Hand of Fate received generally positive reviews, and led to the successful crowdfunded physical variation of the game.

The player takes the role of a nameless hero that meets a strange Dealer voiced by Anthony Skordi, in a "cabin at the end of the world".

This dealer narrates the player's adventure, dealing the game's cards, rewards, penalties, lore, and commentary.

Furthermore, the dealer has his own deck from which surprising elements such as more challenging encounters and monsters are drawn that also grows as the player gains cards and progresses through the game.

Some of these events include a tree of options that the player can choose, while chance is presented as four shuffled cards representing rates of success or failure.

If the player encounters a monster or maze of traps, the number and type of enemy are determined by cards drawn by the Dealer (if any).

The game then enters a third-person perspective action mode, where the player can attack, dodge, reflect and counterattack enemies and traps represented by the cards that were drawn.

On completing some encounters, the Dealer will present special tokens representing new cards that the player will receive at the conclusion of that dungeon, regardless of whether they won or were defeated.

[2][3] Defiant Development are a team of approximately fifteen based in Brisbane, they described Hand of Fate as their "first big push" onto PC platforms following their previous mobile projects.

[9] A beta version followed in February 2014, and in July, the game launched for Windows, OS X, and Linux on Steam Early Access.

The studio had been founded in 2010 in Brisbane, Australia, and initially had developed in the mobile game arena with titles like Ski Safari and Rocket Bunnies.

[15] In July 2016, Defiant partnered with IndieBox to produce an exclusive, custom-designed, physical release of Hand of Fate.

This individually-numbered collector's box included a themed USB drive with DRM-free copy of the game, official soundtrack, instruction manual, Steam key, and several custom-made collectibles.