Fairy tales have always been a little darker than Disney would have you believe. If you look at the original stories behind some of the most popular fairy tales today they’re absolutely terrifying. Tiles of Grimmwoods is taking that idea and running with it, dropping a group of lost children into a sinister forest and giving you the rather important job of deciding whether they make it out alive.
Recently listed on Steam by developer and publisher ArchLevel, Tiles of Grimmwoods is a roguelike deckbuilder with a surprisingly unusual twist. You aren’t directly controlling the children as they make their way through the forest. Instead, you play the narrator of their story, laying down tiles on a paper scroll to create the path ahead of them. Every tile you place can reveal something different, from useful items and treasure to traps, poisonous apples, magical effects, and creatures waiting in the darkness.
You’re Writing the Story
Simply getting from one side of the forest to the other isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds. You’ll need to think about what you’re putting in the children’s path and what you might be better off leaving hidden. You can give them helpful items and strengthen them before a fight, or use the environment to set traps for enemies. The forest itself changes from run to run, so there’s plenty of room for things to go spectacularly wrong.
There’s a proper deckbuilding system underneath all of this. As you progress, you’ll add new and more powerful tiles to your deck, while removing cards that are no longer useful. You’ll also find magical enchantments that give the children new abilities, potentially making the difference between getting through an encounter and watching the whole thing fall apart.
Not Every Path Is the Same
The journey isn’t completely linear, either. You’ll have branching paths to choose between, with different routes offering elite enemies, merchants, treasures, and other mysteries. There are also new characters to unlock, each arriving with their own starting deck and abilities, giving you another reason to experiment with different approaches rather than simply finding one strategy and sticking with it.
Things Can Go Very Wrong
With Tiles of Grimmwoods you’re not just building a deck because that’s what you do in a deckbuilder. You’re effectively writing the children’s journey one tile at a time, deciding what they’ll find and what they’ll have to deal with along the way. A useful item in the right place could save a run, while a badly timed trap might make an already dangerous encounter even worse.
Tiles of Grimmwoods isn’t available yet, but it’s planned for release on Steam in 2026, and there’s already a demo available to try. You can also keep up to date with the game via the developer’s BlueSky account. If you’re a fan of roguelike deckbuilders but fancy something that puts a little more thought into how its mechanics fit the story, this is one worth adding to your wishlist.