App Army Assemble: Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale - How does the latest entry in the series compare to the previous game?

Meterofall: Krumit's Tale is the latest entry to Slothwerk's Meteorfall universe. It looks to expand on the original by introducing a 3x3 grid system to the gameplay. Our reviewer Catherine recently spent some time with the game and thoroughly enjoyed it. So, we decided to see if our App Army agreed with her thoughts when they had a chance to play it.

Here's what they said:

Having played the previous game, I was familiar with the mechanics and the wacky visuals that come with the genre. You play the role of a strange hero, defeating monsters and buying new equipment to slay said monsters. You can freely buy new pieces of equipment as you have to balance the need to buy a new sword with something else to make your way through the board of bad guys. It’s a fun and addictive game with a lot of replayability. It will take you no time to learn how to play but it can take a while to learn the correct tactics when deciding who to take on and what to buy.

If you have played Meteorfall: Journey, then you know that Slothwerks have got a knack for tight gameplay mechanics and high production values, and Krumit’s Tale is bursting with production value, from the intro sequence of being stared down by the moon on your way to Krumit’s house, to the animated expressions of intense emotion as characters are suspended in mortal combat, everything in Krumit’s Tale bursts with rendered life.

The gameplay is a synthesis between the deck building duels of Journey and the grid-based Roguelites like Card Thief and Maze Machina. Each land has a 3x3 grid which is populated with a deck of your hand/inventory cards and enemies. Once the grid is populated you may acquire the gear/abilities from your personal deck that you can afford, or engage an enemy, a victory will grant you one gold coin, and discarding gear/abilities from the board will grant you one gold coin and two health.

The balance between cashing out or buying up gear to deal with the cue of enemy cards is a fine balancing act which reminds me of Card Crawl. Gear, abilities, heroes and enemies are all from the Meteorfall world and if you’ve played Journey they will be familiar, the level of animation raises these familiar characters to new heights. Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale is a contender for my 2020 GOTY, there are so many game modes and tweaks aside from the already deep base game, I will be playing it for years to come. Slothwerks really jumped the shark with this stellar sequel.

Having played Meteorfall but not really being able to get into it, I had my fingers crossed that Krumit’s Tale would appeal to me more, given my love of roguelikes. The art style is fantastic and really smooth-looking. The audio is lovely too, with lots of satisfying little sound effects when interacting with weapons and enemies. The game is very intuitive - the tutorial is brief but tells you what you need to know. At first, it seems quite simple but it very quickly becomes apparent that there are many different decisions to be made in each run through the game.

A few aspects could be explained a little better, and previous experience with similar games will definitely help. Some of the keywords and ‘cards’ can take a bit of thinking to get your head around. There are some interesting new mechanics here and a good variety of weapons, items and enemies. I would recommend the game to fans of roguelikes and I will certainly be exploring the game more in the coming weeks.

I loved the first game, was excited about the sequel, and it didn't disappoint! The art style and sound effects immediately catch your eye (you can turn down how often Krumit talks to you if you want, although I haven’t felt the need to). And the change in gameplay has made it exciting to learn new strategies and card combinations.

You play on a 3x3 grid occupied by enemies, items, and abilities. As you defeat enemies or buy items/abilities new cards fall onto the grid to replace them. You must balance your health with your need to defeat enemies for coins to buy items. After each dungeon, you get to choose a new card and new perk and then spend what you have earned to buy new cards from the shop and discard old ones from your inventory.

I have already come up with some great perk and ability combinations, but like any roguelike, you cannot always count on the same pairing coming up. This has made every run different so far and I am loving it. The runs seem longer than in the first game to me and more complex. Overall, I am loving Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale and I think anyone who likes card games or Roguelikes will too!

Got the game without any prior knowledge to the first one. I loved it. Its got an easily lovable art style. It gives the impression that it must have been drawn freehand because there aren't any noticeable straight lines. Got confused a bit with the explanation part but immediately got the grip of the game afterwards. I enjoyed unlocking the other characters and thinking this one's gonna be my favourite, only to adore the playstyle of the next.

As a casual player, I eventually realized that the game gets significantly harder to beat and that it needs a deeper strategy than just a basic one-two punch kind of style. I liked the mechanics of the daily challenge a lot, and if I weren't busy trying to unlock the other characters, I would've probably stayed longer there.

Krumit's Tale is the second instalment after Meteorfall, and we see a few of the characters coming back. It is not just "Meteorfall Part 2," and the developers did an excellent job in giving the game a completely different and appealing look. While playing, you get a board-game-like feel, and it is not limited to the "swipe left/right" of the first instalment. The tutorial is straightforward, easy to follow, and not too long. Still, it gives a good idea of the game's feel (not too easy, not too complicated).

