The Royal Writ

The Royal Writ is a deckbuilding strategy game about a king serving sternly worded letters to his rebellious subjects — and marching on their castles. You play cards that advance on the enemy base every turn, gaining power as they go, but if they reach the base, they die. Cards gain both permanent upgrades and persistent ailments over the course of a game, and winning requires upgrading fast enough to keep ahead of these penalties without burning through your whole deck.

Combat takes place on a board composed of up to three horizontal lanes, each made up of 4-6 squares with the enemy base at the end. Units are played at the beginning of a lane. Every turn, units deal damage to the enemy base and then move forward one square (unless the enemy base has been destroyed). If a unit moves onto the enemy base, it is killed.

Damage is calculated each turn by multiplying a damage value by a multiplier, similar to Balatro. Each unit has a base value that adds to either the damage value or the multiplier. Additionally, each column on the map gives a bonus to cards in that column, which grows bigger as you go along. Therefore the strategy involves advancing units fast enough to deal enough damage, but not fast enough to hit the enemy base and be destroyed.

There are several types of special cards you can use. Equipment cards let your units jump over obstacles or avoid death. Food cards can heal ailments or give bonuses, often with a tradeoff. Letter cards add to the damage dealt or allow you to move cards around the battlefield. Additional modifiers include relics that give permanent bonuses and map terrain that can give your cards bonuses but can also inflict them with ailments, such as dealing half damage or losing power every turn.

Out of combat, you travel along a net-shaped node map that ends with a boss fight. Noncombat events include a shop, a wheel of random effects, shady deals that allow you to swap a card for a new card, a dentist who gives you relics in return for decreasing a card’s base value. Notably, both ailments and bonuses are usually permanent, so cards can change drastically over the course of a run, getting both stronger and weaker. Growing your deck stronger without accruing too many ailments is key to the strategy.

The game has two acts, but they aren’t part of the same run. Winning a run of the first act unlocks the ability to play runs of the second act. The second act introduces enemy bullets that move right to left, damaging your units, as well as a morale counter that functions similarly to a health bar.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz.