Roots of Yggdrasil

I went back and forth on this one. I had a poor first impression, because the mechanics weren't clear to me. I warmed to it as I understood it better, but after running 4 expeditions ("loops") I got bored because each game seemed pretty much like the last one. Not enough changes between games, either in the kinds of maps you see or the upgrades you get from the meta-progression. It's a tile laying game with deck building mechanics. You build villages on floating islands, with the goal of blooming 2-3 trees on each one and then getting off before the creeping darkness kills you. You're mostly doing two things, building up your Supply income and increasing your Might. Almost all cards cost Supply to play, and to expand your village, you need to spend Might to unlock new zones on the island. Every game plays pretty much the same. You start with in a cramped area, play a bunch of houses, and then play a couple of Barracks to gain one-time Might awards from those houses so you can unlock new zones. Once you've got some room, you place mines and logging camps to increase your Supply income. As your population grows, you draft more cards. Some of these are better mines and logging ca…

Roots of Yggdrasil is a difficult game for me to review. At its core it's a turn-based city building Roguelike deckbuilder. It's got all the hallmarks - runs, meta progression, story that you unlock piece by piece, etc. The art style is really charming and the gameplay works really well. The story so far is interesting, if a little played out in terms of the subject matter. It's a great time killer and in general runs don't take too long. It's significantly more relaxed than the average roguelike. However, there are several things that annoy me with this game and encouraged me to put it down. The metaprogression is sloooooooow. You do 3-4 runs to unlock the ability to start the game with 1 extra resource (which is 1/5 of the cost of most buildings). The story progression (at least when tied to the characters) is gated behind adding difficulty modifiers to your runs very early on. Also there is a clearly best option for a "hero" - the one that gets to blop down a free building every few turns. The others don't even compare, but you need to take them along to progress their story. Essentially adding another difficulty modifier for yourself The variety is not really there - the…

Insanely addictive. Feels like a love-child between Hades and Against The Storm. If you like either or both you should definitely buy it - even at full price!

It' a game that has a decent start and momentum to it, but hortly after turns into a mundane grinding session. The RNG and roguelike elements aren't enough to spice things up or pose a real challenge. You've completed one loop - you've seen everything the game has to offer, and there begins a seemingly endless, absolutelt pointless slog. It's bizzare, in a way, just how nothing about the game leaves a strong enough impression. The soundtrack is unremarkable, art direction is generic and writing feels both immature and bland. You don't really even need some kind of plot to hold the game together, yet the game insisted upon it, and to what end, I'm not sure of, because the plot has no relevancy to the gameplay whatsoever. Nothing about it felt like a 'scandic epoch city builder' game to me, even though aesthetically, the devs tried to mash all the viking buttons while staying inclusive and sunshine-daisies friendly. So much so nothing stands out. While I can't outright say I've regretted playing it, but there's nothing interesting the game has to offer, so I can't recommend it.

really fun game

City builder with deckbuilding. There is not much that sells the idea why it is good to play this, so it became pretty boring really fast.