeed.
So, the answer is yes.
Um, and then
one of the advantages to paper boy is that because he heals a little bit between fights, you can spend less food
healing and more food buying things. Yes.
Um, okay, cool. Great. I'm out of food. I have purchased some stuff. I've got

some permanent scaling and some AoE that gives me more spicy toasties. And we'll go on. Now, if you recall, um, last time we put the grimoire out and the grimoire is revealable. It's not in our deck anymore. Neither is that campfire. It's not in our draw pile. It's not in our hand. It's permanently part of camp.
So, we sort of we sort of get to
evolve the camp with um autra as we go. um rather than having something like powers, right? It's sort of like all explorations are one continuous exploration and all of the camp upgrades are spire powers, but you do have to unlock them, right? So like I I would need to ignite the
Mhm.
the fire in order to get a spark. Um,
so it's a little bit of like a XCOM or other base building mechanic, which the thing you go to between fights.

Yes. Yeah. Uh, and and yes, this is a very good way of thinking about it. Both the combat and the exploration deck are full of persistent scaling. Yes. Mhm.
In fact, there are cards that are just like gain maximum HP, which is fine because you can't block and you need the maximum HP cuz occasionally you'll be attacked for more than 25 and you again cannot block. Um,
so there's a is that a chest on the left?
This is Yeah. So these are our two paths forward. One of them has a chest.
Okay. Those are both paths. Got you.
Yes. And this has an icy pool that doubles our maximum health.
What was that you just did before lighting the fire?
Uh, I ate a fireball.
Oh, okay.
I healed two to make a burning sensation to light the fire. Some of these are just like kind of automatic combos. Oh,

I have to reveal this one twice. Rude. Um, I think we're going to take the maximum health. Grow closer. This is so good. All right, we're going to take the hot poker. Unlock or break and take a damage consume.
Oh, so you didn't have to immediately go through the
No, but now I'm locked into this path. So, we could you can open it whenever and I can go to a new turn.
That's what I wasn't clear on. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay.
So, you have a lighter for revealing now if you wanted to reveal your Grimmoo.
Right. I also have a flashlight. So, I'm going to use the flashlight. Make a repressed rage when you deal damage plus one rage. Rage one temporary unplayable move. Get added to the bat. Fascinating. Um, I'm gonna stack it on this one stab, I

think, because I would like to get rid of the other stabs.
Make that stab extra stabity.
Yeah. Um, okay. This has two options. It could be ignited or broken. And in this case, I know that if I light it, I will gain four maximum HP. I can I have a roasted snack. I can either use it to feed something or gain four max HP and consume it. In this case, I'm just going to take the max HP.
Yeah, that seems like
Yep. Uh, and there's nothing else that need be done here. We have no more interactables. So, on we go. And, and this interchange, like this back and forth, back and forth between exploration and combat really feels quite smooth, right? It doesn't
Yeah, it's just it's it's um verbs that are active at the correct times. Yes, I think that's absolutely correct.
What did Inferno do? Four damage to all energies. Okay.
If fatal, make a spicy toasty,

right?
So, I'm going to let's stab this guy. And it's going to make a repressed rage when you deal damage plus one rage. And then I'm going to inferno, which is going to make three spicy toasties. Four, five, six, seven, eight spicy toasties. [snorts] Um, the game is not afraid to let its triggers go absolutely ham. So,
that was a whole bunch. Like, it didn't need like Yeah. Okay.
So, the way that this works is the plus six damage is from the rage. If fatal is not a binary yes no, which I think we might be used to, right? If this thing occurs when you play this card, yes or no.
Mhm.
Fatal in this game is a per instance trigger. So every time we kill

something, the fatal thing happened.
You killed four things, but you got eight of them, right? I also played hot sauce which gave them all a debuff which got me another uh spicy toasty on death. But yes, so we get four because we did that, right? And that again is is this very interesting uh interchange. Um so I could just killed this guy, right?
So it deals let's see is that say deal three plus six damage to all enemies.
Does 3 plus six, but I also have uh currently uh rage. So, even if I if if I played four of these, it would be dead. And I think it might be dead if I play three of them.
Uh, let's see.
And we kind of, and this is again very interesting, we kind of want to do that even though we're not healing because we don't want to show up with a bunch of spicy toasties to a fight that's just one big dude, right? Cuz then it would be a disadvantage,
right?
So, we use one. Gotcha. Okay. So, yeah.

