PREVIEW: Tower of Arcana

Tower of Arcana is a card-based dungeon crawler crossed with an action RPG. It’s A Bit Too Early In Its Development To Tell If It’ll Turn Out Good Or Not.

Intro

Tower of Arcana has a pretty interesting premise. It combines a dungeon-crawling action RPG with a card-based game. If this sounds like your kind of game, do read on for more information. Keep in mind that it’s still very early development so there isn’t a lot to the game just yet.

Hub World

When you start a new game you’ll be taken to the hub world (After selecting the only class in the game, Mage) which has two stores (An item and card shop), and the entrance to the “dungeons”.

The item shop only has one item, a starter book which changes up the cards that you can bring with you and increases your health by 20 points. The book also costs all of your starting money, so I recommend getting this only if you’re unhappy with your starting card layout.

On the other hand, the card shop allows you to purchase more attack cards, and heal yourself. You start with only 300 gold though and the cards can also be fairly pricey but I found that it’s often better to have more skills than not, so I usually buy two cheaper ability cards.

It’s also recommended that you equip your starting attack cards as well, because you won’t be able to utilize them in the dungeon without doing so. You start with only a few cards, and they’re mostly elemental attacks utilizing fire, grass or ice. You can get other elements like light, or darkness, if you’re lucky in the dungeon.

Once you’re ready, it’s off to the dungeon.

Dungeon Crawling, of a Sort.

The entrance to the dungeon isn’t an entrance exactly, at least not yet anyway. When you get close to an altar, 3 floating orbs appear which allows you to choose which enemies you wish to face in an arena. Enemies are currently represented by their element, such as fire and how many there are. Other details have yet to be added but again, this is very early development so, I expected this.

Once you choose an orb, you’ll be teleported to an arena where you will face some pretty challenging enemies. The game is currently balanced in the enemy’s favor with your attacks doing little damage while the enemies can move faster and attack quicker. This is likely due to the shortness of the game and will more than likely change as more is added to the game.

After you defeat all the enemy waves, you’ll be able to pick up any loot they may have dropped, usually gold, items or cards. I recommend equipping them posthaste so you can use them in your next battle. You don’t heal after a battle is completed either, so you have to not only be nimble but also accurate in your attacks. You have the ability to teleport forward a short distance but the controls are a little clunky currently, so I found myself accidentally teleporting into enemy attacks.

Card usage is instant but some of them have a short cooldown before you can use the next card in the list. Usage is also tied to your mana pool, to refill it you can use regular attacks, or pick up blue orbs in the battlefield that enemies drop. Teleporting also drops your mana amount by 1 and you need to teleport frequently to stay away from enemies.

If you happen to die during a level, it’s game over and you have to start from floor 1 and with default cards again. You also lose any items and cards that you may have collected during your run as well.

Verdict

Overall, Tower of Arcana has a pretty cool idea behind it but it’s a bit too early in its development to really tell if it’ll turn out to be good or bad. So, I won’t give it a score for this preview. I will say that I’m looking forward to seeing where the game will go development-wise and I wish the developers luck in getting it to the eventual finish line. Until next time!