Welcome to the mysterious world of Indies’ Lies, a captivating roguelike mobile card game developed by Fun Square Games that will challenge your wits and immerse you in a thrilling narrative experience. Whether you’re new to mobile gaming or a seasoned player, this beginner’s guide will help you embark on your journey with confidence.
Table of Contents
How to Play Indies’ Lies
Enter Your Name and Get Started
In Indies’ Lies, players will hit the ground running, getting thrust straight into the game right after entering their name and selecting a difficulty level. From here, players will slowly unravel more about the game as they progress through the tile-based map.
Build Your Deck
As you progress through each tile in Indies’ Lies, you’ll acquire cards from various sources such as shops or through victories. These cards can then be added to your deck, or used to replace cards already in your deck. Initially, you’ll only start with a few cards, but you’ll eventually have 20-30 or more.
Defeat the Boss
The final challenge of each level is to defeat the boss waiting at the end of the board. These bosses get progressively more difficult, with each boss adding more minions as well as new mechanics that add nuance. This makes deck building even more important as you’ll need to have the correct mix of offense and defense to clear these boss battles.
Select a Companion
Defeating the Boss of each board allows you to select one among three companions to join your party. Each companion is randomly selected from the pool of playable characters available in the game. Adding these companions to your party adds more nuances to the game since each of them have their own special cards and mechanics that you can build upon when selecting your cards.
There are a total of 12 playable characters in the game. Each of them can randomly appear as a selectable companion after defeating the bosses of each level. If you are going for a specific team build and are unhappy with the current selection of companions, you could opt to watch an ad by pressing on the “change” button on the lower right side of your screen.
This will reshuffle the selectable companions, possibly spawning the companion you want to add to your party.
List of All Playable Characters
| Name | Exclusive Card | DLC? |
|---|---|---|
| Albert | Mystic Dagger Remove one enemy positive effect and deal 16 damage. | Basic Character |
| Karma Twin | Fate Deals 15 damage. Draw 1 card, +1 Psychic if you draw a Skill. | Basic Character |
| Daniel | Fierce Force Deal 13 damage to ALL enemies, +1 extra Psychic if Psychic Circle is activated. | Basic Character |
| Janssen | Gravity Shield Deal 8 damage. Gain block equal to HP loss. | Tide of Steel |
| Evelyn | Cold Blood Deal 16 damage. +1 damage for each Negative Effect. | Tide of Steel |
| Diego | Sawblade Slash Deal 20 damage and apply 3 Shock to ALL enemies. | Tide of Steel |
| Ser U.Oleg | Fierce Claws Deal 2 damage 7 times. | Ashes of Sorrow |
| Sigourney | Reverse Scales Deal 5 damage. Increase damage by 2 for each Thorn. | Ashes of Sorrow |
| G.H. Keely | Sharp Will Deal 7 damage for 2 times. Draw 2 cards. | Ashes of Sorrow |
| Grace | Bloodletter Deal 12 damage. Apply Wound equal to HP loss. | Alrayan Undertow |
| Rohan | Berserker Rohan loses 2% of current HP at the end of each turn. Deal 5 times damage to ALL enemies. | Alrayan Undertow |
| Perry | Sound of Silence Deal 12 damage 1 time. All gain 2 Strength. | Alrayan Undertow |
Die and Start Again
Indies’ Lies might be a card game, but it is a roguelike at heart. This means you’ll sometimes find yourself dying because RNG didn’t go your way, you weren’t able to build your deck properly, or you just didn’t get the card you needed at the turn you needed it.
This is part and parcel of roguelike games, and the developers expect you to lose so you can start from the beginning. Experiment with different card combinations, and different paths as you progress towards each level’s boss and learn more about the overarching story.
Game Mechanics
Game Board
| Tile | Contents |
|---|---|
| Skull | Battle |
| Question Mark | Random event |
| Hammer | Modify cards with Runes. |
| Floating Rune | Heal yourself, your allies, and removes cursed cards. |
| Treasure Pile | Shop |
| Red Devil | Boss Battle |
The game board consists of tiles with icons that correspond to each of their effects. The player will start on the bottom left side of the board and slowly make their way towards the top right side of the board to face the boss of the level.
On their way to the boss, they can step on tiles that trigger random events, open the shop menu, heal their allies, and enhance their cards. This means selecting your path towards the boss is essential when trying to build the best deck for your playthrough.
Card Game Basics
If you’re familiar with card games like Hearthstone, Magic: The Gather, and Legends of Runeterra, then you’ll feel right at home in Indies’ Lies because of the many similarities between these games and their battle systems.
The objective of the game is simple; defeat the other team. Each side will take alternating turns spending energy to play the cards they have in their hands. Your objective is to defeat the enemy before the enemy defeats you.
Card Info
| Type | Effects |
|---|---|
| Attack ⚔️ | Cards that belong in this category typically deal damage to enemies in some way. |
| Skill 🛡️ | Cards of this type usually focus on utility, adding defenses, or increasing your energy. |
| Power 🔥 | Cards of this type add unique mechanics and keywords to the game. |
Each card in Indies’ Lies will have a name, type, cost, and effect. Names and types are static, with each specific card always having the same name and type. Cost and effect, however, can be changed through the effects of other cards you or the enemy played during your or their turn.
Keep in mind that even though some characters require DLC, this only means they cannot be selected as the main playable character until you’ve purchased the DLC. Each of these characters can still appear as selectable companions after you defeat the boss of each level.
How to Get More Cards
Defeat Enemies
Cards can be obtained by successfully defeating enemies. Each battle will award you with a bit of gold and a chance to select a card to add to your deck. Once you’ve selected a card, you can choose to Replace a card already in your deck or Add to simply include that new card in your deck.
Buy From Shops
On the game board will be tiles with piles of gold and treasures. These tiles are shop tiles that will allow you to spend your gold to purchase new cards or items that heal you or give you an edge in battle.
Should You Add or Replace Cards?
Adding cards to your deck expands your deck and allows you to play that card during one of your turns during battle. This means it the added card will play by the same rules of the game, costing you energy and then triggering its effect.
Replacing cards is the same thing as adding cards, except the new card will replace an existing card from your deck. This allows you to remove unwanted cards from your deck. It also allows you to manipulate the odds of certain cards appearing in your hand because you have fewer copies of them in your deck.
If you are happy with your deck, then Add new cards to enhance it further. If you are unhappy with your deck, then Replace cards you dislike with cards that you do like.
Conclusion
That’s it for our beginner’s guide to Indies’ Lies! There are so many more nuances when it comes to Deck Building, companion selection, and other DLC content. If you found this guide helpful, or have some tips of your own, then don’t hesitate to leave us a comment!
Also, be sure to check out our site for news on games coming out this September, or guides on other games like Dusk of Dragons, and Soul Knight!