Chris InglisFabular: Once Upon a Spacetime is a techno-fantasy roguelike adventure developed by Spiritus Games and published by Prismatika. It launched in early access on November 10, 2022 on PC and sees you crossing blades with space knights where the futuristic and the medieval collide. We do battle defeating rivals, take their loot and upgrade our ship as we move through the galaxy on a quest to save our kingdom from destruction by The Magister.
The Void Lords have stolen the sun. Your brothers have vanished into deep space. The king grows old and fragile, searching for a better future in the endless streams of prophecy. As the last remaining royal, the fate of the kingdom rests on your shoulders – and on your blade. Utilising pixel art and hand-drawn illustrations, we will board our ship, initially limited to the Paladin class, and move through a procedurally generated area of deep space as we move towards a boss fight at the end of each realm.
Starting with initial points on the star map that we can travel too, each move costs moonchill. If you run out of moonchill, your engine overheats, and your ship’s hull takes damage. When you arrive at a new location, a number of possible scenarios will be thrown at you. You could arrive at an asteroid field, or stumble upon pirates looting a derelict ship, or any number of scenarios. You are given choices, whether to engage or retreat, and with cautious optimism you slowly forge forward towards the zone end boss, ensuring you have enough moonchill to get there. Some maps will have a vendor that you can travel to purchase more, but generally each battle encounter will net you some.
In the asteroid field scenario, I chose to forge through the field looking for loot, however we were hit by several asteroids and took hull damage. I then could have fled or kept going – I chose to keep going. We took more damage, but found a chest of loot, of which one item was a heal, as well as more moonchill, and some currency. In the next battle, I had to defeat three ships and gained a new projectile weapon that I could add to my ship. However, I had to unlock an extra item slot, and to do that I had to progress upgrading my ship.
When in the Fabular: Once Upon a Spacetime isometric battle scenes, we move using WSAD and aim with the mouse. The Paladin is a strong but slower craft and so the physics action took a little to get used to. You can’t just swing and move on a dime like in twin-stick shooters, this required more cautious manouvering, especially as there are rocky outcrops to avoid. We can freely attack with melee strikes as well as hold the attack for a couple of seconds to do a power attack. Holding spacebar will block blows if you aim at the attacker. We have a limited number of ranged attacks, which can be replenished by picking up orbs. When you defeat an enemy in battle, they will drop an energy orb.
Throughout your journey, you will earn components, currency and items, and you can upgrade your ship within the upgrades window using a combination of currency and subcomponents. There are three pillars you can specialise in – power, speed and capacity with 35 total talents you could unlock, but if you die your progress completely resets and you lose all items. I got to my first boss fight in about 3-4 moves, and over-confidently started the battle. I managed to get them down to 1 health blip left however I was defeated. It gives you a summary of how long your run lasted, currency earned, items looted and so on. You are sent back to your castle where the story recommences, however this time you may have earned enough tokens to be able to unlock a permanent upgrade.
I didn’t expect to be having as much fun as I am in Fabular: Once Upon a Spacetime. It’s a credit to the writing in the text conversations with npcs that keeps me intrigued with the knightly story, and the battles are short but tactical. There are only three out of five realms available in this early access release with access to two of the three possible ship types. This game has that familiar ‘just one more run’ feel to it. Spiritus Games plans to keep Fabular in early access for at least a year, but “this time frame may be extended depending on additional features and modes that we may want to add to the game.” I am looking forward to it checking back regularly as development progresses over the early access period.
This review utilised a key provided by Gametomb.gg and Fabular: Once Upon a Spacetime is now available in Early Access via Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG and Humble Store.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
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