Introduction
Hello, and welcome to another guide from me. Today I'll be covering Voice of Cards, The Isle Dragon Roars, a card-based top-down rpg from Square Enix. Although the instructions below are specifically for the Isle Dragon Roars, the two remaining games in this series operate on the same engine, utilizing a similar user interface, so much of the information I share here will be applicable to those other games as well, which include: The Forsaken Maiden, and The Beasts of Burden. The Voice of Cards series can be found on pc via steem, but is also available on Playstation 4, Xbox one, and Nintendo Switch. I played through on the switch version, but all versions are identical, regardless of platform. There are also demos available for each of the games, so you can immediately dive in right after you read this article, or open it up and play along as you read.
What is this, and how is it playable?
The Voice of Cards series plays in the style of a top-down rpg, similar to mainstream videogames like the mainline pokemon and dragon quest SERIES, and similar audiogames such as Manamon and Paladin of the sky. What makes Voice of Cards unique is its the way in which it is presented. Whereas the above games are presented in the form of a standard videogame, Voice of Cards establishes its own identity by presenting itself as a table-top dnd session, complete with dungeon master, cards, and dice. All of the visuals are conveyed through cards, many of the outcomes are determined with the roll of a die, but you needn't worry about memorizing a book of rules to enjoy the game, because the dungeon master of each game is here to guide you. They will explain most of the dialog and action verbally to you so that you don't have to sit and wonder just what the heck is happening based on sound alone, and you will interact with voice of cards like you would with any other videogame. In the following sections, I will equip you with the knowledge to play through the Isle Dragon Roars, but as more information arises from my playthrough of the other games in the series that requires special attention, I will add it here so that you can navigate through those games successfully as well. If there is a critical section that absolutely requires sighted assistance in any of the other games, I will let you know in future updates. There is one thing that I'm not sure we can do, but that's only from the way that it's presented. We probably won't be able to play in the game parlor, where your job is to assemble a cards in ascending order. That said, the game parlor is just a pass time event and is not necessary to finish the game. With that out of the way, let's get onto the meat of this article.
Getting started
When you start the game, you will have several options from left to right. They are continue, new game, options, multi parlor, and add-on content. The add-on content is all cosmetic items that let you change the appearance of the card and table, so you don't need any of it to play through the game. From within the options menu, you are given left/right tabs with options going up and down. I'm going to assume that most of you reading this will have OCR so I won't go over this too deeply, but I'll just explain the critical bit to save you the effort. Firstly, the tabs wrap, but the menu items do not. The first tab is game settings, next to the right is customize, next to the right is language, and to the right of that is sound. The default language for the dungeon master is English, but you can set it to Japanese from the last option in language. The option above that lets you change the text language. From within sound settings, you can change the Background music, sound, and voice in that order, simply by first choosing one of them, and choosing one of the five options from left to right. They are: silent, quiet, normal, louder, and loudest. Note that you won't hear the results of your choice until you press the confirm button on a choice. On the switch, that's the a button, on playstation and xbox it's cross/a. While we're on the topic of buttons, the shoulder buttons let you zoom in and out the camera, the left thumb stick and arrows move you around and highlights choices, the right thumb stick lets you move the curser around for quick jumping to a tile you want with the confirm button, which is inaccessible to us due to the lack of audio cues, and during exploration, the x button on switch, y on xbox, triangle on playstation, brings up your next objective.
Now you can exit the options menu with the b button on switch, or circle/b on playstation/xbox. That's the cancel button for all other menus as well. If you haven't got a save game yet, you should be on new game. Choose that, and after you save for the first time or after the game makes an auto save, you will hence forth be on continue when next you boot the game. After a bit, you will be asked to register or give your name. You can either press start/options/plus/enter to accept the default name, or enter your own. I just kept the default, since each of the main hero characters of the games has his/her own. The main character's name for Isle Dragon Roars for example is Ash, and for Forsaken Maiden is Barren.
Getting around
In Exploration phase, you move around the board in the cardinal directions using the arrows or left thumbstick. If you go beyond the boundary, your piece will be replaced back at the edge where you went over, there is a sound for that too, as well as moving around. The Dungeon master will probably make a comment about the obstacles preventing you from moving in that direction if you bump into them. In dungeons and overland, it will take an extra half second to move from a space you reach for the first time. This is because you are turning over a face down card for that space to reveal what it holds on the map. Overworld cards are hexegonn shaped, someone described it as 1 card connected to the top and bottom edges of the card you are on, while cards are on the top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right of your current card. This makes getting around a little bit tricky but not impossible, you still move in the direction you press, and I found it helpful to sweep the area by moving a certain number of steps in one direction, moving perpendicular, then moving that same number of steps in the opposite direction. This is helpful for finding towns and dungeons in the middle of nowhere. You can find signs too, which will give an arrow and tell you what the arrow is pointing to. I'm not sure if OCR will recognize arrows, but using my phone, it read me the way the arrow was pointing most of the time. At edges, try moving two spaces in a perpendicular direction before trying to go the way you were going when you encountered the obstacle.
