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(+2)

It is what it says it is, a rogue-like deckbuilder. It's playable, but not really enjoyable (for me at least). The cards are hard to handle, sometimes a click is enough, sometimes you need to drag it, sometimes you have to drag it to a seemingly unrelated position on screen. The story, weird as it starts out to be, is quite nonexistant once you enter the actual game. A blant *rips the heart out* that only changes a bit between the different monsters is rather uninteresting. 

You bring up some nice ideas though with cards that play a turn later, haven't seen that one yet (though I must admit I haven't played the big games of this genre). I could see some nice gameplay coming out of this feature. Some more explanation about how this works would've been nice though as it wasn't really obvious that effects like +damage or -damage only last one turn. Some sounds and visual effects would be nice to have as well to see what's actually happening when you play a card. Previewing effects on mana, health and targeted enemies too.

As it stands right now, there isn't much of a rogue-like feature in the game, no relics, no powerups and nothing unlocks when you win, or lose, so it's just a deckbuilder at the moment.

I hope this rather negative feedback doesn't dissuade you from developing the game further. I believe that at this point of development pointing things out that are missing/not working is more helpful than an undifferenciated praise, but nonetheless you did well on several things and have gotten to a point where you have a playable game you can show the world. I'm excited for how this game will turn out when more is added

I appreciate the honest feedback. This is my first attempt at making a card game and its still very early in development. I mostly wanted to put a demo out there to see if the basic game was fun enough to play to justify continuing to work on it.  My hope with this game is to eventually have a passable slay the spire clone with some unique mechanics and a good balance of adult content. But its just me working on it and it's definitely not there yet. So I'm glad to hear it was at least stable, playable and you'd like to see more from it. That's what I was hoping to hear : ).

I'd agree with most of your points about things that are missing, something like a relic system I had planned to add but ended up prioritizing other fixes and didn't get it into the demo. I also liked some of the mechanics we came up with like cards that play next turn, so I'm glad you found those interesting.

(+1)

With how the demo works right now, namely a single run up to the first boss, there's not much use for relics anyways. You've set your priorities in a sensible manner such that the most basic features come first. It was indeed fun to play once and see what this game has to offer, but it didn't leave anything open for a possible second playthrough. Continue adding content and features and I'm sure it'll get there eventually

I agree with your review, but I disagree that your review was negative ;-)

A rogue-like is not really defined by powerups or unlocks. Any card you add to your deck can be considered a powerup. If we do not apply the outdated purist rogue-like definition (games that are like the game Rogue), it only boils down to two things in my opinion: You have a "run" that is random and you can die on that run and not load arbitrary save games. It is the core you cannot take away and still think of a game as rogue-like and is therefore now the meaning of that term.

Even in the outdated defintion, powerups for the next run where never a factor. It is just a popular mechanic, probably influenced by clicker games. And to sweaten the deal, so players would not feel too betrayed by the fail of a run.

I played some deckbuilder games, including StS, Monster Train, Iratus, Black Book, and even Backpack Hero, and as all of them, there are slightly different mechanics and some are familiar. Some things I did not see yet, which is good. But the current demo is also super easy - if one knows how to play deckbuilders. I did not view the tutorial and beat the lamia without losing. Though I am not sure, if the self healing ability was intentionally put there.

Ironically, the most Slay the Spire-like of the lot was Backpack Hero, despite it not even being a card game. Since the game want's go in that direction. We shall see, how it turns out. The AI art is a bit of a turn off.