I was curious. It made you do them all at once. So,
yeah. Okay, we have a box of matches, a firecracker, and a pickaxe. Um, again, all very good, all very interesting. Um, this ignites or reveals and cantrips, but can only be used eight times before it goes away. This digs or breaks and makes another thing. One of the things that I really like that this game is taking advantage of um, is the it still feels like a board game. like it fundamentally feels like it's deeply rooted in the papercraft thing. But one of the things that I really like that this is doing and Spy does this some and Hearthstone does it a lot actually is the generating specific cards off of individual things. Magic kind of does it with like tokens, right? This is sort of like make a spark token, right? Make a make a current um
Oh, it's doing a board gaming thing but

in the way only digital can. Yes.
Which is it isn't a to Magic does tokens because it's a physical only game or started as that.
Mhm.
If it had started as a digital game, a wasp counter would, you know, be an actual wasp.
A sapperene would actually be a sapperline that comes out, not a little token.
Yep. Um,
so question, box matches, eight uses. Is eight a little, a medium, a lot? Like would eight last you for a run? Eight would probably last you for most of a run.
Okay. So, it's not it's eight is enough that you're looking at like, "Oh, that's pretty good."
Correct. And even if it wasn't, right, it it does a thing and replaces itself for free. How bad can it really be?
As long as I have something I need to ignite and I have a campfire so I always have something to ignite and torches are common or reveal and darkness is everywhere
and replace itself, right? So, like,

yeah, that that's kind of what I was thinking with with my first look with my limited knowledge.
Yeah. All right. Uh, I I completely agree. Let's take a box of matches. Um, okay. So, now we're going to go through this icy pool and we're going to go up to
double your health.
54 maximum hit points.
That's a sizable increase.
It is.
We've talked about double before.
Yeah, double. Double is a big number. Okay. Uh, I'm going to light the fire, draw a card, make a spark. I'm gonna Oh, here is one thing.
See a torch in the middle.
Correct. Here's
And the side. Okay.
Yeah. Here's another thing that's kind of interesting.
The grimoire will always be in the same place, but it is on you to remember where that place is.
So, the upper left.
Correct. It It behooves you to develop like a pattern for this. Um,
which is just it again, it's just interesting. It's just fascinating. Um, this can reveal. The other thing can't.

This is fine. Okay. Select a card to gain add to vulnerable. I'm putting that on the thing that hits all the enemies.
Yeah, that that seems uh [laughter]
Yep.
Seems strong.
Yeah. Okay. Um, I've got a shovel here. I'm going to dig in our X marks the spot.
Ah, okay. bite. Deal eight, heal three. Nice spy reference. Uh, hot poker. We have one of these. Deal one damage three times. If fatal, make a toasty kebab, which is a three use, heal five persistent food.
Okay.
Uh, and a hungry blade, which deals five damage, but if it's fatal, it gets plus two permanently.
So, another good growing one. Yeah, I'm actually a little tempted to skip. We should probably We should probably take Hungry Blade, but there is an argument here for skipping. Um, okay.

And then I kind of think we just leave. We could we could investigate this or we could just go. I think we just go.
Okay. I I do love like the layered papercraft look so very much. It is really done well here and I like
it. Actually reminds me a lot of like very old like the original Marathon or kind of Doom where they're using um basically kind of the way you step forward and go through it.
Mhm.
Has a lot of this feel.
Yeah.
Just cuz how the rendering works.
Yep.
Uh
okay.
So we've got
Wait, why do you have five cards to start? Oh, we have the extra one. The draw. Never mind.
Yeah, the extra one from the foresight that always draws us an attack.
Yeah.
Okay. So, this deals one damage three times, but I'm thinking I'm going to put a minor growth on it. So, it'll deal three damage three times. And we draw a card. And then we drew

