I need to lay off the rogue-likes, as some would say the same thing about coffee. Where five years ago every other game would be a zombie-fueled, or cyberpunk-based experience, now everything is a rogue-like stemming into Surviors-likes or deck-building, or a fusion of all those and now including the hidden object category?Slumber Realm is a dreamy turn-based rogue-likewhere you’ll be battling broccoli from the outset.
Yet another experimental title on my tablet, the low technical demand of this title was a good choice as the game didn’t cause third-degree burns through the lack of adequate cooling, and did the other sort of chilling effect as I found it rather relaxing. Ok, swinging a sword and duking it out with your nightmares isn’t perhaps something that should instill calm, but it did.
Slumber Realm immediately serves up a plate of wholesome content with its cute visuals and fluffy fonts. It’s the 90s, and for once, it isn’t an interpretation of the decade from someone born in 2010, assuming it was as wonderful as the 80s. They were crap, Duffer Brothers. Your family have taken you to, what I believe is the food chain Medieval Times (using Cable Guy as a reference), and that subsequently induces a series of nightmares. Fortunately, you are represented as a knight in the sequence.
You’ll face a series of ever-harder enemies in a dice-rolling setting. There will be a selection of cards from your deck that are ever-present on your turn, and at the start of each round, you roll the dice, and if a number lands within the numbers shown on the card, the ability is activated. What this means is you can effectively chain a combo with attacks, debuffs, and shields all in one go, pending your dice landing on the number in question. Additionally, some cards are only active during the day/night cycle, serving a little bit of strategy and challenge.
Like with most turn-based games, you can adopt a shield to absorb hits, earn new cards, and upgrade them. The latter is quite a unique way, as this doesn’t mean waiting for the battle to finish, but to upgrade in real-time. Based on the cards you play, you earn various ‘abilities’ that can be invested in a set of actions. These include pre-empting an attack with a shield, inflicting ‘vulnerable’ debuffs, earning a new card, or upgrading a card that increases the chance of landing on it. It’s all very intuitive and should be familiar to anyone who’s played a handful of games from the genre.
Between the battles, a vendor is unlocked where you can obtain more cards, consumables to increase your odds of survival, and new cards earned when you beat more enemies. Naturally, the enemies in Slumber Realm get tougher, hitting harder and having a larger health pool. While this makes it challenging to chain a combo together, due to the somewhat sleepy aspect of the game, not just literally, but it’s a chill experience; the demo never particularly feels unfair or stressful. Plus, there’s an abundance of upgrades and customisations to unlock.
This Slumber Realm demo was a sort of exclusive to look at, but you can download the same demo from Steam now and give it a go. Go on, give it a look-see before bedtime.
