What exactly are you playing here, though? There’s two main components to Hand of Fate that you assemble prior to starting a game: the Equipment deck, into which you can insert various helpful items that you’ll have a chance of picking up on your travels, and the Encounter deck, which is what drives the adventures you’ll have and the monsters you’ll fight on your travels. Exactly who he is - or who you are - is never outright stated, but the things he says hints towards this being a Seventh Seal-type scenario: you are dead, or close to it, and you’re playing against him for your life.

You assume the role of a nameless warrior sat across the table from a dungeon master who is responsible for dealing the cards, seeding the deck with nasty surprises, and providing a constantly cynical commentary on your actions in a very Treguard-like manner. With the recent surge in popularity for both the virtual card game and roguelike genres, the only really surprising thing about Hand of Fate is that it’s taken this long for somebody to come up with the idea of fusing the two together.īut then it’s the obvious ideas that are often the most difficult to think of, and while Hand of Fate’s deck builder crossed with a RPG is seemingly obvious – it’s been done to a somewhat more limited degree in the Thunderstone card game, for example - there are certain elements of it that are outright inspired, first and foremost of which is humanising the RNG that draws the cards.

Hand of fate 2 physical