Demo 8 reviewed on Steam Next Fest: Forge the Fates We just played through the full Forge the Fates demo by Chaos Logic Studios @ChaosLogicGames (published by Surefire.Games). It starts the festival with 177 followers, see @SteamDB. It’s a turn-based roguelike deckbuilder that turns your hand into a persistent, shifting tactical grid of runes. Play a rune and the ones behind it slide forward, so every choice affects not just this turn but the ones coming up. You get a limited pool of fate (5 per combat) to swap and reposition runes on the grid. Line up match-3s for big payoffs . As the Phoenix you get 3 damage to the enemy + 3 shields + 3 orbs (cash) every time you trigger a match bonus. Orbs let you buy new runes in the shop or duplicate them at the scribe between fights. Health carries over across battles in a run (very “don’t take unnecessary damage”), you tune your deck on the fly (minimum 20 for bonuses, bigger decks unlock extra fate or per-turn healing), and runes have strong grid interactions (dark/light scaling, “scorch” that burns enemies at end of turn while it stays on the board, fleeting runes, etc.). Enemies fight back by adding banes, setting your grid on fire, backlash, etc. The demo covers the Phoenix’s opening chapter (Act 1 with 7 battles + progression into Act 2), full hero leveling, and ends with a proper “wishlist us and await the next chapter” screen. We looked for comments on top of this playthrough. The main public discussion is still the active r/playmygame thread from when the demo first dropped (dozens of comments). Players there praised the novel grid mechanic and polish while giving constructive notes on tutorial length/density, match-3 feeling a bit secondary at times, and wanting more narrative. The dev has been very responsive (they already increased match frequency in an update based on that feedback and are open to splitting the tutorial or adding a light campaign mode). Honest take from sitting with the demo: the core “cards become a living, shifting puzzle grid” idea is genuinely clever and rewards thinking ahead in a way most deckbuilders don’t. The pixel art is lovely, the Phoenix match bonuses feel great when they proc, and there’s real satisfaction in setting up burns, keeping key runes on the board, and tuning what stays vs what you discard. Fate as a limited repositioning resource adds a nice layer of “weird” (in the good way) decision-making. On the other side, matches can be streaky (“I’m having bad bad luck with the old matches here” was a running theme), combats sometimes drag when the grid isn’t cooperating or enemies pile on effects, and there are some early-demo rough edges (the next-turn button sitting behind the character’s face is a funny UI moment, the tutorial/shop/forge sequence before the first real explanation can feel opaque, and you have to be very mindful of fleeting runes and deck bloat). Persistent health makes mistakes sting, which is intentional but punishing until you internalize the systems. Overall this is one of the more interesting tactical deckbuilder twists we’ve seen lately with the persistent grid + fate swapping + match-3 layer on top of traditional scaling runes creates something that feels fresh while still being very much a roguelike deckbuilder at heart. The dev is clearly iterating based on feedback and the art + core loop have real charm. Steam page below: store.steampowered.com/app/3… Nice review made by @nookrium below: youtube.com/watch?v=kjbAqmV5… #ForgeTheFates #IndieGame #GameDev #Deckbuilder #Roguelike #PixelArt #Tactical #Steam #IndieDev