A Long Way Down
As it sits right now, A Long Way Down is an incomplete game that is hampered by bugs - but this is an Early Access title so I can forgive this. That said, I can’t say I was particularly all that interested in this game; nor was I particularly interested in the element of ‘farming’ that this game seems to encourage.
The gimmick of this card rogue-like is that you are given an incomplete dungeon layout - a lot of tiles will be floating in, well, Limbo, and you will ‘build’ your path through the dungeon with tiles you can set down. There are many event tiles that you can come across and interact with - as well as of course enemies to encounter.
– Real player with 16.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Card Battler Card Game Games.
I completed the game and earned all achievements in the game. I believe, that I experienced all the content and so I can share my experiences about this game.
– Real player with 10.1 hrs in game
CasterLords
Note: This game is in development. Some graphics are currently placeholders. Thank you.
WIELD THE POWER OF THE CASTERLORDS
CasterLords is a single-player deck-building game about powerful warlocks caught in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.
You are placed in a fantasy world and presented a challenging gauntlet of enemies to overcome, armed with a custom-built arsenal of magic spells, weapons, and ancient artifacts.
FEATURES
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Many simple rules combine to make tactical gameplay.
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Discover and collect new cards along your journey and use them to fine-tune your deck!
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Procedurally-generated campaigns with dozens of scenarios, no two playthroughs are alike!
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The final boss of each campaign is your character from the previous one, who will fight you with the same deck you built to get him there!
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Five CasterLords planned at launch, with more on the way - each with multiple unique decks to change up your playstyle!
CHOOSE YOUR CASTERLORDS
A powerful mage obsessed with the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Nazrun’s unique cards heavily focus on casting magic spells, trading survivability for raw power.
Ka’ri spreads her seeds of flame to burn away the old world, and in her wake, new life blooms. Her unique cards have lingering effects, and she can transform into her beast-form for a burst of power.
This ruthless assassin uses poisons, toxins, and traps to dispatch her opponents. What she lacks in magic, she makes up for with an arsenal of weapons and items. Stack combos are deal devastating damage!
An honourable warrior who treats the lowly denizens of Eawyn with respect and dignity. His unique cards boast flexibility, offering a balance between power, defense, and magic.
Harness the powers of destruction and reconstruction with this Lepisian warlock! Her unique card’s can break cards down to their core components and then rebuild them into new forms.
STORY
Deep in the mistfallen valleys of Eawyn lies the green, mossy ruins of an ancient shrine; a long-forgotten portal to some other world or some other time.
Every so often, a CasterLord will appear from this sacred portal, perhaps brought into this world by some benevolent spirit or banished from their own world by a fearful deity.
These CasterLords may take different and strange forms, but each bristles with overwhelming power and is compelled to take over the kingdom.
Sitting on his gilded throne, the Immortal Emperor towers above the realm atop his twisted iron fortress. The shadows of hundreds of vanquished CasterLords burned into its walls, will you be able to defeat him and unlock the secrets behind the mysterious appearances of the CasterLords?
ADDITIONAL INFO
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The Demo lacks many quality-of-life features, such as Tooltips, History and Interactive Tutorial - we plan to implement these and more when we get funding.
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Demo includes up to 250 cards.
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Final game estimated to include more than 1,000 cards.
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If we get enough support, we can include even more CasterLords and Steam Workshop integration, allowing players to create their own cards, and CasterLords!
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Provisional PEGI Rating: 12 (Fantasy Violence)
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Developed by H. Hochkins, a games developer with 8 years experience that specialises in card games.
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No microtransactions or loot boxes. Every card and character is unlockable via game progression.
Please wishlist & follow CasterLords on Steam to help support our project! Thank you!
Read More: Best Card Battler Dungeon Crawler Games.
One Step From Eden
the dark souls of rockman.exe
– Real player with 120.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Card Battler Action Roguelike Games.
Takes a few hours to get used to but it’s great afterwards
– Real player with 116.0 hrs in game
Banners of Ruin
I do not play deckbuilders if I can help. I’m not really down for the whole card system usually and I think Slay the Spire was the only exception. I’ve tried others in the past and none of them really stuck. This one was baller, I dig the art style and the card system isn’t overBEARing. I’m sure some folks that play this games primarily may find it easy but for a noob, it’s awesome. Even the music gets you pumped and it is very much like a choose your own adventure.
