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A closer look at the deck-building hack-and-slash success,

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Book of Demons is an unlikely marriage of hack-and-slash and deck-building mechanics. Polish studio Thing Trunk was able to not just make it work, bu
Book of Demons is an unlikely marriage of hack-and-slash and deck-building mechanics. But despite this unusual combination, Polish studio Thing Trunk was able to not just make it work, but make it an indie Steam success.
This is the first game for the six-person studio, but its individual members have been around the game dev block, working on match-3 and hidden object games. Book of Demons pushed their skills in new directions.
In an email interview, studio co-founder and producer Maciej Biedrzycki filled us in on Book of Demons’ inspiration and design.
Make sure to check out the video above if you’re unfamiliar with Book of Demons’ unique gameplay.
Book of Demons is our tribute to Diablo, and most of all we wanted to capture some of its amazing atmosphere. It’s all dark and gloomy, the action takes place in a distant, almost abandoned village away from the busy capital and crowded routes. There’s literally no one else other than you to save the world from the evil that wakes up deep underground. It’s an awesome simple story about the battle of good and evil and we wanted it to stay this way.
When it comes to game mechanics, however, we wanted to take a different tack, to experiment with new styles of gameplay. Our goal was to simplify the game and make it much easier and faster to play. The original 1996 Diablo also introduced many simplifications as the CRPG games of that time were often complex and slow to play. Our different take on the now overused standard hack-and-slash mechanics is also a kind of tribute to the times when developers weren’t afraid to experiment and make their games unique.
Technically, the [roguelike] mode in Book of Demons should probably be called “roguelite,” as there are obviously some deviations from the classic formula. When we first launched the game, it had only one “normal” mode, but during the Early Access we quickly realized that we can’t satisfy all kinds of gamers without giving them some kind of choice at the beginning.

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