The Gollop Chamber: Rise of the roguelike deck builder

Apr 7
02:00

2022

Nancy Whitman

Nancy Whitman

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Most gamers know Julian Gollop as one of the best game designers with games like Chaos and X-COM to his name. As someone who has spent more than three decades in the games industry, he touches a lot on games history and design, which is always fascinating to watch. Continuing in his reputation for creating quality games that are assured to give gamers quality fun time and experience, Gollop has introduced the roguelike dock builder. Surely, the game promises a handful of experiences, and this article reviews all of them. So, do not blink as we go through this exciting journey.

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Most gamers know Julian Gollop as one of the best game designers with games like Chaos and X-COM to his name. As someone who has spent more than three decades in the games industry,The Gollop Chamber: Rise of the roguelike deck builder Articles he touches a lot on games history and design, which is always fascinating to watch. Continuing in his reputation for creating quality games that are assured to give gamers quality fun time and experience, Gollop has introduced the roguelike dock builder. Surely, the game promises a handful of experiences, and this article reviews all of them. So, do not blink as we go through this exciting journey. 

 

The evolution of game designs has taken several dimensions, and there's something completely new in the block today. 

 

At first, we witnessed this innovation mostly with board games, but it looks like the bug has spread towards video games. Say hello to a new videogame sub-genre known as the roguelike deck builder. But what exactly are deck-building games? Well, we're not talking about games like Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone. This is not a deck-building game because those games focus on building decks as part of the gameplay. However, in Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, they are just games that you build decks. 

 

A significant feature of deck-building games is that they start simple and increasingly become complex as the game progresses. The player's job is to develop strategies for cards that would be a part of the deck and those that won't. Every deck choice counts.

 

Deckbuilding games to check out

  • Dominion - This was one of the games that introduced a lot of gamers to the world of deck builders. Released in 2008, this card/board game involves every player starting with a deck of ten cards. These cards include both victory point cards and money cards. As soon as a player doesn't have enough cards to draw from, the discarded cards are shuffled, and we have a fresh draw deck. 

 

  • Ascension: Deckbuilding Game – One of the most successful iOS/Android adaptations of an original board game. While it's a relatively simple version of the original game, it didn't exactly get everyone in the videogame world fascinated.

 

  • Dream Quest: First, this was an iOS app, but today, it's available on Steam and features some of the most innovative uses of deck-building mechanics that we'll ever see in video games. Created by Peter Whalen, there are some basic graphics, but the roguelike mechanics with deck building is quite fascinating. The deck-building helps you deal with various kinds of enemies. Despite high praise from the designer of Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield, this deck builder game hasn't risen so much in popularity as it should.

 

  • Slay the Spire: This game is doing quite well with exploration focused on paths that contain monsters and several special encounters. Your progressive journey to the final level is asymmetric through a combat system. You can play multiple cards in a combat round with various special effects, blocks, and attacks. You can also plan your reactions to monsters as you get to see each action per turn in advance. 

 

Conclusion 

Roguelike deck builder games are here to stay, and it is always interesting to see how the videogames evolve with deck-building mechanics. Indeed you want to try your hands out on these games if you are a true gamer. The few that have been mentioned in this article will give you your money's worth. Do well to check them out.