Griftlands has sweet-talked its way onto Steam
It's a lot bigger than it was
Klei Entertainment's fast-talking, hard-stabbing Griftlands is now available on Steam too, after almost a year exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Griftlands is a roguelikelike deckbuilding RPG about mercenaries on a backwater alien planet. You'll take quests, build friendships and rivalries, and settle differences with separate decks you build for speech and combat. It is: pretty neat. It also has: a demo.
Griftlands does have proper story campaigns underpinning each run but you might get different quests, stumble into new encounters, build different relationships, and end up with quite different decks.
Our boy Brendy liked Griftlands when it first entered early access in July 2019, though it was a bit light on content at the time. Klei have added a lot since then. Brendy was quite taken with how random encounters can build into little story arcs, with relationships developing and degenerating as characters pop back up:
"I like this sense of consequence, and the mingling with degenerates. At the end of an in-game day, you get to rest up and see who likes you and who wants to shiv you in an alley. The next day you might be asked to intercept a hostage transport, only to find one of the guards you’ve been hired to ambush is your old pal Yunni. But even then you might be able to leverage your friendship and convince her to hand the prisoner over."
Griftlands is still in early access, mind. Klei say they expect the full launch to follow in 6-12 months, though of course that might change. Plans for the full version include a third character and campaign, more "quest variation", more cards, and improved balance. Klei have a great early access record, taking games like Don't Starve, Oxygen Not Included, and Invisible Inc through it to cracking launches.
You can now get Griftlands on Steam for £9.68/€10.61/$12.74, which includes a 15% discount running until July 9th. The link to download the demo, which has the first of Sal's five days, is hidden in the cruft of the right sidebar there. A 15% discount is on Epic too. The Steam launch was officially meant to happen today, but there's no law here so Klei slammed it out last night, the rebels.