- Abalon is a top-down deckbuilding RPG coming to iOS and Android
- It lets you explore a tabletop-style world, building a deck of abilities
- Duke it out in turn-based battles with a variety of monsters
When it comes to emulating the tabletop experience, there are a lot of different ways to go about it. But few manage to capture the randomness, and sometimes cheesy, nature of a good classic fantasy tabletop game. Something akin to Heroquest for example. But today’s subject Abalon probably hews as close as I’ve seen so far.
In this top-down deckbuilder, you have all the standard tropes. An exploration of an open world, discovering treasure, fighting monsters and all that good stuff. Of course, the reason I make my Heroquest comparison is precisely because you’ll utilise a huge deck of cards to battle it out with your foes and wield powerful abilities.
Admittedly, you’re not so much playing as part of a team as you are commanding your party. As a summoner you wield powerful magical spells, and command a variety of warriors you bring together to fight for you. Boasting intuitive drag-and-drop controls, Abalon could be your next tabletop-esque favourite to play.
A fantastic voyage
Like I said, I think for roguelikes, the deckbuilding mechanic actually works quite well if you put yourself in the mindset of something like, say, Heroquest. It’s simple, approachable and means that you can have depth and complexity without necessarily needing a shedload of rules and mechanics to make things work. You’ll be able to have a go at Abalon and see just how well it hews to that when it releases early in November!
Speaking of tabletop RPGs, why not cast your mind back to 2018 and take a look through one of our more fascinating articles about some of the best RPG systems we wanted to see turned into games?
Or if you want something a little more up-to-date, check out our list of the top 25 RPGS for Android!
