Indie studio Fioretto Studios’ project, Path of the Djinn, aims to bring together some of the most engaging gameplay features from fan-favorite titles to create a unique and exciting roguelike experience.
With elements inspired from hits like Path of Exile and Slay the Spire, this upcoming release hopes to capture players through deep customization and power-fantasy progression fused with roguelike deckbuilding mechanics.
Custom Character Growth Through Skill Upgrades and Synergies
At the heart of Path of the Djinn is a staggeringly large list of potential upgrades that give players control over defining their character’s abilities and playstyle from the ground up. Currently, as players progress through the desert, they will be presented with choices for upgrades and new skills.
One aspect of the Alpha that I enjoyed heavily was the creativity of skills and their upgrades. Of course there were some basic ones such as adding 5 bonus damage, or 10 armor on activation – but these seem few-and-far-between compared to the “run-defining” upgrades like converting skills to AOE, or stacking status effects.
I played a little over 3 hours of the alpha combat test, available on itch.io, and I beat the final boss 3 times. Each time I had a completely different set of skills and upgrades, my personal favourite synergy that formed was using an AOE attack on the first turn that was boosted because the character didn’t have a negative status effect, followed by an AOE pocket-sand-toss from my ranged character, blinding all enemies for a turn and finishing my rotation by applying a long-lasting DoT to all enemies.
Forging an Addictive New Gaming Recipe
While only currently available as an early alpha demo, Path of the Djinn shows promise in blending some of the most compelling aspects of existing indie hits. The developers seem poised to leverage this formula into a fresh take on customizable RPG progression paired with the randomized aspects of a roguelike.
If they can achieve the depth and replayability of the games it takes inspiration from, Path of the Djinn may form itself an addictive gameplay loop that gamers will find hard to put down, and I think the project is already heading in that direction.
