Casting spells on a letter board
スペルトナエル is a real-time action deck-building roguelike where you fight by spelling. You move a heart-shaped cursor across a board of letters and chant them in order to complete a spell; once every letter is chanted, the magic fires. Move over P, A, N, C, H in sequence and the spell PUNCH goes off and hits the enemy. Short spells are weak but quick to finish, long spells hit harder but leave you exposed for longer, so picking which spells to cast and in what order is half the fight. Between runs you buy and sell spells at the shop at night, and you look for combinations that can be chanted efficiently together.
The enemies do not wait for you. They throw barrages of projectiles at the heart-shaped cursor while you are still chanting, and without enough stat upgrades a single hit can kill you. The core loop is weaving through bullet patterns while keeping your casting going. If bullet hell is not your strong suit, defense upgrades can make you invincible, and animal allies erase enemy projectiles for you, though they get in the way a little. The spell pool is deliberately strange: a dog that grows the more you summon it, a stat-boosting spell that kills you three seconds later, a money spell that draws every projectile toward you. You are free to exploit all of it.
Playing it together
Two controllers on one PC let you play cooperatively, and Steam Remote Play Together lets friends join remotely with a controller each. Coordination is the whole point: you have to agree who handles which letters and who casts which spell, since one person's cursor work and another's timing decide whether the spell lands before the bullets do. Splitting the letter board between you changes how you plan your spell order, so talk it out before each fight.
What to know before starting
This is a 20-day run. Die and you go straight back to Day 1, and runs last around 30 minutes. The game does not explain itself up front; you are expected to fail repeatedly and work out the rules as you go, which suits players who like testing a system until they find a build that breaks it. It demands quick decisions, movement, and game sense at the same time, and it is meant to be either loved or bounced off of. If you want immediate intuitive thrills rather than trial and error, this is probably not your game.
The story follows Two, a reclusive girl traveling with a magical book. It is text-based with multiple endings, and specific actions across the 20 days change the outcome, with puzzle-solving mixed in. Note that localization to English has not started yet. The developer allows video and livestreams with commentary, including monetized ones, but asks that major spoilers such as endings stay out of titles and thumbnails.