Pictured: Abel, the resident BFS wielder. Not pictured: the other 60+ characters
Wake up. Wake up.
My avidyā child.
Now I give you a mission.
My rage shall burn the world.
Unlight is a Facebook Card Battle Game by the Japan-based developer Glozcus. The Saint of Flame in the Roaring Mountain is seeking a chance for revenge. She organizes an army of dead warriors (and musicians, doctors, scientists...) who were killed in the Mundane World and are now wondering souls in the Underworld. The Saint proceeds with the army to undertake the world she hates.
You as a Saint's Child assists the cause by gathering those warriors strewn across the Steampunk Gothic Horror world and help them retrieve their lost memories. Hopefully, they will be able not only to understand the mistakes they and others made but also eventually reincarnate so they can change the world directly for the better as Agents of the Saint.
Notable gameplay elements include:
- Character Cards: At the core of each deck are up to three characters with their own status and skills. Each character card has a level of up to 5 and can be upgraded to a higher level by collecting lower-level cards and, for Rare and Rebirth cards, fragments. Rare cards give out stories and Rebirth cards signify that the character has reincarnated.
- Combat: Combat starts with the drawing of cards from a shared deck (the content depends on the field of battle). The first phase is Move Phase, where players can move their characters using Move Cards to position their active character. Next comes the Attack and Defense Phase, where the active characters take turns attacking (using Sword Cards in close range or Gun Cards in medium and far ranges). The cards are generally double-sided; you can use up all the cards as attack cards, for example, but if they had defense on the other side, you won't have much to defense yourself with.
- It's "collectible": You assemble decks out of your personal collection of cards, categorized to characters, events, and equipments. You can earn these cards by buying them from the store, finishing quests and duels, or drawing cards using Rare Tickets. Be careful not to exceed the deck cost or you won't be able to duel with other players.
The official Unlight Facebook page can be found here
. There are currently five active servers: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and International.
This game provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Mary, Max, and Hugo fight along with Alicetaria, Noichrome, and Evarist.
- Alpha Strike: The player can choose to use up all their cards during the Attack Phase, rendering them unable to defend during the Defend Phase. Some character skills encourage this as they grant bonus damage by using up more cards. Sheri's Let's Knife is probably the most prominent one. Probably counts as Death or Glory Attack on certain circumstances.
- Antidote Effect: The pricey Holy Water can become obsolete if you have characters that can remove Status Effects, such as Marseus or C.C..
- Anti Poop-Socking: There's an Action Point (AP) system in place that only lets player commence on quests or duels if they have sufficient number of AP. AP regenerates over time or by consuming items.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Several skills let the characters deal direct damage, like Browning's third skill.
- Artificial Stupidity: While not overly so, they tend to make less than stellar judgments in using their cards.
- Ascended Extra: The Acolytes started as characters tending the game facilities.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The characters who were high-ranking authorities when they were alive.
- Attack Reflector: Ayn's Body Double move, though it inflicts half of the damage she gets instead.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Skills needing complex combination of cards or other prerequisites.
- Depends on the area. In areas with low-number action cards, characters like Marseus suffer. While characters like Dino, Max, and Nadine flourish instead. And vice versa.
- Boring, but Practical: Straightforward characters with easy requirements for their skills. A lot of starter characters are like this, including Evarist, Izac, and Abel.
- Boss Battle: During quests, you need to fight the boss before you can advance to the next area.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Players can buy items and Rare Tickets using real-life money to help them, but the factor of luck still plays a big part.
- Cast from Hit Points: Sheri is the most prominent example, using her own HP to deal a lot of damage. Nenem also relies on this, but with her team mates' hit points instead. Thankfully, she can also heal them.
- Noichrome also attacks using her team mates' HP.
- Mary's lets her draw more cards.
- Rosso, Marseus, and Cobb also have skills that use up their HP.
