Demeo Beginners Guide (How to Start)

Demeo is a turn-based RPG VR game available for Oculus Quest and Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality. Its created by Resolution Games[www.resolutiongames.com].

If you are familiar with tabletop games – Demeo brings this genre to vr.

The current version contains one map set “catacombs” and is called “Elven Necropolis”. There is a first free DLC on the horizon which is called “Realm of the Rat King”. It will bring new environments, cards and enemies.

In Demeo you can play as one of four characters in multiplayer, or three at once (right now) in singleplayer.

As in every tabletop game, there are many options you can do during your turn.

Right now, you have 2 actionpoints per turn. A turn is ended if all characters (players and enemies) have finished all their available actions. Each spell and action uses up your action points unless they cost zero (0), like a healing potion.

The concept of line of sight or also know as “fog of war” is a core gameplay mechanic. Your characters can only attack or interact with things they can see. Line of sight is not only a horizontal thing, but also vertical. If you Hunter is standing on ground floor, he cant see or shoot an enemy on the upper floor or stairs, even if its revealed by another party member. Keep this in mind and plan your movement accordingly.

All areas which are covered by fog of war (the invisible part of the map) have the chance to spawn new enemies. So sometimes its wise to place an character on high ground to cover a large area and supress spawn of ememies. That means that even a small dark corner, only two tiles wide, can be spawnpoint of powerful enemies, which will suprise you next turn.

In this scenario, the Hunter (red lines) can see down the hallway to the right, and a small gap to the southeast. But he cant see the goblin archer in the north. The Guardian (blue lines) can see the same hallway but his sight to the southeast is blocked by a wall. The goblin archer is only revealed by his sight to the north. If he moves one or two tiles forward, the goblin archer might disappear from sight.

There is another important notice: Summoned creatures like the ballistas or elementals etc. do NOT provide line of sight! They will act independently from your characters and attack and move within the fog of war.

How you spend your action points can decide about victory or defeat. It also matters what actions you do first. I.e. if you first move and then attack, there might be a chance that you miss your attack and become attacked yourself next turn. So attack first, just in case you fail, so you could repeat your initial attack.

You can see your actions points left over your cards or on your right wrist, symboled by two blue diamonds. It is possible to have more than two action points if you or your allies use the spell “One More Thing” which gives you one more action point to use this turn. It costs 0 action points to cast this spell.

There are different things you have to keep in mind if you attack an enemy.

First of all do you attack in melee range or at a distance? Here the hunter uses his ranged attack spell:

Secondly – will you block other teammembers abilities (like fireball, wirlwind or spear throw – also see AOE) or can you push the enemy into their line of sight? If you play a guardian, you tend to push your target one space back. Use this to your advantage. So choose your attack direction accordingly:

If you play an assassin its vital to know which direction an enemy is facing, because you do 3 extra damage if attacking from behind.

It is possible to “miss” an attack, displayed by the skull on the dice. In this case your character will spin and randomly cast the spell/attack. This results often in hitting your own party or accidentally triggering another effect, i.e. popping a gas lamp, which then results in an aoe.

Backstabbing an enemy can be stacked with critical damage and result in a so called “one hit”.
You see an critical hit indicated by double crossed swords on your dice.How much critical damage you deal depends on your character, see also “Characters”.

In order to win, you need to manage your resources in the most effective way. If you are wasting action points, you might be overwhelmed easily by the countless spawning enemies. So its important that you chain your actions properly. Instead of moving in one action and attacking in the second action, you could chain both together to move and attack twice.

Most player characters can move 8 spaces, while most enemies can only move 4 spaces. Use this to your advantage and get out of sight/line of fire after an attack if you are low on hitpoints. To attackmove, simply drag your character to the position you want to attack FROM and then drag the figure above the enemy you want to attack.

The ATTACK FROM position is marked blue, the ATTACKED ENEMY is marked red. This is especially important if you play the assassin! He needs to attack from behind to deal extra damage.

Normal attack move:

Most player characters can move 8 tiles per action point, most enemies only 4 tiles. Exeptions here are the “rats” which tend to use the first action to attack and the second action to retreat. They can move 6 tiles.

If you hero becomes surrounded, he is body blocked. That means he cant move any further until an enemy is pushed away (i.e. by the Guardian) or killed to open a gap to escape. Prevent this scenario under all circumstances or even your mighty Guardian with all his armor will fall easily.

You can use a “magical barrier” casted by the mage to block enemy movement or close a chokepoint. (There is currently a bug which lets poison spread under these walls too). This barrier lasts for 5-6 turns.

While player characters are blocked by enemies and each other, enemy characters CAN pass through each other! Sometimes they also avoid blocked doorways by moving diagonally. Best way to block their movement is to cast “barricades” or “magic walls”.

As in every tabletop – your chance to die is huge. Even more if you play with random players from over the world who are not familiar with these kind of games. It requires alot of experience and tactical awareness to master a tabletop game.

But there are some options in case you got overwhelmed to get back on you feet and going.

When your health becomes zero, you are “downed” – your character goes on the knees and you have a couple of turns until you really die.

If you are downed first time, you have 3 turns to become resurrected.
You have 2 turns if you are downed a second time and 1 turn if you are downed a third time.
The fourth time you would be downed, you die instantly.

When downed, your party members can help you up by touching your body with an action. This will also heal you for 3 hitpoints.

Another option would be to use a healing fountain. There is at least one in every level. Using a healing fountain will resurrect ALL downed partymembers, cure everyone from negative effects (like poison) and heal all party members for 7 hitpoints.

