Griftlands

released on Jun 01, 2021

Griftlands is a deck-building rogue-like where you fight and negotiate your way through a broken-down sci-fi world. Every decision is important, be it the jobs you take, the friends you make, or the cards you collect. Death comes quickly, but each play offers new situations and strategies to explore. Play as Sal, Rook, or Smith. Three unique character campaigns with their own specialized decks, abilities and maps to explore. Sal is an adventurer out for profit and revenge. Rook is an aging spy working his own agenda. Smith is an idle loafer who might just save the world. Each playable character's story takes place in a unique environment, with different factions and locations to explore and exploit.


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Extremely interesting game! I really enjoyed my time with it but I made 1 playthrough with each character and left it there. I don't really feel the draw to go back and engage with the Roguelike elements of the story to be honest. But I appreciate that they're there and I'm sure others have reeeeeally got their value out of this one.

Beat it on my first run, then never cared to try it again.

Super neat concept for a story-based roguelike that was solidified with Hades but my indecisiveness kept me from continuing.

Sights & Sounds
- Just looking at screenshots, you can tell this is a Klei game. If they weren't so sci-fi, the characters look like they could be found in Shank or Mark of the Ninja. Here, moreso than those games, the characters are very expressively drawn and bursting with personality
- The music is kind of a let down. It's not bad, but every track sounds like it would be the menu music for a less interesting game
- The sound design is otherwise okay. I get that the Simlish-like VA work is meant to signify alien languages, but the game would have been fine without it

Story & Vibes
- Avoiding spoilers, there are actually three narratives (one for each of the three protagonists). Each one plays out as an interesting little sci-fi character study. Sal's story plays out like a classic revenge tale, Rook's is more subdued and full of intrigue, and Smith's is a bit funnier with several doses of comic relief
- It winds up being a bit of a let down that these stories don't play into each other much. Sure, you may see one of the other two characters pop in to make a cameo, but nothing noteworthy. It really feels like a lost opportunity
- One thing that I did appreciate were the plot-altering consequences. For example, choosing to save an innocent trader from a pack of marauders may net you a reward, but you can bet those bandits will be out for revenge. Screw someone over in a negotiation? Well, hope you're prepared to weasel yourself out of the consequences once your duplicity is discovered
- Vibes will depend on which of the characters you play as. I enjoyed Smith the most. Even though he was the worst at combat/negotiations, I found his story to be the most enjoyable to play through

Playability & Replayability
- I won't go into a deep mechanical explanation of the roguelike deckbuilder; they're mostly the same in term of things like action order/economy. I'll just try to share some observations regarding how it's unique
- In Griftlands, you actually use two separate decks: one for battling and one for negotiating. Which one you use depends on the random event you choose to navigate to on the world map first
- Given the binary focus, you'll typically want to choose events that play into the deck and character upgrades you've received that run
- Griftlands also features partners and pets. Some of these can be very helpful in tougher battles or negotiations
- You can also employ the use of run-altering "mutations", which can provide buffs or nerfs for you to take advantage of or work around
- Unlike many other roguelike deckbuilders, there's very little metaprogression. Sure, you'll unlock cards for future runs (6 per character), but you won't be, say, permanently increasing your HP or the number of cards you can play per turn
- In that way, there's not a ton of replayability in Griftlands once you've completed each character's story. Sure, there's other endings to see and dailies to play, but I wasn't interested in remixes of the same content I'd already played through

Overall Impressions & Performance
- It's a fun game, but doesn't quite reach the upper eschelons of the genre like Slay the Spire. I may not be the most trustworthy of opinions on the matter as I'm not a huge card game player and have just recently started being able to tolerate CCG gameplay
- I didn't encounter any audiovisual issues or other bugs, and the game performed very well on my good-for-2019 setup

Final Verdict
- 7.0/10. It's probably a better game than my score implies, and the presence of a narrative (or three) helps make the plodding gameplay pace a little more tolerable for someone who's lukewarm on CCGs

Griftlands is a Card Game Roguelite, and whilst elements of it I found frustrating and/or clunky, generally I kept coming back to it.

I liked the artstyle, but found parts of the stories to be generally quite dull, not helped by a generally forgettable OST. World building was good however, though populated by a generally forgettable set of characters.

However, the actual card game part of the game I found immensely fun, and despite it not having as much depth as others that have come before it, I think the 3 choice of characters that play wildly different from eachother in both combat and negotiation was enough to keep me coming back for more.

unfortunately lacks the depth and balance that slay the spire has. i personally find the art style to be kind of bad also.