Rift Wizard, a combat puzzle / build optimization roguelike

Games
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Rift Wizard is a tactical combat roguelike with an interesting character build system, that just got its real Steam release.

Here’s how it works:

The game has only magic, the player can’t do melee combat at all. There are also no classes, and not stats other than the HP. There’s probably about 125-150 spells in the game, all of which have 3-7 upgrades, plus the ability to slot in a single modifier to each spell (“shrine”) from a global pool of modifiers for that single type of spell. And then there’s about 50 skills in the game, which usually modify the behavior of all spells of some category. You can mix and match these however you want, the only restriction are your in-game resources.

The goal is, of course, to use all of these options to build a set of spells and skills that synergizes well, and can win the battles you’re expecting to fight. Given you’ve always got all the spells available, why doesn’t this just mean you play the same game every time?

Two reasons, and both tie into how the choice for which encounters to play happens. After each level, you get to choose from 2-4 options which level to attempt next. You’re told exactly what the map layout is, what monsters will be there and at what locations, and every single reward that you’ll get for clearing the level. The main reward for winning each dungeon level will is the opportunity to buy spells, upgrades and skills of a certain category at a discount. It’s pretty significant, so you’ll want to take advantage of that rather than just playing the exact same build order every time.

Second, knowing exactly which fight you’re having next has a major impact. I was constantly having to think about whether to change my plans based on what the next fight would be, or hope for the best. So for example maybe I was hoping to save for some big ticket item, or saving my money until the right discount showed up, but now there’s some monsters or a map that I just can’t win. Decisions about pushing your luck is way more interesting when you’re not just gambling over what the random draw will be, but over your own skills at reading the game.

After putting in about 20 hours over the weekend, I’m really happy with Rift Wizard. I’ve not won yet even once (there are 25 levels, my best runs were to levels 18 and 20), so I can’t be sure of how many viable approaches there are. But at least so far it feels really solid and well-thought out.

Worth a look, if you like this kind of optimization.

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This one looks really interesting, but I personally wish there were fewer options at any one time.

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It’s overwhelming at first, but as easily confused as I am, it felt really quite intuitive before long when I played it a bit.

Hot damn, that’s some serious gaming!

4

I played one round, got really confused, died pretty quickly.

But I do wanna play more…

5

That would make sense if he were making a more guided experience. But, really, it’s a toybox. It’s meant to be wide-open. I’d say that’s a big part of its appeal.

That said, with only a single point to spend for one of six spells, you don’t have many options at the outset. From there, the gameplay kind of naturally focuses how you spend your points based on which level you choose next. What enemies will you face, is there a bonus circle, is there a shrine? These should give you a lot of guidance for how you develop your character. But, yes, it can be dizzying at first!

-Tom

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Here’s 5 hours of Rift Wizard being played by the developer of Cogmind.

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He played it a lot on stream (that is how I learned the game existed), but I wouldn’t watch that: it only made me want to make those decisions and not “watch” someone think!

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Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem with talking about this game :) I definitely don’t yet want to know the builds other people are using, since figuring them out is more than half the fun.

I got my first win last night, with the core of the build being a spell I had never before even noticed in the list, and one that I’d ignored since it didn’t look good but actually had an upgrade work different than I’d expected from the name. So what I really want is a manual with all the spells, skills and upgrades that I could read through in order and scribble in.

A couple of questions:

  • There’s some enemies that give you debuffs. E.g. the Idol of the Foolish that reduces your spell range. How long do those debuffs last? There’s nothing in the help text, but them being permanent seems pretty harsh.
  • I think none of your minions will ever hit Ghosts, but that doesn’t seem to be tied to any kind of attribute of those units. What’s up with that?
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Are the minions doing physical damage? Ghosts are immune.

What was the core spell?

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For debuffs without durations, it was my understanding that they lasted until you destroyed them, but I have no idea why I thought that or if that was really informed, or if it even changed in the 2 months I haven’t played the game.

11

Death Shock seems quite good.

12

D’oh, shoudl have realized that :-)

Cantrip Cascade, which fires all your level 1 sourcery spells at all targets in a cone.

I’d invested a lot in two cantrips early on: Lightning Bolt and Icicle, and also had less boosted Magic Missile and Death Bolt just for making efficient use of the spell charges. The base damage from all those spells alone fired at every unit in a cone would be considerable. But on top of that you get silly amounts of interlocking AOE when firing it into a crowd. The denser, the better.

I eventually boosted this with a +70% spell range upgrade, and then I could just enter an open level and just kill every monster with 2-3 shots.

I think there should be a secondary combo here with Soul Battery, the Death Bolt upgrade that makes it level up in damage for each kill. I’ve previously run pretty one-dimensional Soul Battery builds to level 20. Can’t imagine how much easier it’d be to boost up with Cantrip Cascade, and how short work it’d do of anything except completely death-immune mixes of monsters.

Pillar of Fire which is a high fire-damage AOE spell that can be targeted through walls without line of sight. This one hides a pretty important detail from the description text.

The damage is decent, but you get so few charges of the spell that it’s just not efficient. But the Channelling upgrade has no turn limit unlike the other forms of Channeling. On maps with any kind of defensible bottleneck, a single shot of this should basically allow you to clear out the entire level except for the gate spawns. And setting up the bottleneck is easier and safer than normal since you don’t even need line of sight.

13

Yeah, in watching the game the channeling spells seem neat.

14

Is there any way to look at the specifics of a spell’s upgrades without buying the spell?

-Tom

15

If you look at the spell list and then mouse over a spell, is that not doing it? Under where it says “Upgrades?”

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Oh, the SPECIFICS. I think probably not.

17

I wondered about this as well. When you select a spell, don’t the possible upgrades appear on the far right panel (there’s some screen where they do, but it might be after you own it). I wondered if you could mouse over those.

18

The upgrades list appears on the right panel when you mouse over a spell. So, naturally, you can’t also mouse over the upgrades, because then you’re not mousing over the spell anymore. And clicking on the spell takes you to the selection confirmation, at which point all the spell information vanishes.

The developer mostly has a very good handle on how to collect, present, and arrange all the information you need to play. Which is quite an accomplishment given everything going on here. But there are a couple of conspicuous exceptions, and the lack of available info about spell upgrades is the main one. I also wish there was some way to check the beastiary* from within the game. Right now, you can only see it from the main menu.

-Tom

* I’m apparently the only person in the world who knows how to spell and pronounce this word correctly

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Not the only, just the beast.