inferno. And now everything's all messed up. Dang it. Um,
why is it all messed up? Well, I'd kind of thought about stabbing a guy to get a toasty kebab, but now I have to weigh that against infernoing to get vulnerable on everything. And then um I would like spicy toasty inferno. And that would kill these two, which would give me two more spicy toasties, which would let me kill these two. And then this guy would be the only one left. But that's using all my toasties. And uh this guy's still kicking around, right?
You also have the hungry blade which um two five health guys, you could immediately grow it
100%. Yeah. And so like a lot of this is what is the most useful, accurate? I don't know. Um
is the 13 under the deck how many cards you have left in the deck or total deck

size?
Uh I believe it's 13 left in deck.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah. So, for example, you're not going to get Inferno back anytime soon.
Correct. That that is correct. Um, I do think having permanent scaling though is is important. So, let's go and stab this guy. No.
Or before you could also spicy toasty to make everybody a little weaker. And now you could take off
one of the big guys.
Yeah. All right. And then I'm not using all of my energy, but I'm also not taking damage, so we'll pass.
Yeah, Christopher says it also reminds them of a rail shooter. I think that's also accurate.
Um, okay, let's go. We're going to Dark Acquaintance into this guy.
So now this guy takes two damage whenever we play a card.
More spicy toasties.
Yep. We'll kill this one.

Uh, and then we're at full health, but we have five uh additional health in the in the deck. We'll slather them all in hot sauce and we'll go hit you, make a toasty, uh, stab you, hit them with a toasty.
Do you want to eat a toasty? Okay. I was curious.
So, this is kind of an interesting one, too. Um, and this is probably because I've been rereading Dune,
but the the whole thing about the best place for water is in your body. It like from Dune is sticking in my head. Um, the best place for HP is in you, right? In your deck is like, eh, right? Cuz you might drop
potential HP,
right? Um,
okay.
So, I'm going to get rid of that curse. Uh, I'm going to
Oh, would that have stayed as well?

Uh, yes. It had the linger keyword. Um,
okay.
Anything that lingers, uh, sticks around. Um,
so minor growth. Are you going to make your dagger bigger?
Well, so that for another time,
right? Well, so it only exhausts, right? But we are about to turn the deck over.
Mhm. So, I could save it and hope to put it on Inferno or the Hungry Blade or the Poker,
right?
Which is probably better, right? Because like I'm probably going to try and remove this stab at some point.
Yeah. Okay.
Um, and I'm going to use this to go back to 52 and also to make it less likely that I draw all Spicy Toasties. All right. Didn't pay out, but that's fine. Get two spicy toasties and a toasty and then everything else. Um, okay. Foul vegetation evolve to plus five max HP. Evolve exhaust.

I think we're taking that. I I kind of want this. Um, this I've never I've never seen what it does. So, I'm I'm being a little selfish. We're going to take that.
Okay. This is another interesting thing. If you rest, this becomes a hazard.
Okay. So, we're we're being told that like this is maybe not the safest place to rest. We also have um these which could be flammable, could be broken, but in either case is not like is an element of the zone. Um that's showing us where how we're getting to seven, right? You'll always get told what you're like. It's never it's never totally nebulous. It's never like, well, you're taking 43 damage cuz I said so, right? It's always some amount of the gathering gloom and elements in the world that you can interact with. So, [snorts] there are a variety of ways to exp uh to approach the exploration phase.

While you look at that, I'll be right back.
Yep. Um, yes. I think Nova's completely right. The counterpoint to the only HP that matters is the last is the only HP that counts is on your health bar. Yes, it's not on your health bar. It does not matter. Um, we take damage plus two healing after enemies attack heal two. Unplayable temporary. Kind of interesting. Infected limb though is just stupid. We're just going to take this and not think too hard about it. It's It's a little wild. Um, let's go. We'll break open this coffin. We'll get I guess we'll take a cell overdrive.

