Hand of Fate is a rather peculiar roguelike. Not only because its places, objects and characters are drawn from a deck of cards. Nor is it because the dungeon takes the form of a tortuous path made of these face-down cards, where one moves card after card while keeping an eye on a quickly diminishing stock of food.

Hand of Fate is very special because it puts the player in front of a game master – literally. It is this odd, masked wizard surrounded by magical objects who gives the game its edge. With his melodramatic gestures, he turns into an epic narrative what would otherwise be nothing more than yet another medieval fantasy adventure. With his sizzling, masterfully voiced comments, he gives depth to each game. A Hand of Fate playthrough is not a series of random events and encounters – it is a duel of resilience, the clash of two wills that collide.

In this fight, the player's only weapons are the new cards he earns and adds to his deck when he solves a situation in an optimal way – for instance, saving an old man attacked by Lava Golems grants a new event card that will be advantageous to come across in the dungeon. As the stock of cards increases, the player can therefore build a deck to suit his needs, made of the most beneficial encounters possible. And threaten the game master's supremacy.

To beat the game, you also have to master what is perhaps its weakest mechanic: its combat system – either triggered by a bad choice or automatically by certain cards. This simplified imitation of the battles of the Batman: Arkham Asylum series is based on beating your opponents by clubbing the mouse button, and remains far inferior to the rest of the game. It would be a shame, however, to give Hand of Fate a miss because of its combat system.