Universal Imbroglio (by Michael Brough)

Doh, I figured out character leveling tokens. Each time a weapon on the board gains a level you get a token which then can be traded in (usually requiring 1 or 2 tokens at least with the first 4 characters) to use your character's unique skill.

I can answer most of this.

Several weapons deal in curses, be it shooting off a random curse to another monster when you kill one with a certain weapon or another weapon where a monster has a chance to get cursed simply by stepping over it.

When a creature is cursed, you'll see it surrounded in a black fog.

Some weapons have different or extra effects if the targeted monster is cursed.

While I haven't seen it happen yet, supposedly each time you pick up a gem, one of the currently cursed monsters will become a ghost (I have no idea what this means).

I think curses remain until the creature is killed, but since I usually try to kill each newly appearing creature as quickly as possible, I have no clue if given enough time the effect could wear off.

 

Sure, while no pro myself yet, here's the gist.

You pick a character with their own unique abilities and quirks (like can't use ranged weapons).

Your primary mission is to run around the maze snagging stars. Each time you do you'll earn a point, heal a little, and randomize the current level's layout.

You fight the monsters by bumping into them with the damage and damage type done based on the weapon on the space you're standing on when you attack. Each time you kill a baddy, the weapon on the space you're standing on gets a point of experience. Get enough points and the weapon will level up (often giving it new cool powers) and you'll gain a token which can be used to activate your character's special ability.

So the key to making it anywhere in the game is matching up the right damage type to a given enemy (i.e. a cube would need 4 points of physical damage to take out but even the weakest of magical attacks will kill him in a single hit), and try to kill beasties from the same space as much as possible to level up the weapons quicker and thus earning more tokens.

All unlocks in the game are based on reaching threshold scores with the characters. Like how you need to get at least 32 points with each individual character to edit their grid of weapons, and score at least 64 to unlock the first of 4 bonus characters.

 

The "deck" is the board you're playing on which is simply a 4x4 grid of different weapons. You're initially confined to using each character's default deck, but once you get a score of 32 or greater with that character you can create your own deck for that character as long as it conforms to that character's specific limitations (like can't use magic based weapons or can't use ranged weapons). Since each of the 4 baddies always spawn from their same corner entrances, your best bet is to configure weapons to take advantage of this (i.e. since Cubes are vulnerable to magic, you might want to have some magic weapons handy adjacent to his entry point so that if you time it right, you can kill it the second it hits the board.

 

Something cool I caught with the first unlocked character, it looks like they also add a few new cards/weapons accessible by all of the other classes.