Roguebook manages to have a strong foundational understanding of its genres while having its own interesting additions and flavour. Being able to build a combination of engines from different characters at the same time satisfies that Prism itch from Slay the Spire for me in a way other card battlers haven't quite managed to yet.
The atmosphere is decent, but when the game tries to flex for horror the only thing it really has going for it is jump scares, which isn't typically "horror". What scares someone is personal, subjective, but that doesn't mean we don't have decades of exploring the art of horror to learn more about the human psyche; jumping to sudden sensory assault isn't the same as something causing terror within a person, and the game almost exclusively attempts at the former (sometimes entirely randomly with zero build up of tension) while having not much of anything to present to actually instill fear within the player. For its other mechanics the game is a little weak due to missions not being timed and resource management not being terribly difficult. If anything the "spookiness" and storms hitting kind of clash with the main atmosphere when exploring. Overall below average; shallow attempts at horror holding back a strong, even if derivative, gameplay foundation.
