Knock on the Coffin Lid is a medieval fantasy roguelike deckbuilder where you're out to investigate the mystery of your death. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Review Overview

What is Knock on the Coffin Lid?

Knock on the Coffin Lid is an indie roguelike deckbuilder developed and published by Redboon. Similar to Slay the Spire in gameplay, the game features a comic book art style, fully voice-acted dialogue, and a compelling story. Set in the fictional world of Midian where you can choose between three heroes with varying gameplay, explore three distinct regions full of various enemies and unravel the mystery behind your deaths and the intriguing plot to control the Northern Gate. The game also features different routes that have different decision points that will affect the story, as well as collecting different artifacts, cards, and gear to strengthen your character to face those who dare oppose you.

Knock on the Coffin Lid features:
　⚫︎　 Strategic Deckbuilding Gameplay
　⚫︎　 Fully Voice-Acted Dialogue and Animated Cutscenes
　⚫︎　 Compelling Narrative With Decisions Matter
　⚫︎　 Carryover Roguelike Progression
　⚫︎　 Three Playable Heroes With Varying Playstyles
　⚫︎　 Three Massive Maps to Explore

For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Knock on the Coffin Lid's gameplay and story.

Knock on the Coffin Lid
Steam

Knock on the Coffin Lid Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Simple Yet Offers Depth Good Variety of Playable Heroes Tons of Replayability Interesting Narrative	Starting a Run Difficulty Spikes and RNG Multiple Bugs Too Much Yapping

Knock on the Coffin Lid Overall - 88/100

Knock on the Coffin Lid is an amazing roguelike deckbuilder that offers familiar turn-based card-battling gameplay, great visuals, fully voice-acted dialogue and cutscenes, and a compelling story. However, the game is also plagued by multiple bugs and a few problems that prevent it from catapulting to being one of the better deckbuilding roguelikes of the current era. Thankfully, the devs are actively looking to improve and fix the bugs quickly, so with enough time, it’ll only get better.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Story - 10/10

The story of the game takes place in war-torn Midian, where the ruler of the Northern Gate was poisoned and the whole territory was thrown into disarray. The narrative functions like a long investigation, where each run is intended for you to find the truth of the murder as well as your characters’ supposed deaths. It’s a surprisingly good story where the characters involved are equally as interesting with their own story arcs and personalities.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Gameplay - 8/10

The gameplay is pretty simple, yet it offers some depth with the different interlaced mechanics that are in the combat. Nothing overly complicated, as throughout a run you collect items, equipment, and cards that you can upgrade to bolster your character. There are a few issues with regards to the game’s balancing, specifically its difficulty spikes and RNG, which may be deal breakers when some losses feel unfair and some wins feel cheap. It is, however, nothing new, as you could even say that the gameplay feels a little too familiar compared to its contemporaries.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Visuals - 10/10

In terms of graphics, the game looks pretty good. It has comic-book-style visuals and great animations both in cutscenes and gameplay, so you could tell that the game is definitely of high quality in terms of production. The character designs, setting, and effects are all very well done as well, as they all fit the aesthetic of a medieval fantasy.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Audio - 7/10

The overall audio design of the game is also commendable. The game being fully voice-acted was a pleasant surprise, and they’re well-acted as well. The sound effects and ambient noises are also noticeable when you encounter the random events in the game, which are very well done. The only flaw would be the repetitive map music that it plays, especially since you’ll be at this interface around 70% of the time.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Value for Money - 9/10

For $24.99, the game is a steal. It’s one of the games we would recommend for people to enjoy the niche of roguelike deckbuilding games and people who are interested in the genre. It’s a complete package. There are still some issues that need to be addressed, but with the devs being quick on their act to patch out the bugs, this is absolutely worth your time.

Knock on the Coffin Lid Review: If It Ain't Broke, Make It Better

In recent years, there has been a huge surge of roguelike games that have been released, especially in the indie space. In the same niche of roguelike games, the deckbuilder genre has also been quite popular as of late. Games like Balatro, Across the Obelisk, Inscryption, and Slay the Spire have been successful in introducing players to the wonderful blend of cards and randomness. While we have played our fair share of roguelike deckbuilders, Knock on the Coffin Lid is a promising game that oozes quality and offers tons of replayability.

