Wizard Warrior

Draw five cards. You have three actions, so two cards go unplayed. Choose which.

Wizard Warrior is a pixel-art roguelike deckbuilder of spells and steel. Spells spend mana, weapons and shields spend stamina, and hovering a card shows you where every blow will land before you commit.

See every blow before you throw it

Hover over a card to see its description and the game plays it out after you select it during the fight. Every body that will lose health is marked with its damage, anything that will die reads FALLS, and statuses show where they will land. It runs on the same rules as the real blow, so what you see is what happens, and it never gives away what you are about to draw.

- Foes tell you their move first. Every foe announces its next move and how hard it hits. Hover over it to read exactly what the move does and who takes the damage first.

- No targeting, on purpose. Each fight is one foe, with any pack or summons standing in front of it. Every hit lands on the front body first, and whatever that body cannot soak goes through to the leader.

- Damage alone will not get you there. Your health does not refill between fights the way your mana does, so carry Block, healing or ice alongside the sharp edges.

Ten houses: start with one, earn the rest

You begin in the Dawnguard, with Aurelianand his sword. Eight more houses open as your career adds up: deal 1,250 fire damage across your runs and the Emberguard is yours. The tenth answers only to a win on the fourth rung of Peril, the game's difficulty ladder. Each house has its own hero and fighting style, from a dwarf with two axes who lives on bleed to a tortoise with a tree on his shell who calls wolves and golems.

And each house grows its own way. Win a road with it and its Creed opens, two oaths to choose between, along with the first of its three house cards: learn them in the hall, raise them to rank III, and bring one into your opening deck. Win with it on the fourth rung of Peril or higher and the house can claim its Heirloom, a relic carried on every run.

Every fight you win pays valor, even on a run that ends badly. Spend it in the hall: on your house's mastery tree, Creed, Heirloom and house cards, or at the Road Shelf on provisions for the next road and contracts that stake valor on a harder one. Higher up Peril, the shelf stocks finer goods.

A road that turns over as you walk it

A run crosses eight realms on a honeycomb road of face-down tiles, with a guardian waiting at the end of every realm. Three times the road forks and you choose which realm to cross next, and the pairs are dealt fresh every run. Step onto a tile to find out what it holds:

- a foe, a pack that came together, or a champion, bigger and meaner, that drops a higher payout

- a merchant, a still well, or a forge

- or a bad omen that follows you out

More than 90 kinds of foe walk these realms, 11 of them guardians. Every guardian has a line when you meet and another when it falls.

"Road toll. Everything you carry, and the hands you carry it with." (Rathgar, the Bandit Chief)

Summons on both sides

Call spirit wolves, dire hounds, stone golems and harpies to stand between you and the blow, up to three at a time. They have their own health, strike every round, and soak the hits meant for you. Some foes raise their own summons, and then it is your pack against theirs. Whatever foe the effect lands on it stays on that foe: burn the wolf in front and the wolf burns, and a foe's poison can catch your summon instead of you.

Heavier or quicker

Along the road, the spoils offer three cards: take one, or none. Guardians offer legendaries. Merchants sell more, and for a price they will cut the cards you have outgrown. At a forge, Bruni Ironwright makes a card heavier (40% more damage, Block, healing or status) or quicker (one cheaper). Each card can be forged once.

"Heavier or quicker. It cannot be both, so choose." (Bruni Ironwright)

256 cards to find on the road: 168 spells and 88 weapons and shields. The 30 house cards are learned in the hall, never found.

Win the road and it climbs: eleven rungs of Peril, with tougher foes, richer valor, and new things opening on the way up: relics, The Rush (the guardians back to back, against the clock), The Endless Road (the same eight realms, over and over, harder each round), the tenth house, and more for every house.

Take up thy road.