Steam Next Fest: Lost in Fantaland offers snug turn-based battles

Hello! Over the next few days we hope to be bringing you impressions of a few of the demos in the Steam Next Fest.

Oh, this is lovely. Lost in Fantaland is a turned-base tactics roguelite made by a team of just two. It's wonderfully compact to play. You pick a path through the overworld menu and then play out your encounters in a series of 8x8 checkboards.

The basics are straightforward. You have three movement points and three action points per turn. Move around and then select cards to either attack your enemies or build your own armour. Enemies, meanwhile, in a lift from Into the Breach, telegraph their moves, so you know what you're up against. Maybe you can deal with it, maybe you can't.

The cards themselves start simple but seem poised to offer increasingly interesting variations. I'm particularly fond of one which lays down 12 damage to my enemies - a lot - but also hits me for two damage as well. A risky deployment! I've also found a card that does much more damage if you play it in your first turn of a match.

Beyond that it's all promise. Lovely enemy types, delicate pixel art, and lots of potential complexity as you build your cards and pick a path through the adventure. I love the way that the chessboard gives way to a tabletop with pixelated dice and packs of cards laid out. And I love the fact that I'm already excited about which new card I might find next.