Unlock or break and take one damage. Consume. Break or fix. break and take five.
Did you rest?
I've not yet rested. I am gonna
I'm going to hit that and then there's not I could open the Let's open the lock. We'll take one and then we're going to take 10 and actually rest. Um cuz there's stuff I still have to do.
Well, also health seems to come back fairly quickly.
It does. Um, okay, great. We have a burning sensation. I'm going to ignite these. I'm going to take my roasted snack. I'm going to take my for max HP. I'm going to reveal that. I'm going to reveal that. We're going to take a puppet hush. Make a permanent copy of target card consume. Again, the game is very big on this whole like um

well using your cards to interact with your own cards.
Yes.
Permanent and permanent changes, right? If fatal draw to very interesting. Um and we don't have any HP left. Actually, this is net positive HP. We're going to take this snack and we're going to eat it and then we're going to move on cuz I would like my goal is for us to see the boss fight for uh this this zone which is
uh right here actually. Yes, Clover, you are the boss fight. All right, this is the boss of the zone. He is a big old idiot. He has thorns. He retaliates for one, and this is so important. when damaged unless fatal the game.
So, for example, if you throw eight toasties at him, you're going to take eight points of damage.
Correct. Also, it says when damaged, not

when attacked. If I put spell weakness on him, every time I play a card, it hits him. So, he hits me. Did that once. That run didn't go so well. [clears throat]
Clover. Clover, honey, I need you out from behind my mixer. Okay. All right.
Which dab is that on your right? Is that one of the good one? No, it's not.
It's a bad one. Um, so we have options here. I'm probably going to eat this toasty.
Hold on. No.
Oh, no. I believe the cat is getting exiled. Someone discovered the top of the PC for the first time and we had to discourage that immediately.
Yes, I know. I know you're very upset. We're immediately discouraging that. Okay. Um

Okay. So, let's see. You could put a minor glove on the stab to both draw a card and kill a thing.
Yep. Could do that. Um,
you could put vulnerable on something to also use the stab to kill it. You could save your minor growth, but you then won't also um get the extra card draw this turn.
Correct. I kind of think that using one of them to draw a card is probably worthwhile.
That was my thought as well,
cuz now we get a roast. So, we could do instead we could do the other minor growth on the roast and kill something to make an additional toasty,
which I think is better. That's not really where I want to be using these, but we kind of we don't like we don't we don't get to make all of the choices. Um, okay. So, let's go and stab one of the ones. That's actually it doesn't matter which one we're hitting because uh I can spicy

toasty afterwards to stop them from attacking. This guy's attacking for three. One of my complaints is that this like if you have a big enemy in the middle and you're looking at your cards, his intent's not visible. You have to like look up
and there is a fixed angle, but it doesn't fix this problem because it fixes you right here and you can't Yeah. Anyway, that that that is a a complaint. Um, no need to eat the other toasty. We're taking three. [snorts] Can you minor growth a minor growth given the damage keyword? That's a really great question and I have no idea.
Mhm. Okay, so now we get to make a choice. Do we want to puppet hush our dark acquaintance and make a permanent copy of it or of our hot sauce or of this roast? There's an argument for yes um on any of those. I think I'm going to

do I think I'm going to make a permanent copy of this hot sauce because what I because what I would like to do is hot sauce hot sauce. I'm gonna roast this guy and it's gonna make me a toasty and two spicy toasties. And then I'm gonna make use one spicy toasty to get multiple spicy toasties. Um
and because you heal for more than you damage.
Correct. I'm
What the dark um one do again?
Every time we play a card, an enemy with spell weakness takes its spell weakness in damage. However, so even if you if you played that on the toasty, you would take two damage. If you played that, you will take two damage per toasty you play, but you'll get three back.
Correct. I'm out of energy to play it this turn, unfortunately.
Whoops, you are. Never mind.
Um, but yes, that would be the case.

Although I believe Yeah, I would take two. One from the toasty, one from it.
So, I'm curious why you didn't use a couple of toasties. Are you saving those up as treasure for a shop leader or
Well, part of it's that. Part of it is that I happen to believe
in my heart of hearts that this guy um re-ummons and those are AoE toasties. So worth
um I'm just going to need to attack into his thorns. I can't really do much about that. Okay. While you were gone, we took an infected limb, by the way. Uh, this is a phenomenal card. Uh, it evolves four. So, we deal four damage and take one damage, but when it evolves, it evolves into busted things. Yeah, this is we'll call reinforcements.

