As the first chapter in the Return 2 Games series – all of which will harken back to the glorious 90s and their most popular PC games – The Book Of Demons conjures up good old Diablo and takes him for a papercraft-styled ride.

This is essentially a simplified hack and slash dungeon crawl that lacks any form of complex meta-game and freedom of movement. Instead, you can only move along any chosen path in randomly generated dungeons. The frantic clicking stays the same, mind.

In place of stats you have different cards with various effects, and instead of having to conquer one big dungeon, you can tailor the experience to your liking. Do you only have a few minutes and crave clicky dungeoneering? No problem. Do you want to spend the whole evening in these delightful card dungeons? Book of Demons has got you covered.

It might all be simplified, but it’s not dumbed down. In fact, some of these changes are rather clever. Getting rid of inventory management, skill trees, and aimless wandering feels like developers Thing Trunk cut the fat from a well-established formula.

This allows you to get to the fun part much faster and, in turn, makes even small play sessions worth your time. And, as mentioned above, if you remember the very first Diablo fondly, you’ll have a great time with the game’s light-hearted jabs at that beloved classic.

The game is in early access, with one of the three playable classes available and only the game’s first area properly balanced. That shouldn’t keep you from purchasing it right away, though – it’s a delightful, quirky game that does a lot of things right.

Book of Demons is available on Steam for $19.99 (with a 25% launch discount) and will also be released as an Xbox One console exclusive next year. For more information on Thing Trunk, you can visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

Thomas Faust Thomas has been covering indie games for many years. If your game has turn-based tactics or interesting narrative stuff in it, he probably wants to play it. Thomas has also translated more than 50 games into German. See author's posts