July’s Indie Box featured a game called Hand of Fate The box featured a physical copy of the game on a CD, a deck of 52 custom cards straight from the game, a custom pouch for your cards, soundtrack, and a sticker.
Hand of Fate is a choose your own adventure game. The dealer creates a random adventure for you based off of the tarot cards in your deck. There are good cards and equally bad ones. You choose your path and follow the prompts, just like you would in one of those old “choose your own adventure” books. There’s one big catch though.
The game breaks up it’s rogue-like gameplay with an action style. Just like the Batman: Arkham games, you fight hordes of foes and counter their attacks. The action isn’t too in-depth, but it’s a really great way to break up some of the tediousness that comes from dungeoning.
The mysterious Dealer is what makes this game. He narrates and gives great commentary while dealing the cards, giving rewards and penalties, and talking about the lore. It truly brings you into the game and you honestly feel like you’re on the opposite end of the table.
You build a deck of equipment, artifacts, and weapons to traverse the dungeons. You gain more from some of the shop cards, or if you bump into a good encounter card and get a successful roll. Some of the encounters could go terribly wrong though if you aren’t lucky.
Frankly, I enjoyed this game a lot. I’ll probably be coming back to it on a later date to get a full grasp of it when I have the time. The Dealer, the actiony gameplay, and the randomness than came from the Tarot cards all added up into an interesting and fun experience.
You can purchase your Indie Box here!