All Will Rise is the only deck-builder I know of that can run on vibes alone. It has complex rules—so many that it can feel overwhelming—but during my three-hour demo, I simply played whichever card felt right. I pointed out an Oil Spill then Spoke For The River, asserted my Right To Sue, argued that the Media Is Biased (naturally), cleared my Crystalline Mind to make my cards more powerful, and ended up dancing with a god on hot coals as a frenzied crowd swayed as one.
It is interactive fiction at heart. Half the game is card "battles" spiked with reactive dialogue, the other half is choice-based conversations set to lavish illustrations. It is written by Meghna Jayanth, of 80 Days, Sable, and Thirsty Suitors, whose direct, lyrical style—"Oil-slicked birds and pearl-spot fish swing amongst the horrified crows, mangrove trees wrench their roots up to escape the flames"—splatters every screen.
It flickers with rage. Your ultimate goal is to build a strong enough deck to put an exec on trial for murdering a river, but alongside ecocide it confronts corporate greed, inequality, poverty, and corruption, sometimes all at once. It reflects the views and the real-world anger of its creators at "powerful people behaving with absolute ugliness and impunity", says Jayanth, who is narrative director on the project.
The Rage Is the Fuel
"The rage is the fuel in a way," says design director Hugo Bille, of Fe, Ultros, and Stick it to the Man. "And it's inescapable, and we expect a lot of our audience to feel it already. The game is not there to boost that, but more to address it, or to play with it."
It's also deliberately silly. It pokes fun at itself, at the left, at the climate activists and lawyers it venerates. Between battles and missions that reward you with new cards, your group of three Indian volunteers banter and self-deprecate the absurdity of their "non-hierarchical workplace based on mutual co-operation and affinity". An NPC you meet tells you that "normal people don't find suing others very interesting", and one of the characters must periodically visit dad or face a guilt trip.
It's about finding joy and humour in the horror and corruption, Jayanth says. "Making something that is leftist, that is progressive in this way, you can just get put into the woke, liberal bucket. We really want to make sure that no, we're doing something a bit more interesting here."
Breaking Taboos in Card Games
And those battles are unlike anything else I've played before. The full game is expected later this year, but the Steam demo starts you in court, convincing a judge that a river should be treated like a person. Soon that river is dying and on fire, and you plot your murder case. Each day you assign your volunteers to tasks throughout the Keralan city of Muziris, named after a real-world ancient port—you might cultivate a source in the local government, help locals clear up after an oil spill, or put on a play with local children. These tasks net you cards that Kuyili, a lawyer and the main character, can deploy during card battles.
And those battles are unlike anything else I've played before. You share the board with your opponent—although that's a misnomer. Encounters can be combative, such as when you face the exec you intend to put on trial, but you're also playing with potential allies and friends. Together, you place cards to create a backwater of arguments, each claim flowing into the next.
"We break a couple of taboos in card games," says Bille. "You can only play cards next to other cards that make sense narratively, and those links are not printed on the cards in any way. It's in large part an intuitive thing, which is in a way anathema to the sort of extreme transparency that the card genre expects. But since we're also doing a narrative game, I think it meshes a lot better."
The thing we really wanted to preserve, Jayanth says, "was that sense of back and forth conversation, and that you're building a shared narrative together." My battle with Kottavai, a ritually-painted folk performer possessed by the river god, shows how loudly it can sing. Kottavai is mystical and unpredictable, dancing with abandon and unfocused eyes; we agree then argue, egging each other on before denying each other's key points. She laughs then ridicules me, declaring that strategic violence is the right path. I limp away having failed to gain her backing.
Mechanics of Emotion and Trust
As well as forming narratives that might help your overarching goal, each card adds or subtracts from the three emotional energies of both you and your opponent: guts, hearts and minds. Drain one and you enter a "crisis", fill one and you go "on fire", and both states grant access to new cards. They can also change the story. For example, Jayanth says that if you can light the conspiracy-filled fisherman Shabeer's guts on fire he'll run for mayor, presumably with narrative implications.
The strength of your cards, or claims, can be upgraded as supporting evidence arises, taking them from mere speculation to proven fact.
It's already a lot to hold in your head before you consider that the success of your arguments, and even who will talk to you, depends on a trust mechanic. You can earn trust by completing missions and delivering specific arguments in battles—you can also boost trust with powerful and unique rhetoric cards that have a range of effects. And if you need to, denial cards wipe an opponent's card off the board, reversing its effects.
When I tell Bille I felt a little overwhelmed playing it, he doesn't seem concerned. The final game will ease players in gentler, he says, but the complexity is necessary because of the constant overlapping of mechanics and narrative.
"It's kind of the bare minimum that we need to convey the story. It is co