Roguelikes aren’t particularly known for compelling stories, as they're more known for their replayability and addicting gameplay loops. Knock on the Coffin Lid is different because of this. Its story is compelling, particularly the reason why you’ll keep replaying the game in the first place. Not only that, but the game boasts high-quality graphics and audio design, which one could tell are well-made. Lastly, the gameplay is familiar but offers its own twist as opposed to the other well-known combat deckbuilding roguelikes.

The game starts off with the three heroes’ deaths. Afterwards, you are brought back to life by a mysterious person who tells you how events have unfolded since your untimely demise. More importantly, it appears that there is a conspiracy that led to the deaths of the three heroes as well as the current ruler of the Northern Gate by way of poison. So you set off to find the truth, and it quickly turns out that not everything is as simple as it seems.

The story of the game is quite interesting. Taking on the form of time travel, godly forces, and moral dilemmas along the way, it’s a medieval fantasy that’s actually told by the player character’s recounting of their experience, be it if they accomplished their goal or if they died prematurely in their run. The cycle repeats when the same mysterious person wakes you back up to ask what happened. It’s quite a simple narrative structure, but it hooks you quite effectively.

Graphically speaking, the game looks like it came out of a comic book. A well-animated one at that. The character designs, locales, and effects all look amazing. The theme and aesthetic of the game’s medieval fantasy play into full effect when you encounter different types of colorful characters and grotesque monsters.

As for audio design, one of the biggest surprises was how the game had a lot of voiced cutscenes and dialogue. As if that wasn’t enough, the game’s sound effects and ambient noises also add so much more to the game. However, one thing that wasn’t amazing was the game’s map music. If there was an option to change this or to at least add another track when changing regions, then this may be a different case. You’ll be on this menu for the majority of your time playing the game, which makes it even worse.

The gameplay is very familiar. It's so familiar, in fact, that if you played Slay the Spire prior to this, you’ll instantly see the similarities. It’s a classic card battler where you have limited resources to use per turn to play your hand of cards. These could deal damage, give you buffs, let you draw additional cards, and more. It’s a simple system that you will most probably get the hang of when you play the game for thirty minutes. Where the gameplay shines is in the game’s rewards and the overall progression.

They’re very generous with their rewards, often giving you more than one reward choice per event. There are also other events that give you even more rewards, like upgrading your current cards and healing your character.

In terms of equipment, the game has a lot of armor pieces for your character to use, and there are even set bonuses, which greatly increase your chances of steamrolling enemies in your current run. This, along with your card effects, offers depth in building your strategy. When you end a run, you’ll be rewarded with Character XP, and with enough experience, you can unlock different subclasses for that character.

It’s not all great, however, as the game’s randomness could be what spells your doom. RNG is and always will be a big part of roguelikes, but the biggest issue would be if it outright just blocks you from playing the game because it decided to let you face an opponent that counters your build or is stronger than you. Also, the game still has a couple of bugs to address, some of which involve deleting your save files and other annoying bugs that crash the game. RedBoon is still hard at work to solve these bugs, so hopefully they get addressed soon.

Overall, Knock on the Coffin Lid is a full package, and it's also great to point out the game’s high quality of production. This is proven by all of the game’s aspects, which are its amazing visuals, top-notch audio design, and compelling narrative. The gameplay is definitely inspired and taken from other popular games in the same genre, but you know what they say: if it ain’t broke, just try and make it better. And they definitely did.

Pros of Knock on the Coffin Lid

Things Knock on the Coffin Lid Got Right
Simple Yet Offers Depth Good Variety of Playable Heroes Tons of Replayability Interesting Narrative

Simple Yet Offers Depth

The game is deceptively simple. You draw cards with various effects that can deal damage, improve your defenses, give you buffs, etc., and have a limited number of actions based on the card’s cost. Similar to other deckbuilding roguelites, the goal is to safely eliminate the opposition without using too many resources to keep your run. There are different systems that exist in the game that add depth to shaping your character’s build. These are card upgrades to alter and improve your cards, equippable gear to strengthen both your offensive and defensive capabilities, and even consumables to make your life easier. It’s not the most groundbreaking gameplay progression, but these do add up to a satisfying buildup when you start ramping up your character.