Interacting with people and things is automatic, you need only be on the same space as them. Thank the elder gods you don't have to keep spamming a to find stuff like back when I was playing pokemon on gameboy and DS. Just walk to that tile and you will hear a card slide sound if you found an interactable. There are random battles in dungeons as well as overland, where there are also random events, where you will either have to roll a dice or make a choice to see its results.
combat
Combat in Voice of Cards is turn-based, with the character with the highest speed going first. If two characters in your party has similar speed, their turn might alternate from battle to battle. Choices in Combat are all menu based, and pretty much every attack, critical, heal spell, item use and status effect has a unique sound, as well as a written description for effects when you encounter status ailments for the first time.
Instead of mana or mp such is in traditional RPGs, you get gems, which in this case are used for special skills and spells, which may have from a 1 to 5 gem requirement, depending on the skill. Your party share a pool of gems, of which you can store up to seven. You get a gem at the start of each of your character's turns, as well as one for the start of battle, and there is a sound for when you get a gem. You can also summon gems with either a character skill or with a sooth stone. You can also get a gem from special event cards that trigger at the start of rounds during some battles.
You always start on the row of skills for your character that is the fastest for that battle, I will explain how to arrange the skills later, but by default you start with one that doesn't cost any gems, and can have a loadout of up to 4 skills at a time. Going either up or down, or pressing the y button on switch, (x on xbox, square on playstation), will take you to your items, which themselves have a default arrangement depending on what you are currently carrying. After you choose a skill or item, you will be prompted to choose a target, one of your opposing cards if what you choose is offensive, or one of your own if what you chose is defensive. I don't think you can use an item on someone who doesn't need that item, for example, can't use a quality salve to heal someone who already has full hp. If you try to press the confirm button on a skill that costs more gems than what you have, you will hear a quick buzzing error sound. I used this to determine what character I was currently deciding for that round. I never saw my character's speed get changed so it's pretty reliable method if you pair it with memorization of who's turn comes next during the battle.
The Pause Menu, Equipping Gear and Using Items
The pause and options menus have different tabs which you reach with left or right. Although the tabs wrap from left to right, the up and down items in each tab do not, so you can, from within the game, quickly get to the save load tab by going left once in the pause menu where there are only 2 choices, save and load in that order, and press the confirmation button to choose it, then pick your slot to save or load. There are distinct sounds for saving and loading; saving sounds like someone is making a notation on a page, and loading sounds like someone is rolling out a table with game pieces on it and setting up a dnd session. The save and load slots also do not wrap.
When you pause, the first option you are always on within the setup tab lets you decide your character's skills. The characters are arranged from left to right depending on the order you set them to in your party. Once you choose a character, you will be on the row of currently active skills. If you have more than 4 skills, your inactive skills will be on the bottom row, so just press down to reach them, and they will always be in the order you learned them. To set an inactive skill to the active row, press the confirmation button on the skill you want, then pick one of the 4 slots from left to right, of which you start on the very left. Whatever is your current active skill for that slot will be moved to the inactive row, back to the position where it was originally learned. For example, if you choose inactive skill 3 and pick slot one to replace your first skill, that skill costing no gems, that no cost skill will be moved to slot 1 of the inactive row, and your chosen skill will be in slot 1 of your active row.
Under the skills option in the pause menu is the abilities option. These are passive and no one learns more than what they can handle so you don't need to interactive with this option unless you want to see what passive buffs everyone has. Under that is for the equipment your party is wearing. Again, your party is listed from left to right. Choosing one of them will show you everything they are wearing on their 3 slots, which in order are weapon, armor, and accessory, of which you start on weapon. Pressing down on one of these will show you the gear you have in your inventory which can be equipped to that slot, from strongest to weakest. You can also buy and equip gear directly from any armory. At an armory, just select a piece of gear from within the buy option, and you will be on the option to buy and equip, which is the first choice from left to right. From here you will also be told the cost, and be given the gear's description, among other things. The other choices are buy and inspect. After you choose buy and equip, you will be asked who you want to wear the gear, with only characters able to wear that gear selectable. Once you choose the character, you will hear the gear being equipped, and the transaction being finalized, and a message will display saying that <character> is all set. Press any button to dismiss the message and be taken back to the list of things to buy. Also, this list goes left to right and does not wrap. You will be on the last item you bought after making a transaction, same if you cancel. The two top face buttons also do something after you choose an item, but I'm not sure what yet.
Under the equipment option in the pause menu is your party, the last menu in this tab. This will be important later on when you gather more than 3 members, since you can only have 3 active characters at a time. Similarly to skills, he active characters will be on the top row, and inactive characters will be on the bottom row. You change out your characters the same way, choose an inactive, then what slot you want them to be in. There's only 5 characters so I don't know what order the bottom row is going to be in, wasn't paying attention, but you can run a trial through combat to see what skills they have, or look at their information with OCR when they are selected. You will also be told here and elsewhere if they are in reserve I think.
