Songs of Life

Songs of Life is a card based story driven game that I came across by complete accident. I am always looking for new games and this one popped up on my radar and it had a demo so I decided to give it a go! I was pretty blown away and while the demo did not offer a massive experience, it more than got me excited enough to put this game on my wish list. I am very excited to play the full version of this, but as there is so little information about the game, I thought I would give you fine folks a little preview of what I have learned about the game so far.

A Time Of Despair

The game has a very cool setting and that is the late Han Dynasty, but things are not good at all. There is a strange and devastating illness that has taken over the land and it has caused not on natural disasters, but also many wars as factions and families fight to survive and for what resources there are left. This is the kind of world where you could argue that a quick death is actually the preferred option to living a life as a long life here is probably going to be a life of suffering. However, all is not what it seems with this illness as there are dark forces behind it.

A Shining Light!

Songs of Life is a very story and character driven game and we have a group of characters who at first seem like they are very different, but they will need to band together to try and save as many people as they can as well as putting a stop to the evil behind the devastation the land has seen. Our three main characters are Dong Feng, Zhang Zhongjing, and Hua Tuo. There are other characters too such as Yuan Shao and Cao Cao so there are many moving parts to this story. I only got a small taste of it, but it certainly had this big epic feel to it all which I am very excited about.

Holding All The Cards

I was only able to sample a little bit of what Songs of Life had to offer as the demo is not all that long. However, what we have here is a card based game where you use cards to do various actions such as dealing with characters, using items, and so on. You have a few puzzle sections too that are done in the form of mini-games, but at its core, I would say that the game is a card based game. It may seem daunting at first and the demo does kind of throw you in at the deep end, but I found myself able to navigate through the game quite easily and I am interested to see how they flesh the gameplay out and what other things they add to it.

So Much Darkness And Angst

I love the visual style that Songs of Life has going on! This is a very dark and brooding kind of game and I just love that. It has a classic fantasy vibe to it all and I think that the character designs and the high quality art that pops up as the game progresses is very well done. Granted, a lot of what I saw was the cards, but the art was still very well done. The game is very story driven so I do think the writing does a great job of helping you paint a picture in your head as you are playing the game.

Pros:

• I loved the dark and kind of Asian gothic art style
• The card based gameplay is very solid even in the demo
• There is a bit of puzzle solving to do as well
• This is one of my most anticipated games of early 2025!

Cons:

• The story does demand you pay very close attention to what is happening
• The card based gameplay is not going to be for everyone