Good Variety of Playable Heroes

As of writing, the game has three different playable heroes. Each of them has vastly different playstyles and strengths that add to the game’s variety. They also have their own story arcs and motivations for why they’re journeying across Midian, which is also interesting in itself since it sheds light on each of their personalities. Additionally, they also react differently to the different events that you encounter throughout the game, which makes the character interactions all the more compelling as you find out how the world is affected by your actions.

Tons of Replayability

One of a roguelike’s main assets is its replayability, and it’s good to note that the game will rely on you to keep replaying the game to fully understand the story. With massive maps to explore as well as three different story arcs to complete, there are a lot of reasons for you to keep replaying the journey back to the Northern Gate.

Interesting Narrative

The narrative definitely caught us off guard. It doesn’t necessarily start off slow, but over the course of our playthrough, things aren’t as cut and dry as there are bigger forces at work behind the scenes. To add to this, there are three different perspectives for you to explore, as each of them has different motivations and goals that they want to pursue. It’s surprisingly compelling and equally interesting.

Cons of Knock on the Coffin Lid

Things That Knock on the Coffin Lid Can Improve
Cannot Switch Heroes When Story Begins Difficulty Spikes and RNG Multiple Bugs

Cannot Switch Heroes When Story Begins

This may be confusing to understand, but basically, when you choose a hero to use, that save file will be locked into that character’s story until you beat the game. It’s important to understand that you have to beat the game, and not just finish a run to be able to choose a different hero. You can stop a story by heading back into the game’s title screen and making a new game save, but that will reset your whole story progress with that character and replay it when you choose them again. Hopefully, this feature will be changed since the three characters’ stories are slightly different from each other. It would make for an interesting narrative experience to see each of them on different routes and live through the game’s events in a sort of parallel journey.

Difficulty Spikes and RNG

The game has some difficulty spikes that feel unfair, especially when you don’t have a good start. Particularly when you’re thrown enemies that just straight do too much damage and have way too much defense for you to do anything meaningful.

RNG is part of what makes a roguelike a roguelike. However, there are times when RNG feels unfair. You may have been breezing through the game’s first map, then just instantly die to the first enemy encounter in the second, since you can’t deal with their special effects. Certain cards can also just brick your deck and make it almost impossible to finish the run.

Multiple Bugs

The game is now past Early Access, but there are still multiple bugs that plague the game. While we were lucky enough to not encounter them during our runs, there were some reports of gamebreaking bugs that ended up with their save files being lost. Others report that the game crashes during its cutscenes, which led to them needing to constantly restart the game. It’s good that the devs are still actively patching and addressing these bugs, so just give them time to address them.

Is Knock on the Coffin Lid Worth It?

Absolutely! A Great Entry Point to the Genre

For $24.99, the game has a ton of replayability and a good variety of playable characters to keep things fresh and interesting. To add to that, the game is a total package of good visuals, good audio design, a compelling story, and gameplay that’s both interesting and easy to understand. Knock on the Coffin Lid is an amazing game that will only get better with time, as the devs are hard at work addressing the bugs that the game currently has.

Platform	Price
Steam	$24.99

Knock on the Coffin Lid FAQ

What are the System Requirements Needed to Run Knock on the Coffin Lid?

The System Requirements are as follows:

You may also like...

	Volgarr the Viking 2 Review [PS5] | Return of the King
	Silent Hope Review | A Drawn-Out Crescendo
	Level Zero: Extraction Review [Early Access] | Zero Points For Balance
	Backpack Hero Review | Didn’t Fumble The Bag
	Nobody Wants to Die Review | Does the Soul Live Forever?

Knock on the Coffin Lid Product Information

Title	KNOCK ON THE COFFIN LID
Release Date	August 8, 2024
Developer	RedBoon
Publisher	RedBoon
Supported Platforms	PC
Genre	Deckbuilder, RPG
Number of Players	Single Player
ESRB Rating	N/A
Official Website	Knock On The Coffin Lid Website

Michael Gerra-Clarin

Resident fighting game nerd, avid FFXIV fan, and enjoyer of mostly anything gaming. Currently, he is enjoying Dawntrail as a Viper, while dying to Messmer's flames in Shadow of the Erdtree.