PUBLOG

Our 4th Game

All of our games have either been pitched to us, recommended by someone we know, or come through a connection somehow. Encrafted is no exception.

Jakub, the developer of Feed the Scorchpot, believe it or not, still plays other games. Demos, full games, whatever he has time for. He has a wishlist and gets through it. Encrafted was a free demo he played, and he shot it through to us saying it had a good feel and vibe, and did the roguelike/Balatro numbers-go-up thing well. And… there was no publisher attached.

So we played it. We loved the gameplay loop, but we didn't love the look.

It was a little more special because this is a homegrown game, from Victoria. That's where we're based. To have something so close and so good, we didn't want to pass it up. We had a few chats with Riley, and in all fairness he was pretty much ready to throw in the towel, get the game out there, and move on. Making a few thousand dollars from it was his goal.

Understandable, and hey, do what you want. But we offered up our publishing services, because the gameplay loop really is that good. On one condition: he takes our advice and direction on changing the visuals.

He agreed.

A WHOLE lot of hours from Riley himself (seriously, shout out to him for not backing down and tackling the design head-on) and we have a very different looking, but similar feeling game.

[upgraded UI]

Premise, premise, premise

We've spoken with our fair share of developers now, and there's one thing we keep running into: developers are usually thinking about mechanics and gameplay. Often they've forgotten, or haven't addressed, the small things that connect it all together.

Lots of Balatro-likes are hitting the market right now, and Encrafted is one of them. Fair enough. But Balatro has one thing on all of them. It's poker.

Everyone knows poker. You don't need it explained. You walk into a casino, you play cards, you walk out. Balatro gets all of that familiarity for free. But swap the cards for a crafting table, different types of bags, materials to craft with, and a very general UI, and that familiarity is gone. Now it's just "Balatro but with materials". Fine if you want to be that casual about it. But there's a next level, where it stops being a clone and becomes Balatro-inspired.

A premise.

Whether you like it or not, there's a world you step into when you open a game. The music, the art, the gameplay, the writing. There's a vibe. And the premise is the reason behind every decision in it. Too many times, when we ask "why did you add this?", the answer is "because it looked/felt cool". Hey, fine. But give it a reason to be there. Players can tell when things have just been added in. Even unconsciously. They aren't reading into the nitty gritty of everything, but they'll feel it, and they'll call it "just a re-skin of XY game".

So we helped Riley build one. Instead of "Balatro but crafting", we took some elements from his original design, expanded on them, and now we have this:

Craft junk into money, and barter your way up a wizard's tower.

A crafting roguelike about hitting a number. You climb a wizard's tower one floor at a time, and every floor sets its price before it lets you up.

[another shot of new UI]

Woah-ho. Now we're cooking. The gameplay loop is identical, but now everything has a reason. Instead of a random lever you pull to sell your items, it's a wizard's crystal staff. Instead of a wavy generated background, the whole UI looks like the inside of a tower, with gaps you can see the sunset through. Instead of a standard logo and text all over the UI, we asked: what would a wizard's logo look like, and what icons would they use?

[new key art]

Wrap that in some fresh key art and it looks like a completely different game. But to be clear, it's not. It just had one extra (very important) layer added on top that we believed was missing.

So have we wasted our time? No one will know until we've properly tested the market and released. But we believe it's made for a better game, one that'll get more attention and more eyes. It's more thoughtful and intentional in every way, and it puts even more focus on what caught our attention in the first place: the gameplay loop.

And yes, that's three roguelikes in a row. It’s not on purpose. It's just what keeps landing in our inbox.

And now, to properly announce it

Encrafted is due out Q1 2027. There's a free demo you can play right now. It looks great, and the gameplay loop is killer.

Wishlist it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4093900/Encrafted/

And here's our fancy little webpage with a press kit ready to go: https://indieformer.com/encrafted

Thanks for keeping up with what we do!

Josh & Clem