It’s full steam ahead as we move through November, which is serving up an unusually large number of exciting new roguelike and roguelite games, including the following case in point.
The game that captured my attention over the weekend was Slumber Realm, a new roguelike deckbuilder with a handful of dice and pitch-perfect ’90s vibes.
This homage to my youth is the work of Chugga Chugga, and after spending much of the weekend and some of today in its company, I thought I’d share my thoughts, such as they are.
A dream-like experience
First and foremost, the presentation in Slumber Realm is outstanding. Not only is the nostalgic element executed with deft precision, but the visual style is just dreamy.
Almost everything is made up of tiny little circles, and it creates a softness that I found quite pleasing to the eye. Even taking down your opponent is nice, as they break up into hundreds of tiny circles, as if a magician had transformed them into bouncy balls.
It’s also a reactive, playful space that I enjoyed spending time in. For example, if you click on the background during play, it wobbles, but after you’ve won, the background kinda pops like a bubble when you click on it. These are little touches, maybe, but I appreciated them.
This might be an adversarial card game, as you battle the worst nightmares of a teenager from the mid-90s – for example, sentient broccoli – but it still manages to remain light and playful, even in the face of defeat. The character designs are great, too, and I also liked how you decorate your room with ’90s-inspired items to represent your progress.
Sleepy time
Most of the game is spent at night, during your dreams. However, even within these dreams, the challenges you face have a circadian rhythm, and you switch between day and night each round. That means that some of your cards will work during the day, others only at night, and some across both.
The order of your cards in your deck is vital. You have to make sure that you position your cards where they can help you, and it’s easy to get this wrong. Once you have started a match, you can’t change the order, and you’re stuck with any mistakes. Then, it’s all down to lady luck and the roll of a D6.
This is definitely a deckbuilder and not one of those new-fangled dicebuilders. You start the game with just one die in Slumber Realm, and then, each turn, your roll determines which cards activate. Not all cards will work on the same roll. However, because they activate in sequence and according to their ranges, you can chain together moves and maximise your attacks.
There’s a clever interplay between your cards and the dice rolls, and this is further enhanced by the day/night cycle and the synergies you can find in your deck. These tactical options are bolstered further by the temporary cards and disposable items you can buy from the shop between battles.
Cards on the table
I’m also interested to see how Slumber Realm evolves over the next few weeks, and beyond. Chugga Chugga is about to put out the first of four mini-expansions that they have prepared ahead of time, which all players will get and will add new cards and items to the game. There are plans beyond that, but it sounds like the devs want to listen to what we think before making any deeper decisions.
As for me, I think that Slumber Realm is a nostalgic treat for children of the ’90s and a lovely little roguelike deckbuilder to boot. It looks fantastic, feels great to play, and there’s a lot to unlock and experience. Not only that, but the elegant simplicity of its core design means I think people will find it to be a good entry point into the genre, too.
Slumber Realm is out now on PC (Win). I played via access kindly provided by the developers and their PR buds.
