↓↑journey

Written by Satamer

Handmancers assemble like origami! Time to rock out! And cut out the competition!

Handmancers is a deck-builder roguelite in a similar vein to games such as Slay the Spire, albeit with a Fire Emblem-esque Rock-Paper-Scissors fight system.

Its central premise, told in a suitably over-the-top fashion, is that ‘Mother’ has stolen the crystals which created peace between the three tribes of Rock, Paper and Scissors.

Now it’s up to you, the chosen hero of one of these three tribes, to start off on an adventure to defeat Mother and take back the crystals.

Choose Your Fighter!

Not much story past this initial set up, outside of a couple of lore drops, but then, you wouldn’t really expect it in this genre.

At first, you’re only given the option of starting as Kress, Sharp One, of the Scissors tribe, but you’ll be able to unlock her counterparts from the Rock and Paper tribes soon after.

Each character has a different set of decks, made up of a different number of Rock, Paper and Scissor cards, as well as a special artefact exclusive to them.

These artefacts can provide bonuses such as increasing your shield or doing damage after so many actions.

Deck of Ten

The cards provided in each deck have a few scattered upgrades to them to begin with; however, you’ll want to upgrade them as quickly as possible.

Unlike with most other deck builders, you don’t gain new cards over the course of your adventure – you start with 10 and end with 10.

Cards can be moved from one category to another a handful of times in a playthrough, allowing for a bit of customisation, but overall you’ll find yourself with more cards of the category favoured by your hero than the others.

This would be fine if you could affect what the enemy attacked you with, but sometimes I’ve lost a run because I have no Paper cards, and the enemy wants to attack with just Rock cards.

Another way to affect the enemy’s cards, outside of Cramps (more on these later), would be great.

Time To Work Out With Gems

Instead, each card has three gem slots, one green, one blue and one specific to their category. These can offer a variety of effects, from dealing out stuns to healing you.

A nice addition is that each gem will affect how your card looks in some way, so you can remember what each effect looks like rather than having to read them each time.

There are some synergy options here, with combos such as gaining shield and healing when you gain shield; however, don’t expect anything game-breaking.

The closest I’ve had is a gem which deals damage equal to the amount of shield you have, but even then, we’re not talking mad combos.

An Ancient Artefact

Alongside the gems are artefacts that offer passive bonuses to your run. These, alongside the gems, can be picked up after defeating enemies.

While you technically can only have a finite number of these, I never found myself at the point of running out of space – maybe the game increases in complexity as the game nears its 1.0 release.

These artefacts can offer some great bonuses, including one which offers a free revive, something I would encourage anyone to use.

There are also 8 Cursed Artefacts, which offer negative effects such as higher enemy health. They do give you an extra choice to pick from in the list of artefacts, but I found the game challenging enough to play without adding these.

An Attack Plan

An average battle goes as follows: the enemy provides a selection of attacks for you to counter, based on the attack triangle of Rock beating Scissors, Scissors beating Paper and Paper beating Rock.

If you choose the correct counter, then your attack goes through; if you choose the same category as the enemy’s attack, you parry, and if you choose the wrong one, then you get attacked.

Parrying is essential for survival as it negates all damage from the attack, preventing you from getting overwhelmed, but still allowing gems and artefacts to activate.

Ow!

If you don’t have the cards you want in your hand, then you can Sprint to refresh your hand.

However, do this when you still have cards in your hand, and you won’t get a Perfect Sprint, causing you to gain a Cramp in your hand.

These Cramps will make you automatically lose a fight, unless they go against an enemy’s Cramp, and will take up valuable slots in your hand.

To get rid of them, you can either utilize certain gems or use them to attack and tank the damage, so there’s a nice bit of risk and reward there.

However, don’t use them at all, and soon you might have a handful of Cramps and an IRL headache.

Enemy Attacks

One element of strategy that you’ll want to be aware of is the variety of enemy attacks and debuffs.

Make sure to read the little boxes below the enemies’ names as they’ll provide essential information on what the enemy can do, from preventing parries to reversing the attack triangle.

This is especially true for the bosses, which can really change how you play the game.

For example, The Mimic takes your previous turn’s cards and uses them as their next attack, but without telling you, requiring a firm memory or a piece of paper to keep track.

Graphics

In terms of art style, this is a Unity-based game, so expect bold colours and simple polygons; however, all of the enemies and cards do have a nice charm to them.

For example, there’s an undead enemy which is a tombstone for someone called R.P.S. The corresponding letter lights up when that move is played in the game, adding some nice feedback to the gameplay.

Given this is in Early Access, I’m hoping even more can be done in this area to make the battles feel alive, as they do quickly become very similar, as with most deck builder games, as you wait to see if your turn has caused victory or defeat.

The music, too, while it started really atmospheric and appropriate for the game, quickly became repetitive, and I ended up muting it. A few more tracks would be a lovely addition.

There is an option to increase the game speed, and I would do this, just to make some of the earlier game quicker, as you quickly enter a flow state, causing a bottleneck when you have to wait for the same animations to happen again and again.

Flow State

This flow state is the best compliment I can give the game. You’ll finish a battle or even a full run and want to jump in again to see what you could do differently, so the core roguelite experience is there.

The metagame elements of upgrading is a bit simplistic and basically devolves into grinding until you have done enough battles to gain the resources needed to unlock more artifact/gem options.

I would have liked a few upgrades to come out of defeating certain enemies or doing certain things to allow for a sense of accomplishment that isn’t just ‘how many times have I played the game’.

Closing Thoughts:

Overall, Handmancers is a classic deck builder rogue-lite. It’s got a strong base and fundamentals, as well as room to grow.

It took me about six hours to beat the game the first time, although I am feeling the urge to jump back in and see if I can beat it with the other two characters as well.

It won’t convert many people on the fence, but if you like deck builder rogue-lites and want to try a new one, or are interested in getting into the genre, I can recommend Handmancers.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t Cramp up during development.

Code provided by publisher.