Ragnarok is here, in the Roots of Yggdrasil. Brought to you by Manavoid Entertainment and Indie Asylum, this new roguelike city-builder is available for Early Access on Steam.

Don’t let its cheery, cartoon style deceive you. Roots of Yggdrasil is a post-apocalypse strategy game with layers of story and mechanics. Stuck in a perpetual time-loop, you take on the role of Sunna, leader of a tribe of Vikings. You must build both your settlements and your deck while avoiding the ever-encroaching void, the Ginnungagap. Every failure takes you back to the beginning, taking only your knowledge back with you.

Roots of Yggdrasil is procedurally generated, guaranteeing a different experience with every loop. You will encounter and befriend different scions, fallen gods, and monsters whose bonuses change up your playstyle. You can also add and remove building cards from your deck to create different challenges and opportunities for each new run. Can you traverse the roots of the world tree and reach the top of Yggdrasil to break the cycle? 

Mixing Up The Game

When you think of roguelikes most people would first picture games like Hades or Cult of the Lamb – action-adventure stories with strong beat-em-up sections. You wouldn’t normally associate roguelikes with city-builders, but that’s exactly Manavoid’s brand.

Manavoid Entertainment is a French-Canadian indie developer team from Quebec. Founded in 2014, ManaVoid Entertainment’s mission is to produce video games that mix genres, themes and mechanics of known games in order to create innovative and new experiences while giving a feeling of nostalgia to players. Having found success with Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan, which mixes puzzle-platforming with the creature-capture element of games like Pokémon, Roots of Yggdrasil is only one of their latest games. Another recent release to look out for is Checkmate Showdown, where chess meets arcade combat.

If innovative takes on gaming is your thing, then be sure to get in on the ground floor with Roots of Yggdrasil’s Early Access. The full 1.0 release is scheduled for September 6th.