Games I like: The Hand of Fate series

Hey everybody. Today has... not been a good day today. But I'm not here to talk about the nonsense life has thrown at me right now.

This is a little different, but I actually wanted to post a blog talking about something I like, that being the Hand of Fate game series. My reasons for writing this are also topical, but I'll get to that bit of news later.

Hand of Fate, and it's sequel, Hand of Fate 2, are games put out by Defiant Development. What are they, exactly? Well, that's rather difficult, as the games are quite unique. They're a mix of RPGs, a card game, a board game, a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and a randomly generated dungeon crawler. I've also heard the term "Roguelike" thrown around, and they have a strong Tarot card theme.

If that sounds confusing, then, well, I don't blame you for being confused. But as an illustration, here are the trailers:

You play against the Dealer in a game of Life and Death, where cards create the board you move on, each their own adventure, as well as weapons and armor. You put in your cards, the Dealer puts in his, and the game begins. They're really beautiful and fun games, with great soundtracks and wonderful voice acting, especially from the Dealer.

Talking about this is topical right now because, sadly, Defiant Development announced on July 24, 2019 that they were closing their doors, killing their final game. An article stated they would still exist to keep their games running, but nothing new. But even if they keep the games running, people on Steam are talking about the very real possibility that, in time, the games may be de-listed from the site, aka, you wouldn't be able to buy them anymore.

This has happened with many Steam games, or so I've been told, and though there's no official date for the games to be de-listed, it's a strong possibility that hangs in the air, and that makes me... really quite sad.

I've never actually played Hand of Fate 2, I will admit, but only because of technical limitations and time. But I've seen a lot of video footage. In fact, I'm actually the person that helped rebuild the fan wiki for HoF2 from an embarrassing skeleton to something useful. I haven't been on it in a long time, and now another admin does all of the work, but I started that reconstruction myself.

Hand of Fate had a wonderful fan wiki, one dedicated to the game's story as much as telling you the solutions to each encounter. But Hand of Fate 2, despite having an even more complex and rich story, had... well, as I said, an embarrassing skeleton of a wiki. There were only a small number of articles, a small number of images, and those articles that existed really didn't have much of anything. One article's contents was, I kid you not, "Red = win", full stop.

Its content was either not there or not really helpful, or it was being treated as a dumping ground for shorthand notes on how to win a card's token (which unlocks more cards), rather than caring about the story elements that make the games so interesting. To me, it seemed disrespectful, and the sole admin of the thing hadn't done anything in like a year. Somebody had to do something.

So, despite knowing I didn't really have the time to be a wiki admin (since I was busy writing ATOTS), or even knowing how to edit a wiki, I did something about it. I started building pages, creating structure based on the first game's wiki, and the little article structure that already existed. I created article after article, creating a framework, filling it in, taking MASSIVE notes from video playlists to fill in what data I could. I created categories, updated the main page, took screenshots for cards, etc. I did all of that on my own. I even wrote a manual of style detailing how to format all the pages.

Eventually, my contributions were outpaced by the other admin that came on after I started, but I felt happy to have built the thing up, and that other people do, on occasion, add to it, and that it's now something useful to new and current players. I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it, and now the game it was based around may be de-listed from Steam. The whole idea is so bitterly sad, especially considering I still haven't played it yet.

If you're interested in what you see of the games, I'd suggest you get them at some point soon, before they're de-listed from Steam. It's just so depressing. sigh

That's all I wanted to say. I hope you all are having a good day.