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PICK & POKE your way through this gorgeous tabletop roguelite
by Tom Sykes
There’s just something about playing with tokens – chunky, circular tokens – that makes any game better, whether it’s Backgammon, Draughts or Connect 4. Pick & Poke, I’m pleased to report, is a game entirely about moving tokens around, as you drag them onto choices to make your way round a fantasy city. A singleplayer roguelite, it has the spirit of a tabletop RPG. It’s even played on an actual (OK, a virtual) tabletop.
Oh but what a table it is, enriched by those multicoloured tokens and the big cartoon arm you use to drop them onto dialogue boxes. It really feels like you’re playing the game in a tavern somewhere – the decorations even wobble when you poke them.
Pick & Poke was made in a week for the 7-Day Roguelike challenge, but it’s far removed from the usual procedural ASCII mazes. The world map nodes appear to be randomised, so too the order that the text-based events will appear, but you’ll cover a lot of familiar ground as you ultimately die and restart with one of the other characters.
But what does one of those events look like? Well, a blob of narration and dialogue, culminating in a couple
of decisions to make, which call upon your character’s strength, agility, wisdom or charisma. There are no numbers here, however – you either have the required ability tokens or not. If not, you can always use one of your precious health tokens instead, sacrificing your HP to continue the game – but for how long?
I had so much fun managing all these tokens
Spent tokens are expended when used, so it’s best to keep a varied stable in your cruelly limited inventory. Fill it up and the game is even crueller, by triggering an encounter with a guard who sees your purse and frisks you in the street. You can swat him away with bribes �
