Curiosity killed Persival. I steered him away from the crisscrossing paths of enemies, campfires, and shops, tempted by a lone question mark on the edge of the map. But only death awaited me. In my moment of greed, I forgot the stakes: Persival had much bigger problems than deck optimization. And he stood no chance against an unknown enemy with more than ten times his health. Another humbling encounter, then another knock on the coffin lid. The loop started anew.
Knock On the Coffin Lid escapes the long shadow of established roguelike deckbuilders by giving you more to worry about than your cards. Why is your character here? Why does this keep happening? Who poisoned the wine? The game does not end with victory. Even your eventual triumph raises more questions than it answers. Knock On the Coffin Lid’s looping narrative twist breathes life into a well-worn subgenre.
The World Keeps Spinning
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Knock On the Coffin Lid drip-feeds new information at a tantalizing pace. Persival, a common warrior, and mysterious Mortis bicker in between encounters, filling out a world that’s almost gone to ruin. The death of the king has upended a tentative peace, and now an interspecies conflict between humans, orcs, elves and dwarves has fractured their alliances.
This push and pull is an ever present meter at the top of the screen. Choices in and out of battle can tilt the scale towards darkness or light. In one run I aided the elves, and in another I became a reluctant orc vassal. Either way, pleasing everyone in the kingdom is a fool’s errand.
Nobody is all-knowing in Knock On the Coffin Lid, and certainly not the player. Mortis resurrects the player character through unknown means and is cagey with answers. He sketches in sparse details of what happened after your death, but even he doesn’t know some specifics.
You are a means to an uncertain end, and finding answers means puzzling solutions together over multiple runs. The taut writing, clean user interface, and striking art reinforces the state of things—this world keeps turning without you, but it might implode if you don’t intervene.
Ink on the Map
Your character navigates a sprawling world map by selecting an encounter on one of many dotted paths. Skulls denote enemies, bags of money denote shops, and campfires allow you to rest or train. Elusive question marks fill the gaps so you won’t always know what’s in store.
Knock on the Coffin Lid’s fights are turn-based. Your character has a set amount of energy at the start of each round, which they can spend on actions from their deck of cards. Some cards will cost more energy than others, but that doesn’t always make higher-cost cards better.
Even standard attacks and defensive moves have potential uses later on. They can be altered to suit your play style when they’re upgraded. Otherwise, skill cards, statuses, and talents—persistent powers that last an entire encounter—dictate the ebb and flow of battle.
Equipment, potions, and amulets can drastically alter your options. After taking one too many hits, I gave Persival an elven hat and elven blade. Some gear sets have bonuses if you wear more than one piece, and new elven accessories helped Persival dodge entire attacks. After digging an amulet out of a chest, Persival stacked more evasion at the start of every turn, making him nearly impossible to injure.
I barely scraped through another nasty encounter thanks to a feral wolf Persival adopted. Companions act on their own and heal a bit between fights, but be careful to shield them from a lethal blow. Once they’re downed, they’re gone for the rest of the run. And redirecting even a little bit of damage away from the player makes all the difference in trickier fights.
Thoughts So Far: Knock On the Coffin Lid is a tightly written page-turner
Knock On the Coffin Lid reveals surprising depths in an oversaturated genre. Snappy combat creeps out from underneath Slay the Spire’s long shadow, adding welcome wrinkles to deckbuilder mainstays. And with multiple characters and classes yet to unlock, I’m only scratching the surface. The game’s narrative pulls me back in, luring me with a detailed world and smart use of uncertainty. There’s so much I still don’t know. And no matter how many hours it takes, I plan to find out.
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