Cardpocalypse

Cardpocalypse

Extremely Fun game with a unique and well designed card game mechanics. While there are a few things I think that could be improved, overall they really pale in comparison to the fun I’ve had from this game.

Pros

  • Fresh new card game mechanics with well designed factions that are both unique and synergistic

  • great story

  • Very replayable

  • Fun Gauntlet mode make your own deck each win with difference Champs

  • Great sound track and voicelines

Cons

  • animations and walking can get a little tedious on multiple playthroughs

Real player with 88.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Card Battler Card Game Games.


This game could have been AMAZING but has some design and balance shortcomings. I’ll list them briefly then go into more detail below.

  1. No way to collect all the cards or undo certain permanent changes

  2. No real post game or new game+ to try out different deck types. Unskippable cutscenes ruin the thought of replaying the game.

  3. Some balance shortcomings can make a couple parts almost impossible in some cases, this game is otherwise extremely easy.

I still had fun with this game and not a lot of people make games like this anymore. The story and writing is charming and the art grew on me. The complaints only hurt so hard because the rest of the game shows so much promise. I still had fun with my 14ish hours of it but I wouldn’t recommend paying full price unless you really love these types of games.

Real player with 33.9 hrs in game

Cardpocalypse on Steam

Solaris Rift

Solaris Rift

BEST TEN MINUTES OF MY LIFE!!

Real player with 0.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Card Battler Strategy Games.


A fun little project of a game you can beat in an hour if you try. The devs did a really good job with making the strategy feel complex and worth thinking through with only a handful of main concepts. I definitely recommend checking Solaris Rift out and getting all the achievements!

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

Solaris Rift on Steam

Storybook Brawl

Storybook Brawl

Taken from the store page itself “Deep strategy meets enchanting fun in Storybook Brawl!”

–At no point did that sentence fail to deliver during the testing.–

For someone that is not new to this genre the mechanics were very simple and easy to manage. No issues with hand size becoming unreliable to click on (You can have 4 things). The very few ways I found to add more than the cap of 4 were always put into the shop for a 0 cost to enable the player to make decisions instead of lose things they worked for.

Real player with 337.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Card Battler Strategy Games.


I went back and forth on this, but in the end, this no, you should not get this game. And that’s saying something, as it is free and remarkably free from pay-to-win or any other micro-transactions. The big problem is here is that your skill or understanding of the game really doesn’t matter - it’s all RNG. The game shifts heavily towards the end game with much more powerful creatures available, and if you can get them you win - if you don’t you lose. The best combos are ridiculous and insane and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, you can do if your opponent gets the cards. Then there is the problem with creatures and treasures that are just plain broken and are strictly better than anything else out there. Finally, this game suffers a lot from “win more” syndrome: if you win a brawl you come out in a much better position than you had going in, so once you are down a couple of brawls it can be impossible to come back from. Then there is the problem of people who are determined to try and force their favorite build every time, meaning you can be deprived of key characters for your build - and there are really only three or four viable strategies to begin with - by bad players who take you out with them and there is nothing you can do about it.

Real player with 276.8 hrs in game

Storybook Brawl on Steam

FAWE: Enchanted Forest

FAWE: Enchanted Forest

FAWE: Enchanted Forest - board card game about mystical forest where magic has been saved.

Fight 3 or 4 Players in FFA or Teamplay mode on 1 Board with unlimited amount of Cards of 5 types - 4 Base Cards and 1 Super Card. Every Card has Attack and Defense and gives Buffs and Debuffs. In addition Super Card gives you ability to Upskill.

FAWE: Enchanted Forest on Steam

BATSU!

BATSU!

A long, long time ago, an ancient evil was trapped inside of a magical gong. The gong was struck and released this evil into the world. Now, only one thing can stop it- comedy warriors that compete in improv challenges to appease the evil spirit. If any of them aren’t funny or mess up, they will be punished!

BATSU! is a digital party card game full of hilarious improv challenges and humiliating or painful punishments! The game is based on the hit live Japanese punishment game show in NYC and Chicago. Put your “funny” friends to the test in improv challenges while risking a BATSU! (“punishment”, in Japanese.)

BATSU! on Steam

The Vaults

The Vaults

Embark on a journey into the new fantasy world of The Vaults! Learn the abilities of powerful scrolls to cast magic spells on your enemies or allies. Fight in battles and upgrade your keepers. Get crystals, dig caves, open rare chests, find weapons and much more. Complete Story Mode to save the world of Alexandria from hostile forces!

THE WORLD:

This adventure begins with light surrounded by pitch darkness. This light is getting bigger and bigger. A large portal opens next to you, a mysterious being emerges from it. He gives you three creatures and a set of powerful scrolls for you to save a world, the world of Alexandria.

Alexandria is an ancient world that was once a utopia. This earth is considered the center of the universe, it is through it that cosmic bridges pass, breathing life into all inhabited worlds. Beings spread out over the universe have learned to use these bridges to travel to Alexandria, to mine ancient resources and scrolls from it, stored in hidden vaults scattered throughout the land.

In addition to Alexandria, there are two other worlds: Gradon and Alevia.

Gradon is a world, the main inhabitants of which are humans and dwarves. They share the world with huge mammoths, insects, snakes and other animals.

Alevia is a world of elves, more than half of the world is covered with mysterious forests called Lorandia . These forests are very dangerous, and rarely has anyone returned from there unharmed. The Kingdom of Hyghbourn is the second part of Alevia. It is controlled by the tyrant Hatus. The Hyghbourn monarchy is known for its brutality and belligerence.

