Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale leaves Steam Early Access and brings a new competitor to the ever-growing genre of deck-building roguelikes. The game revolves around 3x3 grids of items and enemies, wrapped in a delightfully strange cartoon presentation. A sequel to the popular mobile app Meteorfall: Journey, Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale evolves and expands upon the gameplay from its predecessor to create a quirky, whimsical, and satisfyingly deep take on the card-battling genre.
The titular Krumit, a mysterious shopkeeper, never leaves players' sides as he narrates their adventure and decisions while holding up boxes of 3x3 grids. These grids hold tiles that not only represent enemies, but potential weapons, armor, and abilities. Many hallmarks of both the roguelike and deck-building genres are present: each level sees increasingly powerful enemies and bosses, and dying ends a run but yields experience to add new items to subsequent runs. Enemies can be given statuses such poisoning and freezing, and some have special abilities and armor. All of these mechanics were mostly established by the excellent Slay The Spire, which paved the way for modern deck-building games like Pirates: Outlaws, and its influence on Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale is apparent as well.
Where Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale makes an innovative departure from other games is its grid-based system. Items and enemies share the same space, and each tile has gravity, meaning that when a tile is removed the tiles above it will drop down. Some items and enemies affect the tiles around them, creating an extra layer of strategy where the order of operations can be vital in making sure a buff is as effective as possible and an enemy ability is nullified. Thinking a few steps ahead can change the entire outcome of a dungeon.
Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale also brings a unique charm to a genre that often prioritizes gameplay. Krumit will giddily encourage every move and hum to himself as players travel between dungeons. The art style is reminiscent of indie comic books and shows like Adventure Time. Enemies and bosses come with witty blurbs of flavor text that add some humor without being annoying or overbearing. While the game is very different from its mobile predecessor, the tone of the Meteorfall universe has carried over to create a strange but whimsical fairy tale world.
While Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale was designed for computers, elements of its mobile origins are still present. The entire game takes place directly in front of Krumit, which limits the sense of exploration. It's not as deep as other games in both the deck-building and roguelike genres, but at $15 it's well worth the price. Developer Slothwerks has confirmed the game will come to mobile platforms eventually, too, where it could be a huge hit. Until then, players can brave the dungeons of Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale on their computers and be confident they've picked up a worthwhile adventure in the process.
Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale left Early Access on Steam on July 23rd, 2020 for MacOS and Windows. Screen Rant was provided a Steam review code for the purposes of this review.