To be very nitpicky, the only thing I found a little frustrating is recovering health, as you have to sell equipment to gain health. At the same time, it is not a deal-breaker for me. If you liked “Meteorfall,” the second instalment will not disappoint you, as it offers old characters in a new game mechanics. It feels like going back to visit old friends.

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I started this game choosing my character (there’s only one choice at the beginning but there’s more to unlock further down the road), and suddenly the old man starts talking and calls my name over and over (Bruno). For a moment there I was like, did they get my name from Game Center? And they recorded a lot of known names for the game with the old man's voice? And then I woke up and laughed at the coincidence.

Anyway, great voice work for the old man that tells us what to do at the beginning of the game. This is a roguelike, a dungeon crawler with cards, and one of the best I’ve seen for sure. I even like this one more than their first game with the swipe left-right mechanic. More or less the same characters with more animations and a lot more items to choose from.

You have a grid filled with cards that allow you to freely explore the dungeon, you can choose which cards to activate if you have enough gold or attack monsters. You’ll take some powerups with you, and you can take a maximum of 4 cards that will help you with your battles. This cards can be weapons, armour, potions, special powers, etc.

You can remove cards from the grid to gain life points and gold, so this is a very strategic game, where you’ll have to ponder which cards to buy, which ones to discard so you can kill all the monsters in that dungeon and go to the next. You can win gems to buy powerups and weapons that will carry on for your next adventures when you die (all the other items you will lose). This is a great pick up and play type game, one of those that you will keep coming back as it is so much fun and addicting.

Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale is a card-based roguelike dungeon crawler of sorts with a great comic/cartoony style. There are a decent but fairly brief tutorial and decent tips along the way. You start by choosing a character class but only 1 choice is available at the start with 4 or 5 others opening up as you play. A grid of cards is dealt with different boosts or effects along with several enemies of varying strength.

You can discard less needed items and obtain health or money in return. You can select up to 4 other cards to use in battles. After tapping on an enemy a battle can be started. In turn-based fashion, your character dukes it out and uses abilities as they become available until you are victorious or defeated.

The animations are pretty entertaining and everything has a great, cohesive look. I have died 4 times and only want to try again and again to unlock more cards and perks (bonuses you can choose after victories). I recently started a game with a magic-user for the first time and the gameplay felt very different from the initial warrior like class I started with.

The game works well as a quick pick up and play type game, which is a plus in my book. If the dev is consistent I expect great updates to the game as well. With great art style, animations, and sound design and a nice amount of depth and variety Krumit's Tale is a worthy purchase and comes highly recommended.

Krumit’s Tale has the same fun look as the first Meteorfall, but with some different mechanics. I like it... I like the variety of weapons and defences you can bring. At the same time, although neither is necessarily better, I preferred the swipe left or right action of the first one. I think they could have stuck with that, but it’s not a deal-breaker. And like I said, I like that variety of weapons and defences, but more often than not I found myself selling them in order to restore health before a battle, and for the most part, just making generic attacks.

I like having a set of monsters to take on for each level. That’s something that I felt was missing on the first game. Overall, there’s a lot to this game that I liked about the first one. There are differences and similarities that overall make it a positive experience that’ll keep me playing. And I’d say that if you enjoyed the first Meteorfall, you’ll be happy with this.

I come to Krumit’s Tale via Arnold Rauers’s Card Crawl (and two subsequent follow on games), but I have not played the original Meteorfall. So I am familiar with rogue-like card games, but I’m also used to a bit more handholding in the beginning than you get here.

Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale throws you directly into the action, perhaps making a bit too much assumption about you having played the first game. There is a tutorial, but it’s very minimal. It’s quite easy to miss the nuances and feel rushed.

Still, it doesn’t take much more than a few losses to get the hang of things and figure out what’s going on. I didn’t clue in until the fourth dungeon that I was winning gems for finishing dungeons, that I could be spending on better weapons and buffs in the in-game store, which then shows up in my future dungeon decks. The early equipment you get at the beginning is quite useless, so throwing your gems immediately into upgrades is a necessity!

Fortunately, this is a premium game, so there’s no real currency being spent, just time and grind. And the grind is enjoyable. This is definitely a cute, addictive, ‘just one more run’ type of game. It reminds me of 10000000 ("Ten million") in that way, and beating the dungeons here are easy as much of a puzzle as a brute force thing. Recommended!

I really enjoyed the art style of the first game and its not lost it charm here. The animations are nice and the look just fits well with this game. There is a little bit more to do in this instalment with the introduction of a game board layout for each level giving players a more strategic approach. For me personally, I prefer this to the swipe left/right mechanics of the first. Its definitely no Slay the spire but for a quick play session, it all works fine.

I did find it strange that for at least the first few rounds the items are pretty pointless and the player is much better just selling them all for health and coins and using brute force to tackle any foes.
There are some interesting progression items that should keep me coming back for more, but once I have unlocked those I am not sure the gameplay loop is addictive enough for me to continue playing.

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