There's the re summons. All inferno. Yeah. So, I think we go one spicy toasty.
Mhm.
An Inferno. Another spicy toasty. And that kills them. Then we're just going to hit him. And we're not going to use these for the same reason. Also, he doesn't actually hit that hard.
Yeah.
Okay. So, now we're now we're going to try the silly thing. So, we're gonna um apply two spell weakness to the enemy. Uh and then we're going to heal. So, we take some damage, we deal some damage, we go back and forth. We win this in the long run, but it is in my mind a little scary. I don't know. I

thorns are one of those like interesting things in deck builders that really feel like they are a particular kind of scary
um in that like thorns high action decks.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like
shibs.
Shibs, right? Or um or being poisoned, right? Like those things feel Not like a lack of agency, but like they have a very specific feeling of build denial, I guess, right? Oh, um, a great example of this is the new Dorito. I forgot what the name of it is. There's a corrupted floating polyhedrin thing in Slay Spire Act 2. Slayer 2, Act two now.
Um, and it punishes you for playing skills. entire deck.
I've heard a lot of people complain about that actually myself as well. It it's a very interesting

because it it discourages an entire class of card.
Correct. Right. And this discourages a specific card, right? Or a specific style of play, but you can overcome it. The there's this fine line, I think, in a lot of game balancing between discouraging a particular line of play and prohibiting a particular line of play, right? Like
well it's also depends on how flexible what your choices are.
Yes.
Like inspire you commit to for example possibly doing a lot of shivs or high action or souls with necro necrobinder
that that punishes a whole like line of play. But if your line of play is flexible then it's more like hey don't do that for this fight. But it depends how flexible your verbs are.
Yeah, agreed. Um, we're going to take a bag of secrets. Uh, because whispered secrets unlock or reveal or fix
and are very good. Um,

okay. So, you beat a boss.
We beat a boss.
What's on our map now?
The uh the edge of the thing. I'm here.
Okay.
So, we boss lane
chamber behind the boss.
Yeah, we're Yeah, we're in the little room behind the boss. and we'll we'll we'll do this and then we'll um we'll probably uh do last thoughts and end here. But um reveal I'm going to break open this chest. Ooh, yeah. This is another one of our um like our class specific rewards, right? Um go uh reveal.
How do how do passives get played or is it just
they don't? So um anything with an exclamation mark in it is a triggered effect. So they're generally if, right?

They're generally if statements. Let me see if I can
Oh, so you need a way to discard that to make it
correct. Um but like Yeah. So, these are like if fatalss are all exclamation mark triggers. Um, and
uh, this is a trigger, but it doesn't have a intent happen on cast thing, right?
It's weird. I think it's the word passive that's throwing me off. I'm used to passives being a thing that are attached to your character as opposed to a card.
Yes. Yeah, I think that that's true. And I think it is very interesting because like your passive cycle through the deck as well, right? Where we're used we're like we're used to them being more permanently attached. But the things that are permanently attached are the foresights and
right
and sometimes they're bonkers. There is a foresight that says every time an if fatal triggers
draw a card. And I gotta tell you, I got an inferno

up to 105 107 damage on that thing on that fight with some permanent scaling tricks. And uh I drew a lot of cards. That's how I know that there isn't a max hand size cuz I drew my whole deck. I just took the deck and I put it in my hand and then I had all the cards in my hand, right? Like um I think the pips are the type and rarity. I I agree with that. Um the four I would expect actually the four sites I would expect to be called passives.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. So the jersey goes away because we didn't weren't able to discard it.
Correct. But it will it's it goes Yes. Yes.
Oh, sorry. It's still there. But yeah, I make uh three secrets and I'm going to reveal. I'm going to reveal. I'm going to take the golden pollen. Apply five bless to an enemy. Consume will increase the damage of the killing card by five.

