You only ever have the choice between three possible cards in front of you in Forward: Escape the Fold, but making that choice is deviously challenging.
This game is just fantastic when you don’t have a lot of time but still want something that captures the tension of a roguelike dungeon crawler. You pick out your character (and there are several different ones to unlock), and then you’re placed on a field with three cards in front of you. These can be healing items, secret treasures, helpful equipment, or monsters to fight. Whatever you land on, you have to deal with. Well, except monsters, which can attack in a specific direction that’s listed on the card. That’s all there is to it. So, you just need to pick the best possible path to the end, doing so by picking one of three cards every round.
It sounds so simple when I write it out like that, but it’s far from it. A few bad calls can lead you down a path that will get you killed, after all. Now, you don’t always have the choice of all three cards. Your character can reach cards that are in front of and diagonal to them. That means if you choose the furthest card on the left, you won’t be able to reach the one on the far right on the next turn. So, depending on how you move through the dungeon, you can screw yourself out of something good. You might also force yourself into an encounter that’ll get you killed. You can see a few rows in front of you, so planning your route beyond the three cards in front of you is vital. It’s also what makes every decision feel so tense when you really just need to pick from three cards.
Forward: Escape the Fold may not sound terribly challenging and involved. Only picking from three cards doesn’t seem like much, right? But you sweat over those decisions so much. And when it’s rolling, the game moves briskly, giving you the tension of the roguelike experience in something you can play through in a few minutes. Assuming you don’t get yourself killed constantly like I do.
Forward: Escape the Fold is available now on itch.io and Steam.
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