- Combat Medic: Nenem, who drains her team mates' HP to deal a lot of damage. She can also heal, but not as well as Walken.
- Comeback Mechanic: Certain skills hit harder when your character has less HP or is inflicted with a status effect.
- Evelyn's Scarlet Garnet skill lets her cast off the debuffs she likely earned if she used her skills.
- Schillerlee's Retaliation quadruples the damage received last turn by the party.
- Counter-Attack: Skills that let you damage the opponent if you get damaged yourself.
- Facial Markings: Cobb's face tattoo.
- Fanservice: Some cards' illustration is just plainly designed to be sexy or cute.
- Fighter: Abel, Konrad, Izac, Evarist, Rosso, and so on.
- Mage: Mary, Evelyn, and a lot of characters reliant on the Special cards.
- Thief: Jead and Hugo.
- Gender-Blender Name: Karenberg and Evarist, known to the fandom as Karen and Eva.
- Little Miss Badass:
- Nenem, whose bonus attack and Cast from Hit Points skills can greatly damage enemy with minimal set up.
- Mary, whose attacking skill can sextuple her attack dice while the defense skill can reduce enemy's attack to zero.
- Evelyn, who can both damage and defense a great deal with the cost of being debuffed. Level her up enough and she can get rid of the debuffs while healing herself.
- Redgrave, a highly offensive Artificial Human who can also heal herself.
- Leta, a martial artist equipped with a spear.
- Evelyn is a darker example.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Multiple examples, as straightforward characters and skills get too numerous, the developers add these to innovate.
- Mirror Match: The game lets the same characters face each other.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: You can't put the same character in your deck at the same time, even if they're of different levels. Averted with the opponent's deck though, you can make the same characters face each other.
- Stacia's fourth skill also invokes this.
- Playing with Fire: Riesz, extending to make his sword a Flaming Sword
- Power Copying: Gregor's specialty. Not only can he adds the opponent's stats to his base Attack and Defense, he can outright steal his opponent's skill if he has his fourth skill.
- Power Equals Rarity: Subverted. Other than event-only characters, anyone can get Rare cards with a bit of luck and a TON of effort.
- Power Makeover: The Rebirth character cards have new, usually more modern, looks.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A hardy knight templar, a very young magical girl, and a panda can fight alongside each other.
- Shadowland: There's even an area called Shadowland.
- Shout-Out: Linnaeus' name is a reference to Carl Linnaeus, the pioneer of binomial nomenclature.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: The Rebirth version of the characters comes with a more modern look.
- Skill Gate Characters: Starter characters are simple, but others need careful attention to zoning, teammates, specialized counters, cards on deck and hands, and even whether or not characters' HP is a prime number.
- Status Effects:
- Poison, Paralyze, Seal, Fear, Berserk, Stun, Attack, Defense, and Move down.
- Disability, Wilhelm's and Evelyn's forte, which decreases their Attack and Defense.
- Status Buff:
- Palmo's Stigma, which increases her Attack and Defense by one point each and needed to unlock some of her Skills' full potential.
- Konrad specializes in this, either doubling his Attack or Defense.
- Stacia's Killer Mode, Nenem's Milk Drink, and Gregor's Miracle Squash increase their status but are not represented as status buffs (and therefore cannot be dispelled).
- Taking You with Me:
- Sheri's first skill lets her use all her remaining HP to unleash a powerful attack.
- Cobb's Swan Song skill reduces both his and the opponent's HP to one.}
- The Medic: Certain characters can be played this way, with Walken as the most prominent example.
- Luka is the second most obvious example. Nenem, a nurse, is more of a Combat Medic.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Depends on the dice roll, you might deal 20 damage to a character who has only 1 HP left.
- Since they're all dead children in an undead army, perhaps all the children count.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Mary's Dream Wand needs no setup and very simple cards but might deal up to sextuple the number of attack dice.
- You Won't Feel a Thing!: Nenem's pre-battle quote.
