Wyrmhold

The hold is the run

Wyrmhold is a fortress grown out of a crag, and a dragon sits at the top of it. Every run is a road up through its holdings, and the road forks: through the Cemetery at its walls and the Crypt beneath, or through the Forest and the Caves. Both end at the Castle, and the Castle ends at the Wyrm. You walk the rooms in first person and choose which doors to open. What waits behind them is decided by cards.

Cards are the fight

Combat is turn-based and card-driven, and every card you play is a blow your hero actually throws. A slash is a slash, a shield raised is a shield raised, a fireball leaves the staff and lands. Enemies show their intent a turn ahead; you answer with the hand you drew. Block, Bleed, Burn, Poison, Strength, Weak, Vulnerable and each hero's own trick decide who is standing when the dust settles.

Four heroes, four decks

• The Warrior absorbs punishment and gives it back. Sword and shield, and the only hero who heals between fights.
• • The Elf takes an extra action every turn and has far too little health to waste one. Twin daggers, throwing knives and a longbow; feints that make the enemy miss.
• • The Valkyrie begins every fight already braced, and profits from being swung at. Spear and shield, a parry that stops a blow whole and answers it, and wounds that bleed.
• • The Wizard draws a sixth card every turn and hits hardest per card. Fire that burns, illusions that miss, and a spell that melts an enemy's armour into damage.

Die, draft, climb again

Every fight won offers a card to your deck. Every level cleared makes the next one harder. Chests, potions and trinkets along the way; a boss at the end of every biome, some with more than one life to take; and at the top, the Wyrm, whose life carries over from run to run until it finally falls, and a new, stronger Wyrm takes its place.

What you get

• First-person dungeon crawling between card fights: rooms you walk, doors you choose, things you break open.
• • Every card animated on the hero and on the enemy it hits.
• • Four heroes with their own decks, mechanics and weapons.
• • Five biomes on two procedurally assembled routes, no two runs the same.
• • Bosses with several health bars and forms, and a Wyrm that outlasts any single run.
• • Card upgrades and hero levels that carry between runs.
• • Full controller support and 20 achievements.

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