That being said, there’s not really a lot of content to the game and I kinda wish there was more to it. I didn’t even know I beat the game, I thought it was just the first part or something and then abruptly ended. Still, that didn’t keep me from coming back and playing it again and again.
– Real player with 40.0 hrs in game
TLDR: If you don’t have enough patience to read this review then you don’t have enough patience to play this game I assure you. That being said, it has a LOT of redeeming qualities and is worth a look for anyone who likes deck builders or games similar to Slay the Spire.
Let me start off by saying that I REALLY want to love this game and it is pretty good in spite of its faults. I was raised on CCGs and the advent of deck builders has given the genre a fresh and new take that I thoroughly enjoy and Slay the Spire, a game which I have played into the ground. (Ascension 20 on most characters) Ever since I have been looking for the next StS and there have been some decent offerings, but none have managed to capture my attention in quite the same way. Because of this when I saw this game come up on my store page and watched some gameplay I was immediately sold.
– Real player with 27.2 hrs in game
Deep, In the Forest
It’s a fun little game. It’s not going to have as much deck-building depth/synergy as some other games like STS. However, it has a fun atmosphere and overall concept. Well-done for a 2 dev team. I wasn’t a huge fan of the danger level mechanic in general, but there is an easy mode that does make the game more manageable for those that are struggling. Recommended to grab on sale if you like this kind of game.
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game
I had a ton of fun with deep in the forest it’s got a nice mechanic of you can burn a card once per turn to gain 1 more mana gain each turn and the burned card stays gone so you can thin your deck during the battle and gain advantage it’s awesome and makes you think and make hard choices. Some downsides is that the game doesn’t have a mechanic to see your deck, discard, or burned cards during battle so it can be a big pain not know what cards you have left. (my first run i burned all my attack cards without realizing it)
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
FreeCell Quest
If you like playing Free Cell this is probably the best game I’ve played. Freecell is a solitaire style game where you can place cards in free cells so that you can bring them into the game later and use the card behind the card you just displaced. The goal of the game is to collect all of the suits from Ace to King. In order to win you must move around cards and stacks of cards. Stacks can only be connected if they are in number order, but it doesn’t matter what color or suit they are.
As you play this game there are a few extras that are added. Eventually you can obtain new free cells, I think you have a maximum of 6. You also have spells to help you move cards around. You can randomize all the red cards, choose a specific card to move to its final destination, move all the kings to the top, and much more. As you win each level, you obtain money which you can use to obtain potions to heal your character or refresh you mana for spells during the game. There are many many levels, I mean an extraordinary amount of levels. It took me forever to beat the game. It would seem that you could play this as a casual game, but if you plan on beating the game prepare for a 100+ hour romp through this game.
– Real player with 202.8 hrs in game
Not since Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey has a game taken a simple concept and added enough systems to make it feel fresh again. Levelling up, getting new equipment and spells, etc. You might have seen something similar done already, but FreeCell Quest does it now for this classic Windows card game.
I’m sure you know the rules. Mismatch red and black suits down rows starting with a king, working your way towards collecting aces, etc - but what this game does different is that it’s like a fight, as you’re working out the solution or using up mana to draw the cards you want towards you, you’re being attacked and losing health, so much so that you might even have to retreat or lose a lot of gold if you don’t. It starts simple, but this game gets hard, and certain puzzle sequences might require you to grind to even get a chance to beat them, and since the puzzles are randomized, you can’t exactly turn to a YouTube guide. Eventually, even if you can’t figure it out, you can overpower it once you’ve gained enough in game strength.
– Real player with 87.8 hrs in game
Monster Train
I guess hours played should really say what I think about this game.
I have a very specific morning routine. I wake up, start making coffee, brush my teeth and have a smoke. When coffee is finished I sit down and slowly wake up to a game or two of Monster train before starting work. Sometimes I play a game of Slay the spire but since that takes about 30-45 seconds to start I tend to go for Monster train (500 hours of SLS on Gog).
