Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness is an upcoming roguelike for iOS that draws inspiration from Darkest Dungeon and Slay the Spire
As I mentioned yesterday, I attended Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki last week, getting the chance to chat with some incredibly talented developers about their upcoming games. Today we're going to talk about Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness, a game the developer described as Slay the Spire meets Darkest Dungeon. If that's not a premise that immediately intrigues you, I don't know what will.
Glory Over Madness sees you playing as the titular Last Spartan as you battle through a story-driven campaign where keeping a grip on your waning sanity becomes increasingly difficult as you do battle with more and more enemies that draw inspiration from Greek mythology and the Lovecraft mythos.
From the Darkest Dungeon and Slay the Spire comparisons, you've probably correctly guessed it's a roguelike with deck-building elements. The only difference here is that your deck is actually a set of customisable dice, with each face acting as a slot for a different ability. There are over 70 dice faces to discover, allowing you to develop and learn numerous synergies to suit your preferred playstyle.
Aside from the dice, you will be accompanied on each run by an ally Greek god. There are over 10 of them, although they won't all be unlocked immediately, and each provides distinct active and passive abilities. With them, you can develop different strategies for dealing with the many foes you encounter.
According to the developer, for the first ten hours, you will face new enemies on every run, with over 70 regular enemies and 10-plus bosses to discover and fight in turn-based combat. This should keep the game feeling fresh and surprising for far longer than other entries in the genre.
The same applies to encounters with over 100 NPCs to meet and choices surrounding them to make. Depending on your interaction, they might provide you with a reward, blessings or even curses that will remain constant until the end of that particular run.
Some of those NPCs will make their way to your city. It's here where you respawn after dying and spend resources you've gathered throughout each run to upgrade the various buildings in a bid to rebuild Sparta. This is the more permanent side of Glory of Madness and will eventually provide you with perks that increase your chance of completing a run and progressing the overarching story.
If you're a regular attendee of gaming conventions, you can go hands-on with Glory Over Madness at the following events:
- 6th-8th October 2023 - PGA, Poznan Game Arena, Poznan, Poland
- 13th-15th October 2023 - Game City, Vienna City Hall, Vienna, Austria
- 9th-11th November - Games Ground, Berlin, Germany
Last Spartan: Glory Over Madness will launch for PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and iOS in Q1 of 2024. There's no more specific release date just yet, but we'll let you know when there is. You can already Wishlist the game on Steam.
