In a sea of roguelike turn-based adventures, how can something like Blightstone stand out? How can it make itself one of the memorable “few” rather than the saturated “many”?
Many are the games that let us use martial weapons to harm foes. Many are the games that let us throw martial weapons at said foes. Many are the games that let us light foes on fire.
Far, far rarer is the game that lets us light a foe on fire, throw them at another and have them both tumble backwards in a fiery cascade.
That little snippet tells you almost everything you need to know about the core of Blightstone, and how it’s played. In the developer’s own words it is “a turn-based tactical roguelite, with a lot of hidden synergies, meta-progression and tons of content, that makes you use your brain in novel ways each run to get the most out of it.” and those “novel ways” are such a joy to discover and to incorporate into future runs.
I actually have a few alternative opening lines for this piece that I’ve arranged below for your viewing pleasure, because Blightstone (the new tactical roguelike from Unfinished Pixel) is such a good machine for creating emergent, insane-sounding situations:
- I don’t know when I fell for Blightstone’s combat, probably around the time I realised you could throw the dog…and then realised that this was often a genuinely smart play.
- It must be hard as a game developer to choose between setting a dark, eerie atmosphere or having charming, quirky graphics and characters…so Unfinished Pixel have just done both.
- Slay the Spire and Monster Train didn’t let me throw a bandit down a bottomless pit with my bare hands, Blightstone does.
- The first boss approaches, lackeys idling ahead of him. “Oh no” I think, “a fight with adds”. The boss throws his own minions onto the spiked wall of the arena, leaving only him…and the party. “Oh yes” I think, “this game is good”.
First I must explain this obsession I have with throwing things…
Movement is meaningful, especially forceful movement
The tutorial of Blightstone barely scratches the surface of what’s really in store, beyond “Don’t let enemies destroy the Crystal”, but one thing it does introduce is Strength. Strength is a statistic in Blightstone that dictates how hard something pushes or pulls, rather than how much damage it deals. If I use Telekinesis as the Arcanist I can shuffle a bandit a few feet as it’s only Strength 2. If I charge that same bandit with my Brawler and he has an upgraded skill, that could be a Strength 4 hit and send the bandit careening off over the nearest cliff edge (or, more likely, into the nearest spikey thorn wall for that juicy bleed proc). Skills and attacks that hit with enhanced Strength are vital to controlling the battlefield, increasing the survivability of your team, and even dealing damage.
With the Strength system in place, the game begins to open up
The Brawler can charge, both pushing an enemy and dealing damage. This is an attack that takes two Action Points (You only get two a turn) and moves him for free a considerable distance as he, well, charges. He can also “Grab” an enemy which completely changes the Brawler’s skill bar to a new set specifically for grabbed targets. One of these new actions is called “Throw”. Throw is a free action, and can have extra distance based on your equipment and buffs. Unlike a charge, the direction of a throw isn’t determined by what angle you hit an enemy – it’s a free choice through a complete 360° angle.
From this one mechanic and this one character, you have so many possibilities. You can grab an enemy and throw them at another for damage on both. You can grab a barrel and throw it at an enemy for a violent explosion. You can grab your own Crystal and throw it (Safely) away from the wolves, Vex, bandits and undead that seek to destroy it.
Now let’s sprinkle in the other classes
The Druid summons a wall of thorns that provides bleeding to any attack that uses it – that’s a nice place to throw someone. The Hunter puts down a bear trap, but last turn no one stepped on it – guess we’ll just throw it right at an enemy instead! The Hunter has an AP to command his dog to attack, but the dog isn’t in range – yes, yeet the dog into range.
With just a simple act of picking something up and throwing it, the game lets you create your own strategies and interactions. Everyone will think of throwing enemies, most people will think of throwing objects…but how many will think of saving your Druid movement AP by simply throwing them instead? Or getting the crystal to safety with a tactical hurl? Okay probably also a lot of people, but the game makes you feel like a tactical genius for using these strategies as they aren’t fed to you, they aren’t written down, they aren’t made to seem “intentional”.
Now, the team at Unfinished Pixel are smart enough that these interactions probably are intentional, but the discovery and thrill of experimentation is kept alive in this game so that it seems like you’re the first player to do things this way. Your way.
The finer details without the bigger picture
It’s not just the idea of having free-form movement and Strength physics that makes Blightstone pique my interest. In the sea of turn-based roguelikes there does need to be more. Thankfully, the Early Access release is starting with a lot of the minutiae already worked out.
For example, gear appears on your characters when you equip it, giving the little goobers more personality as well as making gear sets instantly recognisable, helping you play quickly without hovering over buff icons to remember what outfit they have on. Encounters you’re sure to repeat such as bosses and failure dialogue are diverse enough that you don’t hear (Well, read) the same lines over and over. Other encounters do unfortunately get repeated a little too often, as new encounters are locked behind meta-progression currency rather than unlocked automatically on defeating a boss for the first time.
A strong start, but plenty of race to go
This is very much still an Early Access release and has the hallmarks of such. For one, the exploration map is 90% just combat. There are a few shops, and many “Unidentified” rooms but those are mostly combat too (Or an opportunity to avoid a combat, so, just nothing…) and currently Act 1 through to completion does get dull. The unlocks keep coming and they are juicy (Being able to step each of your characters once a battle for free is a literal lifesaver) but that isn’t enough to make the exploration anything more than “Acceptable”. It’s when you’re in battle, looting or camping that I was most engaged, not really on the map screen.
In some ways that’s fine, because it cuts down admin time, but I do miss spending actual whole minutes deciding a route in Slay the Spire, which is just not feasible in Blightstone as your exploration choices matter so little in the end. Something as simple as certain fights having a mark on showing what loot you’ll get (Item, skill, or stat) would provide players a meaningful choice to make on the exploration screen.
There’s no character skill selection or trees, with the only unlockable skills being related to the Crystal. It can make getting a “Build” not really possible in any reliable way, but instead focusing on rolling with what the game gives you. This is fine for now, but with the huge potential of this game’s combat depth it’d be nice to have at least some meta-progression for characters. Currently, the only meta-progression for the classes themselves is just unlocking them and that’s that.
There’s other minor issues such as repeating events recruiting a character you already have, or UI elements all being attached to the battlefield models. This means when models stack in a melee it can be nigh impossible to tell who you’re targeting – a little window in the top of the screen that shows your current mouse-hover object’s health and stats would be nice for such occasions.
But, I won’t bore you with all the ins-and-outs, because as a player those issues might not even matter to you and they’ll almost certainly be fixed in Early Access soon. Don’t let the nitty-gritty take away from the core of my message here…which is that throwing things at other things in this game is so very fun.
How early should I opt in?
Returning to the developer’s description of “a turn-based tactical roguelite, with a lot of hidden synergies, meta-progression and tons of content, that makes you use your brain in novel ways each run to get the most out of it.” I can confirm that on Early Access release the hidden synergies and brain usage is definitely there. The “tons of content” and much of the meta-progression are both not really present.
Given how strong a first impression Blightstone makes with its Strength system (and many others I didn’t mention such as elemental effects on zones like grass, spike pits, lakes etc) I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a bite-sized tactical snack that’ll hit different to the usual turn-based style. If you’re more into the management, meta-progression and exploration side of roguelikes then Blightstone will be perfect for you later down the line so add it to a Wishlist to stay up-to-date.
Blightstone is available now on Steam Early Access.