Wow, nice.
Again, permanent.
Mhm.
Um, what's the best way to do this? It's this. Do this. I reveal that. I do add add two vulnerable. I'm put on the hungry blade. Great. Uh oh, I draw a card off that. Sick. That Oh, yeah. Okay. Here's a great example of one of the shadow cards. It's a mood. Moods uh are temporary camp things that happen for exploring. So, like this is the reward for spending time here and exploring and doing stuff, right? If you ignite plus three max HP, this is again it's very interesting. I got a lunch lady run up to like 160 max HP. I just find it very interesting. Um, again, one of the things that like I think has really made this game stick in

my mind is
the system suggests that you are just trading shots with enemies, right? Because there's no blocking, there's no counterplay, there's no We don't have a weakness equivalent.
We have vulnerable. We have an outgoing debuff that debuffs the amount of dam the that debuffs the enemy and they take more damage. We don't really get a lot of defensives at all, right? The closest we get is for some enemies if we hit them then they don't hit us back, right? And so this this like rewarding lines of play with maximum hit points or rewarding exploration with maximum hit points or like finding a way to do this thing really feels like a very different take that I'm enjoying. I don't know it'll stay as long as Spire or Monster Train or Bellacho or any of the others, but I do think that this like side of the conversation where we forgo a lot of the things we've sort of
assumed are just part of the genre um is

really interesting and I like that a lot. That's this this is sort of like why I wanted to bring this up and and hear what what you were thinking about it. [snorts]
Well, I
So, is a mood a foresight for camping? Uh, it's it's
Oh, no. Never mind. It's still in your hand.
It's a specific kind of passive for camping.
Uh, I have a great
Wait, how is that different from the sweater?
Um, the mood I believe, and someone who's played more than this can tell me that I'm wrong, I believe moods can never be added to your deck. Okay.
This is um it's a uh temporary
as opposed to a
unplayable, right? Yeah.
Okay.
Um yeah.

Uh sure. We'll take a scavenger blade.
Um and then I take this I note my abundance of riches and then I would open the door and we would continue. But I think this is this is sort of like the first act, right, of
how many acts are there,
right? So far.
Okay.
And then the spireesque
and then at the end you meet someone who is very spyesque who is the cause of your suffering um and meet your untimely uh demise. Um, but you should I I wholeheartedly recommend this as a as a game to be played for yourself if you if you like that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, that's that's Shroom and Gloom. Uh, I I just wanted to like to show off something that feels so fresh and has so many interesting choices to it, right? because like all of these feel like

deliberate subversions of not genre pillars but like genre assumptions, right? We I don't know, Jeff, when you when you start a rogike deck builder, right? Do you assume like as you're poking it, it feels comfortable? It's not like a necessity, but it feels comfortable when the game presents you with this is an attack, this is a block, this is a power,
right? This is the map.
Comfortable is there, but it's also clarity.
Sure.
Like part of this game feels uncomfortable in the same way that like um going from playing Dungeons and Dragons, you're like, "Cool, that's a fighter. I know what a fighter does. I know what a rogue does." And you're like, "Now we're going to go play this sci-fi game." It's like, "What does a marauder do?"
You know, what does a technommancer do?
Sure. and you're like those sound cool but I don't know what they are. They

don't have like the familiarity where you roughly can you know that there are certain things associated with fantasy classes
that as soon as you switch to sci-fi and give it a random name you don't know what the association is.
I think that's very fair. I also think that um there is some amount of I don't think I've I don't I've not used this term recently. So I'm I'm going to I'm going to cash this in. There is some amount of ludo narrative harmony there because I like this is supposed to be like an Eldrich mushroom thing, right? And your character is not
a hero. Your character is not the ironclad. Your character is not the silent. Your character is a paper boy, a lunch lady, a concerned parent, right? They're not
Oh, and it it fits this in the same way. What was I playing? I was playing the Rogue Trader game
um like half a year ago.
Yeah.

And their their level up system is Byzantinely complicated.
And on any other game, it would have bothered me. But the fact that you're playing Warhammer 40k, like not understanding how things work because of complex bureaucracy and layers of just felt on brand.
Yeah.
You're like, it's the only game I played where I actually Oh, the other one on that you end up collecting. It's a character you like collect a party. You collect more characters that can fit in your party. So, it's a sub in. This isn't to like level up to like level 20 in D and D. This is like, oh yeah, we just hit level 57. Every character on every level has meaningful choices. And at a certain point, I was like, I'm going to get a guide because I don't want to spend an hour per level up. Like, but it felt it hit this setting well.
Yeah.
For this one kind of like Yeah. Weird things that morph and change and grow