The tab to the right is your inventory tab. I always get this mixed up so remember that consumable items is on top, and gear is under that. Under gear is your key items, such as treasure maps and the like. Items include things like salves for restoring hp, cures for various ailments, attack buff items, incuratives for reviving a fallen ally, sooth stones to summon 3 gems, offensive items such as oil pots, bombs and the like. The salves will always be on top, from weakest to strongest, the poison removers will be after that, and I don't know the order of anything else. You will also on occasion need other items like torches and magic potions to help you navigate the world. You can't use skills outside of battle, but you can use items, bellwithers will get you out of a dungeon, and salves, quality salves, and supreme salves will restore health to anyone you choose that has less than full health, otherwise, you won't be able to waste salves on them. Status effects, such as paralyze, freeze, attack down, defense down, steal, among others will wear off either if you cure them or on their own during or after the conclusion of a battle, so it is not necessary to use items to remove negative effects outside of battle. There is also a sound for when effects wear off. When you choose a useable item out of battle, the options are use, inspect, and disgard, otherwise you will only get inspect and disgard. After you choose the use option, your choice of targets will be in a row left to right. Choosing the disguard you will be asked if you're sure, you are on no and yes is to the right.
In the gear menu, gear is also listed in a particular order. First weapons, then armor, then accessories. Picking a gear, you will be given the option to equip, inspect, and disgard. Picking equip takes you to your party selection from within the setup tab, from whenst you can choose someone to equip the gear. Picking someone here will take you back to the section I described earlier about equipping gear in that section. If you back out of party selection, you will be back in the setup tab on that option. I actually don't know what the difference between picking equip here from within inventory and equipping it from the gear option of the setup tab is. I've just been doing it from there if not from within an armory, but I think the armory is the easiest way to get it done. Still, you will find gear from sidequests and treasures, too, so everything I wrote about equipping gear is still important to know. You won't need to interact with key items except to look at them, or to use them when the narrative calls for it through a choice so don't worry about it.
The tab to the right of inventory is for your collections, which includes things like side stories and such. I'm not familiar with the stuff here so I won't go over it as it isn't terribly important to gameplay for now, but you can try to look at what's in them if you like. Next tab to the right is the save load tab which I talked about earlier. Going right from there takes you back to the setup tab.
Additional Information
There are distinct sounds for leveling, learning, unlocking flipside stories which are descriptions of characters similarly to what you would see on a physical card of a character. Pay attention to those and more such sounds. You can pull up your immediate objective with the press of a button if you forgot what it was, see the section on getting started for buttons and what they do. Somewhat annoyingly, the dungeon master will only read dialog once, meaning that if you encounter the same dialog again, it will not be read again, so just use OCR for that. Thankfully, the text does not auto scroll. The dungeon master will also not read system messages, although he may occasionally make a comment here and there about them. He also comments on your performance in battles, such as when you get a critical or when one of your character falls. There is one flashback scene in Isle Dragon Roars which is entirely devoid of narration, so just use OCR for that. Even if you don't, there isn't anything demanding that you need to do there.
In regards to challenges to expect later on, in the late game, there are hazards that cause damage, edges that take you to the previous floor, an escape sequence where you have to exit the dungeon within x amount of steps, and a room full of secret passages that turn off to various dead ends or treasures, but it's all doable. For the hazards, just have salves on hand to use, or heal up during battle. If they fall during battle, your characters never stay dead outside of battle and will immediately revive with a small amount of health, so don't worry about losing them that way. For the escape sequence, just keep track of which way you're going so that if you fail the first time, you can use that knowledge to move the way you haven't gone when you reload the game. Same with the secret passages so you don't get lost. You can save anywhere, except when the game tells you that you can't, so don't worry about soft locking yourself in an unwinable situation. I still wouldn't recommend going into a dungeon underleveled without any bellwithers and saving deep inside though, that's on you if you do it. You're supposed to use the quick jump feature to get to a tile that leads out, but that's not accessible to us, and even if it was, the game won't let you use it all the time.
One final note: Sometimes after a fight, you will find treasure. You will get to choose 3 chests, each with items inside. They are given from left to right in a non-wrapping menu. From what I've seen during my playthrough, they have always been consumables. You can carry up to 100 pieces of gear, and up to 30 items that do not stack, so use your inventory space wisely. If you pick up a treasure with a full inventory, the game will tell you that the inventory is full and send you to the screen with your list of items. Here, you can either use some items, or junk them, either of which will make room for your new item.
Conclusion
That's everything you need to know in order to play voice of cards, at least for the Isle Dragon Roars. The forsaken maiden should be nearly identical, and same with the Beasts of Burden, with exception to the ability to equip monsters in the third game. If there are corrections to be made, or questions you need answered about gameplay or a particular area, let me know in this topic and I will fix it in this article, or answer over there. I will add a section for the sequels if anything else comes up that's worth mentioning. Hopefully, this guide will help you play without having to lean so hard on OCR to deal with the menus, or at least with making sense of them. Thank you for reading. Like I said at the start, the demos for these games are available, so give them a try, and let me know what you think. Have fun!