Sunderfolk Is An RPG Everyone Can Enjoy, But It Might Be Hard To Love
Almost the best of both worlds.
Getting people together for tabletop game nights is a pain. The more people it requires, the longer it takes to set up and explain the rules, and the more obscure the game is, the less chance there is that you’ll ever make it to session two. Online games are easier to book, but they don’t scratch the same itch as getting a group to squeeze in together on the couch for a good tabletop game. Launching on April 23, co-op tactical RPG Sunderfolk tries to answer the question of whether a digital game can capture that same kind of magic.
The answer, boring as it may be, is it depends on who’s playing. Sunderfolk is the first game from Secret Door, one of two studios formed by ex-Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime at Dreamhaven. When I attended a preview of Sunderfolk last year, the team was eager to explain that it’s intended to lower the barrier to entry for in-person tabletop-style games. Its rules are meant to be easy to understand, its light narrative is envisioned as an easy onramp for roleplaying, and its app-based controls are intended to lower the game’s learning curve.
Sunderfolk is a co-op RPG that emphasizes teamwork and unique controls.
That all works, but in trying to appeal to a broad range of players, Sunderfolk feels like it’s stopping itself from doing anything truly extraordinary. It’s a game that anyone could play, but for the audience that’s already into RPGs and are most likely to want to play it, parts of the experience end up feeling a little thin.
In Sunderfolk, everyone plays as an adorable animal adventurer, including a glam rock bat bard, a protective mama bear warrior, and sneaky weasel rogue. Sunderfolk is played through both a mobile app that every player uses, plus a “main screen” that shows shared information. In combat, the main screen is a hex-based battle map displaying the action, and the app lets players control their own character, or look at their character sheet and details on the enemies they’re facing. The division between the main and personal screens helps keep the game from coming to a halt due to one indecisive player, and you can even control a cursor on the main screen from your app to plan your strategy together.
Assuming you have a halfway decent internet connection, the technical side of Sunderfolk works remarkably well, without a hint of lag. I played both in couch co-op and online, using Discord to share the main screen with a group of friends, and the biggest technical hiccup was when two remote players briefly had their apps disconnect before automatically reconnecting a few seconds later.
As adorable as they are, Sunderfolk’s anthropomorphic characters don’t tell much of an interesting story.
That smooth flow extends to Sunderfolk’s combat. There’s no set turn order for players in fights; anyone can take their turn by selecting one of their abilities (depicted as a hand of cards) and choosing where to move and who to attack using their smartphone. Each card represents your entire turn, telling you how far you can move and what your action will be, in a specific order. One card might let you move a few spaces, attack, then move again. Another might let you pull enemies toward you, attack everyone within range, then teleport away. You can’t change the order of those actions, but you can skip any you don’t want to use, which again keeps the action from being bogged down as you weigh dozens of possible options like you might in a more freeform tactics game or a tabletop RPG. That can feel stiflingly inflexible, but the tradeoff is the thrill of realizing you have the exact right card you need in any given moment.
The rigidness of turns also reinforces the need to work together. You may not be able to get into range on the pyromancer’s stubby little lizard legs, but get the arcanist to teleport you close to an enemy or the warrior to chuck them toward you, and your limited movement isn’t a problem. Coordinating strategies works wonderfully when you’re playing in the same room and able to easily show your fellow players what’s on your phone screen. Online, it’s clunkier, and teamwork can fall apart a bit since it’s easier to just take your turn than explain what you want to do to the rest of the party. I had just as much fun playing remotely with friends as I did in person, but Sunderfolk does lose a bit of its unique charm that way.
Sunderfolk’s combat demands its players work together to succeed.
Between missions, the party returns to town, where everyone uses their own device to talk to NPCs and shop for new equipment. Sunderfolk’s NPCs are rendered in a gorgeous art style, but they tend toward broad archetypes more than developed characters. Talking to them mostly means paging through a few lines of lighthearted but empty dialogue, and the game’s story is equally thin. It’s hard to imagine Sunderfolk working with a more complex story that players need to actually slow down and pay attention to, but in my experience, my fellow players and I mostly just talked over the story, sometimes pausing to coo over a particularly cute character design.
The real story of Sunderfolk comes from playing — one party member accidentally tosses another into a fire, someone else pulls off an unbelievably clutch move with one hitpoint left, and either way, everyone cheers. Small touches like the ability to rename certain enemies or items provide more fertile storytelling ground than the game’s actual narrative (or in my group’s case, an excuse to turn every proper noun into a dirty joke I can’t repeat here).
If Sunderfolk’s goal is to be playable by anyone, it reaches it, but at the cost of doing something more interesting. I played locally with my partner, who’s more inclined to pick up a racing game than an RPG, and while we had a good time, her verdict was essentially, “I’d play that again but it wouldn’t be my first choice.” The experiment went over much better with a group of players more familiar with digital and tabletop RPGs, but there Sunderfolk’s middle-of-the-road approach still left it feeling closer to good than great. Everyone I played with enjoyed our time, and we all agreed we’d be more than happy to pick it up again, but I can’t help but think it would be even better if the game leaned harder into the possibilities of its unique take on tactics and stopped trying to please everyone.
