Inkbound is an interesting next step from the team behind Monster Train

destructoid.com:

Shiny Shoe, the studio behind deckbuilding locomotive defense game Monster Train, has already made its mark with one roguelite. Now it looks to make another in Inkbound, an isometric turn-based battler with some pretty interesting ideas.

We had a chance to get a hands-off look at the current state of Inkbound. It’s going to look pretty Diablo at first. The camera takes an isometric angle on the action, following our two presenters creative director Andrew Krausnick and community manager Cami Baumann-Jaeger as they venture into the world of stories.

Right away, there are notable differences from Monster Train. While there is the allure of better runs and rewards on the horizon, there’s also a quest system, where NPCs can give players tasks to complete. They’re built into the entire structure, Krausnick says. The team is looking to tie more of the unlocks and rewards that happen into the quests and narrative.

“The reward you get from completing a quest might be an item that starts showing up in the run itself,” said Krausnick. “And then our goals over time, or when we evolve the world, we want to have some story behind it.”

After standing around a bit in a social area, they set off for the Sea of Ink. The whole setup of Inkbound surrounds stories, as players fight through various fables come to life. Certain parts of it will feel familiar; the ability draft, for instance, allows the player to make selections that can add new abilities to their hotbar or augment existing ones.

In ours, Krausnick picks an option to add more damage to an ability. But there are other changes too, like applying status effects. Some higher-tier ones might be even greater evolutions. It’s the same pick-one-of-three system that many, many