Seven years ago Slay the Spire redefined card-based roguelikes. Since then, countless developers have attempted to mimic or evolve Megacrit’s genre-defining deck-building roguelike. But I’m pleased to say Knock on the Coffin Lid is the closest any other developer has come to that lofty goal.
RedBoon’s Knock on the Coffin Lid is set in a dark and troubled fantasy world, filled with the usual Orcs, Goblins, Dwarfs, Elves and Humans that you’d expect. But with several twists away from the traditional fantasy tropes that make this world feel fresh.
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The core premise is that you are an adventurer, brought back from the dead after your untimely demise. You don’t yet know how much time has passed or why you’ve been brought back. Your guide on the adventure is an enigmatic god-like necromancer named Mortis, who claims to have a grand plan that you are pivotal to but saves the juicy details for later.
Each time you die you’re brought back to the beginning by Mortis, who assures you that death is just another beginning.
We’re Not In Kansas Anymore
Knock on the Coffin Lid mostly takes place on an overworld map, with various events and conflicts dotted across it. When you arrive at one of these locations you’ll either find a text-based interaction with multiple choice, or a combat encounter.
The story delivery here follows the tried and tested amnesia template – our initial hero Persival has lost almost everything about who he is. Then as you discover bits and pieces you have conversations with Mortis that fill in the blanks. There are a few twists and turns, but it’s a dark fantasy world where everyone is at each other’s throats, and you either have to fight your way through most interactions.
Some of these multiple-choice encounters are straightforward – like coming across a drunk dwarf looking to fight his way past an elven barricade, and you can decide to join the elves or the dwarf in their fight. Some of them are far more complex though, such as finding a child in a trance beneath a demonic obelisk. There you’ll have four options: making an offering to the demons, destroying the obelisk, attacking the child or leaving. Each of these can reward you with special items, gold or a combat encounter. Sometimes you even get the occasional party member who follows you through the remainder of that run.
One More Run
This is where the Rogue-like elements come into play. As you uncover points on the map, these stay visible over multiple runs. You can go down a particular path if you specifically want to help the dwarf in his fight. Alternatively, you can go down a new path and uncover the mysteries in a different region.
The first character you play is Persival. His initial deck of cards is mostly around gaining armour to block incoming attacks. Then, he utilises attack cards to deal damage based on your current block or cause other status effects.
As you follow Persival’s story, you’ll eventually unlock two additional characters, each with their own stories to follow. Bjorn is a renegade Elf, inflicted with lycanthropy which turns him into a werewolf during battles. Vanadis is more of a ranger character, with stealth abilities and animal companions. In the game’s Early Access phase, Persival’s similarity to Slay the Spire’s Ironclad class was very common on the Steam discussion pages. It’s great to see that the other two characters are unique.
Getting Classy
On top of the additional characters, each character has several classes that change your key abilities and starting cards. Persival’s second class the Gold Digger is all about collecting gold and using abilities that scale on the size of your coin purse.
Playing this class, I went into one fight with 8 health to my name, fighting a raging bear that had grown fat eating the bodies of deceased soldiers. I made use of every money-spending skill I had and survived by throwing my overstuffed wallet at the bear. Great stuff.
One small gripe is that I found progression quite slow. I’d completed three or four runs before unlocking the additional class. It then took a significantly longer time to unlock the second and third character. So, if you aren’t jiving with Persival’s story, you could bounce off this quite quickly.
It’s In The Cards
The element of Knock on the Coffin Lid you’ll spend the most time working through is your deck of cards. These are the abilities that you’ll use in combat, but they also feed into one another in interesting ways.
Each run, you’ll have a starter deck of cards. This depends on the character and class you choose. You’ll also have a character with a basic set of starter gear. As you set out, you’ll earn gold from combat. You can pick up items from chests, you’ll then spend gold at shopkeepers. Occasionally, you’ll be rewarded with rare cards from particularly hard events.
It’s the interplay between the gear you’re wearing and the cards you’re holding that make the most impact in any run. As the aforementioned Gold Digger class, I was always on the lookout for the Bandit Set of armour and weapons. These give bonuses to gold, added pick-pocketing cards to your hand, and had set bonuses that increased the amount of gold earned.
Though random chance definitely plays a part in what you can collect in any particular run, knowing the path ahead of you is important. It means that you can plan out your run. You can organically build a kit that suits your needs based on likely encounters along the way.
Likewise, some of the encounters add negative effects. One encounter finds you parched at the edge of a pool. You hear the sound of travellers behind you. Choosing to drink from the water has a chance to lead to an infection while avoiding it could mean fighting bandits. The infection can also play into your hand though. Some builds and items add effects based on stacked negatives. Other effects are added based on cards removed or ‘burned’ from your hand.
Should I Buy Knock on the Coffin Lid?
Knock on the Coffin Lid wears its inspirations on its sleeve. However, there’s plenty of new thinking here to engage fans of rogue-like deck builders. The story is drip-fed in such a way that in most runs you’ll find out more about the world or yourself, and the random elements mean that most runs will feel unique.
Coming out of Early Access did cause a bug that stopped my game from opening for a couple of days. However, that was fixed – the developers have been releasing consistent minor updates. They have also hinted at larger content updates and DLC down the road.
Small gripes aside, this is one to play if you’re in for a dark fantasy romp where death is just another step along the road.
It’s available now on PC via Steam.
Quest Daily scores Knock on the Coffin Lid:
8/10
A review copy of Knock on the Coffin Lid was supplied to Quest Daily by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
