Goblin Card RPG: Tower Trials puts a goblin up 100 floors
A lot of stairs for one goblin
- Build your deck as you climb
- Choose from five distinct archetypes
- Six difficulty tiers test your runs
Fantasy roguelike deckbuilder. I've typed those three words, in that order, more times than I can count, and nothing about the latest release suggests I'm stopping any time soon. Personally, I'm not really a fan of them, but it's popular for a reason, and I can definitely see its appeal. Goblin Card RPG: Tower Trials, the latest to wear the label, is a solo-developed one with pre-orders now open on iOS.
You play as Nibs, a goblin scavenger climbing a dwarven tower 100 floors tall, because something at the top has promised to change what you are. Could be anything. I'd settle for taller. For reference, London's Shard has 95 storeys and 36 lifts, and I'm fairly sure Nibs is taking the stairs.
Your deck gets built floor by floor from five archetypes. Miner deals in pickaxe damage and Vulnerable, Tinker throws bombs around for area damage, Brewer does poison and sustain, Runes is card draw and burst turns, and Wall is block and thorns.
Fights are turn-based, with permadeath, relics and potions, and a stat-upgrade shop between floors. Metaprogression carries over between runs, so even a climb that falls apart early leaves the next one a little stronger.
By the sound of it, every floor has its own boss on top of the usual mobs and elite guardians, which is a lot of tower for one developer to fill. Difficulty spans six tiers, with Normal at the bottom and Impossible at the top.
Goblin Card RPG: Tower Trials is free-to-play, with a single $1.99 purchase that gets rid of the adverts for good and no pay-to-win on top. Pre-orders are open on the App Store, and an Android version is on the way.
Until Goblin Card RPG: Tower Trials leaves pre-order, our list of the best card battlers on iOS has a few you can play today, no stairs required.