Spells are the bread and butter in this game. Without spells you will have a hard time to survive. The mechanic to collect spells is quite unique. Every action you do and every step you take fills up your mana meter. You can see the small blue bar filling up at your hand, or close to your characters.

The mana meter will be filled over time and if it reaches 100, you get a new card. Another option to get new cards / spells is by opening chests throughout the dungeon.

One way to get rid of unwanted cards is to discard during the game. Simply drag & drop regarding cards onto the mana meter in your hand:

If you play in a party, try to communicate before you discard a card – in case another party member has a full hand (10 cards) he wouldnt get another card, which would be a waste.

Another way to get rid of cards is the mercant, where you can sell unneeded cards.

Spells in general have different categories:

• reusable spells aka hero abilities

  These spells are marked with a circling arrow and are reusable, also see section abilities

• support spells

  These spells support your party, i.e. magical shield which reduces incoming damage for a certain time

• aoe spells

  These are damage spells which target an specific area. i.e. fireball which deals 10 damage in a 3×3 area. The tile you target is the tile in the middle. (see also AOE)

• direct damage spells

  These spell deal direct damage to a single enemy, i.e. coin flip, spear throw

• enchantments

  These spells are permantent – if you drink a strenght potion, your character deals one extra damage for the rest of the game.

There are currently 3 elements in the game:

Fire, Ice, Poison.

Each element has unique effects on your character and enemies alike.

Fire – has a huge area of effect and deals alot of direct damage. A sorcerers fire ball can critical hit an entire group of enemies for 20 damage!

Ice – if you are hit by an ice blast, you lose one action point and get 2 extra damage in this turn if hit by an attack. This also counts for enemies, which receive 2 extra damage if hit by ice blast this turn.

Poison – this element is especially usefull on large groups of weak enemies. If you pop a gas lamp (green one), it spreads poison in a 3×3 area around the lamp. Also the Assassins poison bomb spell has the same behaviour. After that, the poison will spread outwards by one tile until it reaches an 8×8 area. Then it will disappear.

Every character that moves directly onto the poison looses one health (Guardian looses armor before health). Knowing this can be helpful if you block a chokepoint with a poisonous cloud. Also – every character has a poison count over his head (small flask) which is reduced by 1 each turn. Until it wears off, he loses one health every turn, even outside of the poisoned area.

Poison can only be “healed” with a healing potion or a healing fountain. But there is another way to get rid of an poisenous area: simply burn it with a fire spell!

Area of effect or short: “AOE” is a common phrase within the rpg community. It describes an spell which affects more than one character or a large area. In our case there are different spells that deal AOE damage. I.e. Fireball, Iceblast but also the Cannon spell.

All lamps in Demeo have an AOE effect. Poison has an 3×3 area which expands over time, Fire AOE covers an 5×5 area and Ice AOE an 3×3 area with and debuff. (see elements)

Be careful when fighting enemy elementals (fire & ice) – they will explode in an AOE if defated. This could lead to a chain reaction if another elemental or gas lamps are nearby and easily kill your whole party. They also trigger an explosion after 2 turns if you bring them down to 1 health, so watch out for that icon above their head.

There are some spells in Demeo which are summons. Some are class related, others can be cast by anyone.

Currently you can summon:

• pair of spiders (small critters)
• pair of rats (small critters – hit & run)
• Wolf (deals decent damage and has 10 hitpoints)
• Elementals (deal 5 ranged damage every now and then)
• Ballista (deals 3×2 damage to visible enemies)
• Behemoth (deals 1×4 AOE damage to visible enemies)
• Healing statue (heals 3 hitpoints to an ally within line of sight in a 5×5 area)
• Barricade (blocks a 1×1 tile)
• Magic wall (blocks a 1×3 tile – disappears after a couple of turns)

All friendly summons are indicated by a small “heart” symbol above their head. They attack and roam the dungeon independently. Rats tend to hit & run, which makes them especially useful.

All summons will enter the next level if they are alive and in line of sight if you leave the current area.

There are alot of enemies in Demeo and i will try to list them in this section over time. You can help by posting proper unit stats into the comments. =)

Enemies will spawn continusly until you leave the area. They will spawn in fog of war (also see Line of Sight).

Elven Skirmisher
Attack: 4
Movement: 4
Abilities: Knockback, Healing Potion

Elven Mystic
Attack: 0
Movement: 4
Abilities: Teleport Ally

Elven Priest
Attack: 3
Movement: 4
Abilities: Knockback, Draining Kiss (steals 2 HP), Summon Cultists (3)

Goblin Fighter
Attack. 2
Movement: 4
Abilities: Melee Attack

Goblin Ranger
Attack: 1
Movement: 4
Abilities: Arrow (Ranged Attack)

Rat
Attack: 1
Movement: 6
Abilities: Melee Attack (Hit & Run!)

Giant Slime
Attack: 5
Movement: 4
Immunities: Panic
Abilities: Poisonous Bite, Acit Spit, Spawn Slime

This list will be completed over time…

Since this is a coop game – communication is vital to survive. Solo players will have a hard time in the team and they are no help to others. Therefore its good if you know your characters role (tank, damage dealer, support etc.) and help your team in every possible way. Moving agressivly forward is not the only option you have 😉

The game is in an early state but there is a very good option besides talking via audio. You can “draw” gestures in the dungeon and visualize your plans to other party members. To do so – just hold down your trigger and “paint” through the air.

The line you draw has the color of your characters base plate.