Hand of Fate

Hand of Fate for PC, PS4 and etc. is a unique hybrid of card, board and RPG games set in a fantasy world. It is an independent project made by an Australian studio of Defiant Development, which gathered resources required for production through the campaign on Kickstarter.

Plot

Hand of Fate takes us to a fantasy world inspired by tarot cards, with hero’s main objective being to defeat twelve members of the council (represented by three most important figures – King, Queen and Jack – in four colors), who are between him and the final challenge that will let him be triumphant.

Game mechanics

Hand of Fate for PC, PS4 and etc. is a result of the developers’ love of board games, classic (“paper”) RPGs and roguelike titles, so the gameplay is focused on exploring dungeons, fighting monsters and collecting treasures. However, the form, in which the adventures are presented, is slightly different. The base of the gameplay is a table that serves as a board for a card game, with players on one side of the table and the dealer on the other.

We explore locations by moving the pawn that represents the protagonist on the table and thus revealing more and more cards, which depict enemies, non-playable characters, various places and other elements that constitute the adventure. Playing cards happens in text form, as we choose dialogue options that correspond to certain actions. This changes the moment, when we encounter enemy. Then, the game takes us to a three-dimensional environment and we can control the hero like in any other action-RPG title, observing them from third-person perspective (TPP).

As befits any card game, Hand of Fate also lets us build our own deck, consisting of part of equipment (e.g. weapons, armors, and artifacts), special attacks and other bonuses gained during our journey. Our deck isn’t fixed though – The Dealer mixes it with encounter cards (which depict various adventures), meaning that every game can be different, as we don’t know when we will get artifacts and what will we have when we encounter each threat.

Technical aspects

PC, PS4 and etc.’s version of Hand of Fate isn’t a production with a multimillion budget, meaning that three-dimensional visuals definitely aren’t astounding. Nonetheless, the aesthetic side of the game still looks quite well, making it easier to ignore the lack of visual fireworks.

Last updated on 01 April 2014