Oaken is a fantasy Roguelike by Laki Studios. An Early Access version of the game was released to Steam in May 2022, and the full game was completed in July 2023.
You play as a sapient wood spirit given life by the Great Oak. The Oak is a world unto itself, but has recently become corrupted, turning nature spirits against one another. Your quest is to descend the tree and purify whatever is causing the corruption.
This game contains the following tropes:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Kidu was banished from the Oak's Crown because of his unique ability to control fire, which its other inhabitants were afraid of. They may have had a point, given that he ends up burning down the Oak. He's surprised and pleased when the Lady doesn't care.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both endings available in the beta.
- The Lady's ending: The Lady becomes the new Voice of the Oak, saving it, but the narration questions how long it will be until she falls victim to the corruption of her predecessor.
- Kidu's ending: Kidu razes the Oak, ending the Eclipse and the trap exploiting its Voices. But many spirits die, and the Outcasts who take control of the wreckage are oppressive.
- Boring, but Practical: Skills never make more than small changes to the battlefield, but they are versatile, cheaper than any minion, and can be cast after moving. There will nearly always be some use for a skill, which cannot be said about the player's other options.
- Fire Purifies: Corrupted tiles can be purified just as well by Kidu's fire as the Lady's greenery.
- Good Is Impotent: Lumi Lanterns lose health every time they transform a tile. Void Lanterns, their evil equivalent, gain health every time they do the same thing.
- Keystone Army: Kidu's recruitment battle pits you against himself and two minions, whose strength and health grows when they're attacked (or counterattacked, which units do automatically). Fortunately, the battle's objective is to defeat Kidu, not the others. The only way to win is to focus all attacks on him, hopefully defeating him before his minions can defeat you.
- Light Is Good: The Lumi Dust that upgrades cards and heals Fatigue looks like dots of bright blue light. If the Lady slays Shama, a dot of light flows out of his skull and into her palm, implying that his soul has found peace.
- Nature Is Not Nice: The Oak heals its wounds by exuding a sort of resinous sap, which freezes anyone unlucky enough to get caught in it, forever. (Unless you have friends nearby to carve you out, or the sap is shattered by unusually powerful magic.) On her journey the Lady passes many dead Wisps (the smallest and weakest type of spirit), whose only mistake was being beneath a fall of sap.
- Nature Spirit: Most characters are some type of tree spirit.
- The Lady looks like a wooden, tiki-esque woman with leaves for her skirt and "hair".
- Kidu looks like a carved monkey with half his body charred black. On top of the black area are markings of orange light the same color as his eyes.
- Playing with Fire: Kidu, a red-hooded fire spirit.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Word of God clarifies
that the Voice of the Oak is magically forced to sing the Oaksong forever, never leaving the little room at the core of the Oak. Shama's need to escape this slavery drove him insane, and the same fate awaits the Lady. - The Speechless: Kidu is mute, although able to sing somehow.
- Stone Wall: The Lady has a healing spell and three times the health of any non-boss unit, which is good because We Cannot Go On Without You. But she can only hit for two damage, which most of those units can exceed.
- The Unfettered: A gameplay example. The player can "exhaust" cards by using them twice in one battle, but this is almost never worth it because those cards will be unusable for the rest of the chapter...except in boss battles, after which the chapter ends anyway. So there's no reason not to run your deck dry throwing everything you have at the boss.
- World Tree: The Great Oak has given birth to hundreds of spirits and is so big that it serves as your overworld map.
- You Will Not Evade Me: Several characters take advantage of positioning.
- Kidu has a skill that yanks an enemy towards him (hurting them in the process), which combos well with another skill he has: attacking an enemy next to him without triggering a counterattack.
- Upon being summoned, Baralai charges as far as he can in a given direction, which results in pain for whatever unit is in his way.