FEATURES:

  • Over 40 different powerful scrolls.

  • Upgrade the player to level 80. Learn new abilities.

  • Over 100 equipable items. Each item has over 40 different characteristics.

  • Fight against artificial intelligence or real players.

  • Play a gripping storyline and save Alexandria from destruction!

TIPS:

  • Choose Wisely. Each turn, your keeper can either attack or collect ethereal, but not both. Choose your attacks wisely.

  • Guard. A creature with Guard will help protect your keepers so that the opponent is forced to attack that creature instead. This allows you some time to boost your keeper’s stats.

  • Vocations. Find vocation scrolls to train your keepers to a certain vocation. Each have their own specializations.

  • 4 Main Stats. The main 4 stats you want to know are Health (Heart), Power (sword), Temper (shield), and Cultivation (scythe).

The Vaults on Steam

Dead Man’s Draw

Dead Man’s Draw

This is very close. Another game I wish I could give a neutral rating.

Its a push your luck card drawing game with each suit triggering a different mechanism and along with your traits you can combine them in to more or less devestating attacks in order to collect cards that bolster your score.

Contrary to some of the reviews Ive seen nothing to suggest that the AI is cheating, it does pull off some last minute nasty moves at times but keeping my cool I can think back to the many times I have done the same thing. How much this actually matters is debateable, if the game makes you feel like it is cheating then whether it is or it isnt, the frustration is always real. I think this will be the biggest sticking point for most people, at first it may not be quite so apparent but as things go on you will see through to the luck component of the game increasingly easily and more and more you will feel robbed by complete chance regardless of how well youve played a hand.

Real player with 82.1 hrs in game

I really enjoyed this game, the rules are really simple to pick up, it’s fun to play, the characters are memorable and consistent in ‘who they are’ with the trait combos they use. The AI is really good and not overly cheaty, there were a couple of times I thought you wouldn’t keep drawing like that or you’d have had to have known that card was there to have carried on or to have played that card, but this didn’t happen often enough to make it a concern. It is incredibly fair the majority of the time.

Real player with 55.0 hrs in game

Dead Man's Draw on Steam

Lifing

Lifing

This game is an incredibly unique and complex roguelite deck builder. It does however have a few flaws right now, but despite that I still think it’s a solid game.

The lack of a tutorial for mechanics as well as there being no reference for what card symbols do/mean (there’s a tooltip when scrolling over a card but it only explains the first symbol) makes it very hard to get into.

Jumping from island to island feels fun, but the fights themselves could use some tweaking. So far there’s no way to tell where enemies or resources will spawn on an island. You can bounce to the next island and have no energy/draw resources spawn near you (energy is needed to play cards and you don’t draw cards naturally), which can end your run if your deck isn’t ready to deal with that. I’ve also had my farthest run ended instantly because I hopped onto a new island and the enemy guardian spawned directly next to me and was able to one shot my guardian (which is a game over), no way to survive at all for my guardian.

Real player with 9.7 hrs in game

Short version; it’s not done. In theory the mechanics and assets are there for a game. Sadly it fails at a basic level. As in I don’t know how someone put in so much work, but ever actually got it working.

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game

Lifing on Steam

Out of the Park Baseball 22

Out of the Park Baseball 22

I have been playing OOTP off and on since it was in single digits. I have a love/hate relationship with this game. So, let’s talk about this dysfunctional relationship a bit.

First, how do I play? I am only interested in GM with slight manager touches - typically, setting lineups and pitching roles, and team strategies - because the AI is atrocious at this, but I hardly ever manage or watch a game. I just sim sim sim. For me, I like to do the majors with fictional players, or a full redraft of real players and go from there.

Real player with 2341.3 hrs in game

I didn’t want to buy this game at first, given Out of the Pockets’s complete and total greed with their Perfect Team system. However, OOTP came out with some nice updated graphics, a cool new tournament system (Perfect Draft), and made promises to fix one of the largest and most glaring flaws with the Perfect Team system : live players being trash tier in comparison to pretty much every single historical equivalent.

Okay, so…how’d they do?

Graphics : Are updated. But, now, it is clearly noticable that the attendance, no matter the era you play in, is full of cardboard cutouts. Literally. Your in-stadium audience is a bunch of flat, lifeless sprites. Now, I don’t know if this is a graphics option you can turn off or not, I have yet to look. If it isn’t….100% fail. Sorry.

Real player with 1662.4 hrs in game

Out of the Park Baseball 22 on Steam

Bird’s Eye

Bird’s Eye

Build the best ecosystem in Bird’s Eye — a singleplayer engine-building card game.

A relaxing and family-friendly experience

Bird’s Eye is a relaxing game that features no direct combat, no violence and no strong language. It doesn’t require quick reaction or thinking, it invites you to take your time.

Influence your opponents indirectly

While the game has no direct ways to harm your opponent, you can play a card in their ecosystem, as well as yours. Thwart their plans, while risking giving them a edge.

A chance to learn

Bird’s Eye was built to be more than just a fun game, but an educational experience as well. The game mechanics are designed to closely resemble a self-regulating ecosystem, so the player can learn general ecological concepts in a fun and engaging way. The game has also features an encyclopedia where you can learn about the cards (as well as unlock new ones).

Modding support

Bird’s Eye was built from the ground up to be as modding-friendly as possible. It’s easy to create, share and use community-created cards and game modes with built-in tools and mod manager. Combine different card packs. Pick and choose different parts of the mods you install. Tailor the game experience just to you.

Bird's Eye on Steam