This week’s Less eXplored game is Trials of Fire. Trials of Fire (ToF) is a narrative-driven, turn-based roguelike with card-based combat. It’s set in a post-cataclysmic world where your party of heroes is tasked with surviving the desolate wastelands in order to make a positive impact on an increasingly bleak world.

In your search of hope through procedurally generated worlds, you find various points of interest that often lead to an opportunity to make decisions in often-morally-grey scenarios. Those decisions lead to many different outcomes, some of which lead to battle and others lead to bountiful rewards.

You’ll need food to survive and will have to rest along the way in order to keep your party at top efficiency. However, you’re not just battling the elements…

You’ll also find yourself fighting a wide variety of enemies in turn-based tactical combat that employs a unique card-combat system. Each turn, you’re dealt a few cards from your deck, but you’ll need the willpower to use those cards. Acquiring willpower comes from the “recycling” of cards. Each card you recycle provides one willpower point. Each card requires various amounts of willpower.

So the tough decisions are made on which cards should be recycled in order to obtain the willpower you’ll need to use cards or even to move your units. Any leftover willpower points accumulated that aren’t used are added to the characters’ armor points, which add a buffer beyond the party member’s health points.

Speaking of party members, you’ll outfit them with various weapons and armor that you’ll accumulate along the way through the various quest markers that you’ll stumble upon. Each of those items come from a variety of rarity types that, when equipped, give your characters new cards based on that item’s rarity type.

For a much better understanding of how the game works, check out this video of me playing the game for a bit. It might just be another game that you’ll want to wishlist!

I’m very interested to hear what you guys think of this promising title. Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep eXploring!