feel on brand for this. as a pro and a con because for example
I'm not a big fan of Eldrich horror video games.
Sure.
And because of that, as interesting as the mechanics are, the setting and the art style aren't exactly my thing.
Sure.
But that also could have been like we could have been playing what is it the Demon Slayer anime game and I'd be like ah like fun but not quite my thing either.
Right. It's you can't you can pick things that you think have wider appeal.
Yes.
But no matter what you pick, there will be groupings of people that like and don't like them.
Yeah. I think that's
the systems are very interesting. The double deck is interesting.
Yeah.
Building out enough mechanics in the environment to make it a whole phase of play.
Mhm.
Is interesting. And I really like um we

didn't see it because I've played enough of this, but it um when you encounter a new thing, like a new element in the camp screen,
it won't tell you what all of the options are. It'll give you one of them. Maybe it'll be like this thing looks like you could probably break it and you break it or you can try something else, right? And different things have different consequences. So like there's a field of mushrooms. It'll tell you that it's breakable and you can break it and get a mushroom that heals you for 5 HP or you can ignite it. And if you ignite it, you get a cooked mushroom that gives you four maximum HP. And so you
But until you do it,
correct? So it really
This only works because you're basically groundhog daying it.
Yes. that you're going through over and over and you're like, I'm going to try this this time and even if I hurts me in the short term, I now have a piece of knowledge for later.
Correct. And that feels very much like uh leaning into one of the big strengths of the rogue light genre, which is

um actually this might technically be rogike more than rogue light. We'll see how we'll see how things develop when we get to the end [clears throat] of early access. But um the the that the most important thing you gain win lose or draw is knowledge, right? That you are there to learn more about interactions to learn that if you uh I got an achievement for not feeding a frog. And that achievement made me go back and feed the frog to find out that if you feed a particular frog in a jar enough, you get to remove a card without spending food, which is incredibly powerful because you can use your food for other things like healing, right? Or damage in combat or
you know your um hungering blade trigger or your um the there's the blade that um gets plus one damage every time you eat, right? So, like there's all of these different interactions and that feels really good as well because the two and again I think it only really works

because the combat system and the exploration system are similar enough that there's a lot of cross talk between the two of them and the fact that you can't block means that the exploration phase is really meaningful for recovering HP and for making your deck stronger which is a very nice tension I think to have. Um,
yeah. No, it's they've done some good stuff. I'm going to be curious to see where they go.
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, chat, thanks so much for joining us for this little exploration of shroom and gloom. I hope you've enjoyed both the glooming and the shrooming. Uh, be sure to join us this coming Friday for another extra, not extra. Wow, we haven't called that in years. Games for breakfast. Um, I know for sure we're going to be talking about Bungie's back, baby, but I don't know if you've
What's up with Bungie being back?
Oh, you get to hear this uh for the first time, too. Bungie just released an announcement that says that they

understand that they haven't been doing well by their customer base and that they are restoring all of the vaulted content to Destiny 2.
Mhm. and bringing the Destiny 2, attempting to bring Destiny 2 back online like two months after they announced that it was Sunset Forever, which is wild. Um, we're going to be talking about that for sure. We're going to be talking about all the industry news. Um, so please come join us for that conversation on Friday. And of course, I believe we'll be back next week for another design club. Uh,
yes, it's
topic TBD,
isn't the No, it's the week after that. The week after next week,
two weeks from now, we're gonna have a guest. Um, actually, we can't even check without um tidyup games.
Yeah.
Are a new genre of game that um we've seen and that there's now a lot of people making.
Yeah.
We have a friend of the show whose studio is making a tidy-up game and is a big fan of them. And we're going to come

on. We're going to talk about basically beginnings of a new genre.
Yep. and like what early development around what do you make after like one group makes it like oh that's interesting
and then other groups like well what could I do with that?
Yeah
kind of like we see rogue rogue likes deck builders other things around that so
we're going to talk about it and um
it'll be good
check out some of what they're doing.
Yeah. Excellent. All right everybody uh please join us next week for a TBD or two weeks for that or Friday for breakfast whenever we see you. Please take care of yourselves. Please take care of each other. And we'll see you all next time. Say bye to the people, Jeff.
Bye to the people, Jeff. Have a great week, everybody. [music]
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