This is the perfect timewaster. Easy to get into and all the different races have so much variability. And deckbuilding is my favorite boardgame game mode ever.
– Real player with 1233.5 hrs in game
Game is pretty fun. A bit more combo based than say Slay the Spire and a lot of luck can be needed on higher difficulties. That being said it is bright and fun and it’s enjoyable to take a train to hell.
– Real player with 300.1 hrs in game
Stormbound
I’ve just gotten into Stormbound in the past 2 months and I love this game. I’ve had a binge on CCG games for awhile and I play this one the most an consistently.
First and formost, the game is NOT PAY 2 WIN. Please view negative reviews with a grain of salt.
- The game is about strategy but it takes awhile to learn what those strategies are, as there are 4 different archetypes of cards, and even then, there are sub-themes within each. For example, is the Winter Pact set. It typically revolves around stacking mana or freeze combos. However, you can use freeze combos just to stall enemies or to clear many enemies at once.
– Real player with 64.5 hrs in game
I wish ranked play was everybody playing same levels. I’ve noticed that when you finally get to rank 25, you’re starting to meet the whales who can’t win from other whales (aka: people with too much money (and maybe also too much time) and too little skill).
So even if you’re playing reasonably well enough, playing with level 1s and 2s against level 3s isn’t exactly on equal footing. I thought that ‘ranked matches’ in general should be about skill (in gameplay and deckbuilding), not about who’s got the most money to throw around.
– Real player with 26.9 hrs in game
Ancient Gods
☐Very good
☑ Good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Okay
☐ Bad
Graphics-
☑ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Will do
☐ Bad
☐ Awful
Audio
☐ Amazing
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
Audience
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Everyone
Story-
☐ Lovely
☐ Good
☑ Average
☐ Not great
☐ None
Difficult-
☐ Just press a bunch of buttons
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☑Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Not so easy
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
Grind-
☐ Nothing
☐ Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
– Real player with 52.8 hrs in game
“There are so many “just another card games” out there, but this one is not one of them.”
I used this sentence in my Banners of Ruin review, but it fits perfectly here too.
The audio and the visual design is outstanding and the art style matches flawlessly with the music and the atmosphere.
Gameplaywise, the passives for each God, the 9 different starting class and the “choose your path” type Endless mode offer a lots of replayability while the Campaign lets you learn the game while you progress thru it.
– Real player with 40.0 hrs in game
HELLCARD
Hellcard is a cooperative roguelike deckbuilder that can be played in both Singleplayer and Multiplayer modes. The game takes place in the paper dungeons known from Book of Demons, but its main mechanics revolve around deckbuilding and fast-paced tactical turn-based card battles.
What makes HELLCARD unique and different from games such as Slay the Spire is that monster placement actually matters and can be used to your advantage.
In HELLCARD we’re planning to support co-op battles with up to three heroes facing Archdemon’s hordes. You’ll be able to descend into the dungeons solo, recruit computer-controlled companions or join your friends or strangers in their battles against the hordes of hell.
If the above features get you excited, be sure to wishlist the game now on Steam. Otherwise consider wishlisting anyway - who knows, maybe we will get you excited along the way!
About Return 2 Games series
Return 2 Games is a series of unique mid-core games inspired by the golden days of PC gaming. Each R2G title is a tribute to a single hit game from the ’90s: a reimagining of a single universal story for a brand-new audience, using modern means and innovative, often vastly simplified gameplay mechanics.
HELLCARD internally started as an idea for a new game mode inside Book of Demons (the first game in the R2G series), but we soon realized that it’s a much bigger design and that it should be executed as a separate stand-alone spin-off game. If you want to learn more about Return 2 Games or support us in the development of the series, visit the Supporter Pack store page. On release, HELLCARD will be a part of it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/706770/Return_2_Games_Supporters_Pack/
Book of Demons, the first part in the series is already here, be sure to check it out as it includes a free demo.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/449960/Book_of_Demons/
Also, be sure to check out Book of Aliens, the second book in the series and a tribute to MicroProse’ UFO: Enemy Unknown that’s also in the works:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1196230/Book_of_Aliens/