Macabre Roguelike FLASK Demands Goblin Blood
- In FLASK, you play an alchemist collecting goblin blood to survive and pay your tower’s mortgage.
- Illustrator John Kenn Mortensen brings his eerie “Sticky Monsters” style as art and narrative lead.
- Balance debt and upgrades while battling enemies and ghostly PvP opponents.
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Pay The Blood Debt
Danish studio Chop Chop Games (MineRalph) and publisher Ghost Ship (Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor) have revealed FLASK, a grisly autobattler with distinctive visuals by celebrated illustrator John Kenn Mortensen. A release date is TBC, but it’s due out on PC.
FLASK takes place in a medieval world after a large-scale war between humans and goblins. Players control an alchemist, who’s wandering the ravaged land with a mobile tower/lab, to collect goblin blood to use for experiments and…pay their mortgage? *checks notes* Yep, that’s definitely part of it.
“We wanted to create something for strategy fans with an immense amount of depth in the gameplay, where you can take the time to carefully plan your moves while exploring this dark and gruesome new world,” said Dario Rahimic, co-founder of Chop Chop Games.
“FLASK perfectly mixes my background in competitive card games with my love for dark fantasy, in a way I never knew I craved before now. When you’re literally paying your mortgage with the blood of your enemies, every victory becomes twisted, but it’s all necessary to increase your profits! This is our first major reveal, and we’re so excited to introduce the world to FLASK.”
Post-It Note Horror Meets Video Games
John Kenn Mortensen is a Danish illustrator who first drew attention for his Sticky Monsters art: finely-detailed line drawings of creepy and sinister creatures he managed to fit on post-it notes, but always with the suggestion of a story behind a scene. The monsters also tend to be in some way friendly with children, which makes sense given that Mortensen is a father of twins, and a writer and director of children’s TV shows.
Mortenson has had exhibitions of his work across the world, published best-selling books, and illustrated an article for the New York Times, but FLASK is the first video game he’s been involved with, as both an art and narrative lead.
“FLASK is my first ever experience working on a video game, and it offers such a unique canvas for collaboration and creativity – not to mention a new home for my nightmarish designs,” he said.
“Joining Chop Chop and working with Ghost Ship has been an incredible experience. There are no limitations here, no editorial constraints – just pure, unfiltered dark fantasy brought to interactive life. We can’t wait to show the world more of FLASK soon.”
Pay Your Mortgage With Blood
In FLASK, players travel around a world map collecting blood from random enemy encounters. There’s a balancing act of using blood to pay debts or enhance the homunculus used in autobattles, the consequence of which affects the chances of long-term survival. If the tower’s mortgage can’t be paid, it’s also game over.
The homunculus come in a variety of shapes and sizes, all designed by Mortenson and given unique abilities that can help turn the tide of battle. The titular flasks can also be used to bolster troops with weird new abilities, although at the cost of getting further into debt.
Chop Chop Games is known for mixing genres and gameplay in unexpected ways, and in the case of FLASK it works-in asynchronous PvP; every third battle is against the homunculi ghosts of other players to spice things up.
“FLASK represents the kind of beautifully disturbing innovation we love to see at Ghost Ship Publishing,” said Søren Lundgaard, CEO of Ghost Ship Publishing. “We’re committed to supporting teams that push boundaries, and Chop Chop Games has birthed something that feels both familiar to strategy veterans, and utterly fresh in its execution.”
“Part of our mission at Ghost Ship is helping the Danish game development space grow by backing developers who aren’t afraid to challenge conventions, and FLASK is an amazing example of the talent in our industry.”
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