As soon as first cast my eye on Realm of Ink, I knew I was going to be checking it out. I was instantly drawn in by the arty visuals and, hot-on-the-heels of falling in love with the beautiful, stylish visuals used in Hades, I was once again ready to make my mark in this vivid, artistic isometric world.
Realm of Ink is an action-roguelite by Leap Studio and Maple Leaf Studio (say that ten times fast), and it was announced to a decent amount of fanfare last year (as you will discover if you care to click on the link up top). When I was offered the chance to take a closer look, I enthusiastically agreed. I was then delighted to find out that the developers had also agreed to an interview.
I may be biased, but I strongly recommend that you head over to our extensive developer Q&A and take a closer look, as studio leadership took a lot of time to thoughtfully respond to my questions and their answers are fascinating.
In our interview, we spent time exploring the artistic heritage of the game, as well as how that style intersects with the various gameplay mechanics that have been introduced. It’s a good read, especially if you’ve got an interest in art and design.
What is Realm of Ink all about, then?
The game opens with a revelation. Our leading lady, Red, is stuck in her old reality – a repetitive Chinese story that every character is fated to repeat again and again. Following a moment of clarity, she’s off to break free from her literary shackles, and we take control of her destiny.
This narrative layer is a pretty good wrapper for a roguelite gameplay loop, in my humble opinion. We’re promised that things will be revealed over time, with the story coming to the fore throughout the player’s experience with the game.
In our exclusive interview, the studio explained how there were a couple of interesting gameplay influences, including Skul: The Hero Slayer and Grim Dawn. Yet it was Hades they referred to as the reference, and you can feel the influence of Supergiant’s epic just about everywhere you look.
It’s a similar proposition in terms of both dreamy art and mechanical structure. Realm of Ink has four major gameplay systems that are interacting with one another, and the strength of your build will come down to how you blend these diverse mechanics during a given run.
Realm of Ink: Pets FTW
The two most entwined systems are the Ink Gems, such as Tiger Ink, Venom Ink, and Curse Ink, and the Ink Pets. ROI frequently invites you to switch between your Ink Gems. Each one adds both passive buffs, but also a powerful attacked mapped to a trigger (I played on controller, if you hadn’t guessed).
Where it gets really interesting is the combination of Ink Gems. Once you’ve got two equipped, they combine to give you a pet that specific to those gems. These pets support you in combat, dealing damage and offering additional benefits as you play according to how far you’ve got your gems levelled up.
The Ink Gems define your overall attack strategy to a large degree. You’ll be watching them run down on timers before you can fire them again, so judicious use of these powerful attacks is strongly recommended.
Realm of Ink: Artifacts and Combat
The heart of the game and its success ultimately rests on the combat system. What’s here so far is encouraging, with fluid action and responsive inputs.
The combat system means that you’ll have to balance your Ink Gem attacks with a more traditional range of light and heavy attacks. Thus Red dashes about the space, landing blows and dodging incoming damage, all the while watching my cooldown timers so I could deliver another powerful special attack.
This part of the game is very traditional, and it didn’t take me long to acclimatise to the combat system. Every enemy type has its own attack pattern, and the bigger enemies are kind enough to telegraph their attacks. Combined with the visuals that accompany your own moves, these on-screen actions coalesce to create a bright and bold battle scene. If you’ve played Hades, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect, and once again you can feel that’s game influence.
Basic combat moves can be augmented by the Artifacts that you pick up during a given run. There seemed to be a decent selection in the demo, and the game description suggests there to be more than 120. These items look like they’re reinforce your strategies with various effects, but without seeing more of them it’s hard to judge.
Combat variety is bolstered further via a selection of different weapon types. Again, I’m pulling specifics from the Steam listing, but there are several named weapons including Scarlet Sword, Shadow Twin Blades, and Azure Aura Blade. I can’t comment on the weapons, however, as I don’t think I tried anything other than Red’s standard weapon, the so-called Scarlet Sword.
Finally, I’ve only talked about my time with Red, but we’re promised two additional playable characters that I didn’t try in the demo. I’m not sure how much taking control of Nightmare Hunter Wang Ding and Fox Judge Ning Ye will feel in terms of locomotion, compared to Red and in general, but I look forward to finding out.
Realm of Ink release date and trailers
The demo that I’ve had access to this week is now available to download on Steam, and I suggest you take a look for yourselves, as the proof of the proverbial pudding is always in the eating. The demo includes the game’s first world to play through, and the developers are already tweaking things to improve the experience.
One area that needs a big revamp is the quality of the writing. At this stage it’s clearly a translation issue, but I’m hoping that significant work goes into ensuring that the narrative layer is implemented with the same level of care and attention as the gameplay.
In terms of what’s next, I’m not entirely sure when we’ll get to see more of the game. Sadly, I didn’t have the wit to ask them that in my interview, for a reason that alludes me still. That being so we’ll have to make do with the demo; I played through it a couple of times and it certainly served its purpose, as I’d like to play some more, please.
Realm of Ink’s release date remains shrouded in mystery, but what’s there in the demo already impresses. If you want to see more right now, you can watch it in action via the new Demo Trailer below.
The developers are certainly interested in getting feedback, and as they wrote in our exclusive interview, the entire iterative process has been defined by it so far. The result of that feedback is a game with a lot of potential, I’d say, and Hades fans would do well to have it on the ol’ Steam wishlist.
Final thoughts on the Realm of Ink Demo
I liked the demo, and I appreciated the variety of moves unlocked just from switching between a few Ink Gems. I really liked the Ink Pets system and how that interacts with the combat, too. The rest seems entirely functional or better, and heading in a positive direction. I’d say my only gameplay concern was a lack of interesting interactivity in the levels that I’ve played on so far; they look lovely, but could they offer more friction beyond simple enemy interactions?
All told, Realm of Ink is shaping up to be a rather interesting prospect in an already jam-packed 2024 for roguelikers. The strong Chinese art style shines through on the screen – on a monitor and, some UI overlap aside, it looked pretty good on my Steam Deck, too. Throw in a dollop of Chinese mythology that informs the world and enemy designs, and there’s a bunch of reasons to be excited about exploring this fascinating blend of traditional art and contemporary game design.
If Leap Studio and Maple Leaf Studio can deliver a game that compares favourably to their reference, Hades, while also successfully exploring Chinese storytelling through a bold and vivid lens, we could well have a winner on our hands here.
