Talespinner, a deck-building roguelite taking place in the weird and bizarre world of Japanese mythology, has just been announced by Flash Cat Games. In it, players are a mysterious storyteller visited by mythological gods that want to experience an incredible story. Each god will have expectations for the type of story they want. If you fulfill their expectations they will might reward you, but if you don't they will become angry, and angered gods are no bueno.
The player will be able to choose from three unique heroes and construct decks to create powerful synergies. Throughout the game, the storyteller will gain favors that will enhance each playthrough, and you'll be able to level up your hero cards by meeting the unique requirements for each. You'll be able to shape the narrative to your own playstyle, so it's up to you to spin the tale that you want.
As players progress through the game they'll travel through places like bamboo forests, mysterious caves, windy plains, haunted villages, temples, and more. Each biome will offer different events and unique opponents called yokai, which have their own unique set of skills that can either be dealt with through combat or through making allies of them.
What else can I expect from Talespinner?
Talespinner won't be launching on Steam's Early Access program. Instead, Flash Cat Games wants to release a demo at some point in the future. As for inspirations, Slay the Spire is the granddaddy of the deckbuilding genre and is a major influence, but another influence is the board game Aeon's End, which has the player telling stories the whole game. The different biomes was inspired by Dead Cells, as players will be traveling through them towards one goal, which is similar to what will occur in Talespinner.
Each story will have 5 chapters and each chapter is crafted by the player using their deck of cards. Players can choose encounters, biomes, events, bosses, biome effects to craft their story, and in doing so they use Story Points for each story alteration. When the player is out of Story Points more difficult events are now forced to be played and the enemies will gain Story Points of his own.
We were able to ask the developer how Talespinner's distinctive art style came to be:
Establishing the art style for Talespinner was quite a challenge for sure. In the beginning we were aiming for one thing in particular - we really wanted this traditional Japanese art style to be noticeable at first glance. At the same time we also wanted to avoid making the visuals too rough and heavy, because at the end of the day it's a video game and we - as gamers ourselves - want to feast our eyes with appealing contrasts and vivid colours. Striking a balance between the old-looking ink-scratched papyrus and the vibrant graphics of the video game took us some time. At one point we even had to start from scratch and rework everything, but the warm reception of the results we've received thus far made it all seem totally worth it in the end.
Talespinner is due to launch in Q1 2023 for the Nintendo Switch and PC. For more information in the lead-up to its launch, be sure to check out the main website, add it to your wishlist on Steam, and stay tuned to TechRaptor.
Thanks for answering our questions, Robert Lukaszewski of Flash Cat Games.
What do you think of this announcement? Are you sick and tired of deckbuilders? What's your favorite deckbuilder besides Slay the Spire? Let us know in the comments!
