Saturday Morning Gaming: Griftlands is out of Early Access

Way back in September, I talked about Griftlands. At the time, it was in early access and one main storyline was done with one other being mostly done and the third not available at all yet.

Well, it’s out.

And it’s *VERY* good.

Did you like Slay the Spire? (Golly, I sure did!)

Then you need to run, not walk, and pick this game up. No, you don’t have to wait for it to go on sale. (And, if you are against buying games at full price on some vague principle, 10% is sufficient. You don’t have to wait for 25% or 50%.)

Here’s the basic gist: This game is Slay the Spire, only with a story.

You have three choices for your story:
Sal Ik-Derrick is a bounty hunter who is out for revenge against Kashio. You get back to town after a long absence and you have a score to settle… but to get to Kashio, you’re going to need credits and you’re going to need help. And you need to find him.

Rook is a retired spy and he’s showing up to lend his skills to resolve a labor dispute going on in town. You gonna side with labor? Or with Capital? You sure?

Smith is the black sheep of a very, very wealthy family. Thwarted privilege, family resentment, and alcohol is never a good combination. Well, until now.

And, you’re now off to the races. One of your first interactions asks you “what bonus do you want to start with?” and offers you three things (from a pool of about 8) and then you’ve got jobs to do.

Using Sal in my examples here… but the basic gist is the same. You have a conversation with one of the people in the world and then you go out and complete the stuff you need to do before you can do your overarching mission.

Along the way, you’re going to have chance encounters with various people and you’re going to have opportunities to get buffs or remove cards from your decks or get henchpeople (or henchpets).

And then you’re either going to have a conversation or have a fight as part of your mission (maybe both). And as *THAT* happens, you’re going to make friends or enemies. If you make a solid friend, you’re going to get a minor bonus in future fights. If you make a solid enemy, you’re going to have stuff to overcome. If it’s a shopkeeper, they’ll charge you more. If it’s a bartender, you’ll have to put up with gossip about you as you go out and about.

The conversation dynamic is where the game really shines. If you’ve played Slay the Spire, you’re already familiar with combat and how that works… conversation is a different kind of fight. Different decks, different hit point pools, different combat dynamics. You have the option of using Diplomacy, Hostility, or Manipulation tactics against your interlocutor. Some of the missions just need you to go somewhere and talk it out with them… and only if you fail do you need to beat them up. In other cases, you’re going to be getting in a fight whether you want to or not, but the conversation can be held with someone else in the room asking them to help out (or to just sit on the sidelines instead of helping someone else).

Additionally, there are choices that you’ll have to make in the game. Sal, for example, needs to figure out if she’ll want the help of the cops when it comes to taking out Kashio or the help of a rival criminal organization.

If you pick one, you’ll have to deal with static from the other one. And, no, you can’t pick both. Yes, you have to pick one of them.

(The stories with Rook and Smith have similarly tough choices.)

And, at the end of every day, you get a little status report of what happened, who likes you, who hates you, and how well you did.

I said this last year and I’ll say it again:

The replayability is out of this world. I’ve talked a lot about different games that I played in the hopes of scratching my Slay the Spire itch… Monster Train, Monster Slayers, Iris and the Giant… all of them fun deckbuilders that I picked up and put back down. Griftlands is the closest I’ve come to finding Slay the Spire.

Heck, it might even be better.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is the Griftlands Main Menu. All screenshots taken by the author.)