Ironclad Tactics

Ironclad Tactics

I’ve been playing Ironclad Tactics off and on for over a year. Only now, after earning every card, I realize that I forgot to write a review. It’s sort of a Plants VS Zombies game except that it’s Zombies VS Zombies, and the zombies are steampunk mechs.

The pace is realtime, but it moves slow enough to allow some thinking time for your next moves. Most of the challenge comes from building specialized decks to solve the puzzle that each level presents. Your AI opponent will have the upper hand with some new attack or defense and you’ll have to come up with a counter. Most of the time this results in a tense battle of planning, wits, and fortune. When you tweak a deck combo into working just right it feels great! Each new card opens up lots of tactical options and completing challenges for cards feels rewarding.

Real player with 46.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Card Battler Strategy Games.


I got this game in a bundle and I was so happy that I decided to give it a try - I would easily purchase it individually.

If you enjoy deck-building card game, laning-style gameplay, and the steampunk theme, then you will love this game.

The aesthetics are great - the detail put into the cartoon-style graphics are very nice. The cutscenes are delivered in a comic-book style format, and the art is well done. The music is sounds are also good and add to the atmosphere of the industrial-age setting.

Real player with 22.4 hrs in game

Ironclad Tactics on Steam

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

Makings of a Hero

SteamWorld is a franchise of vaguely connected games, each starring a friendly cast of robots. The latest entry – Hand of Gilgamech introduces a stark departure from the usual futuristic setting, venturing instead into the land of fantasy. Meet Armilly, an adventurer aspiring to at last become a member of the local heroes’ guild. Good heavens! The village has been invaded by an evil army and all of the heroes have been kidnapped. Such a tragedy, if only there was someone desperately longing for a worthy quest to finally prove themselves. It’s high time to gather your trusty companions and make this one count.

Real player with 41.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best Card Battler Turn-Based Games.


On my first playthrough I went with the Legend difficulty and I was not disappointed… Mostly. Also, quick note, I got the game half off so my thoughts are based around what I got for that price.

Starting with things I liked/loved:

  • The Art is beautiful.

  • The Characters are simple but lovable.

  • The Music I find to be very pleasant to listen to.

  • I love the opening and ending sequences, I wish there were more of these.

  • The Ending Song, while short, made me smile. I love it.

  • The card game mechanic is pretty solid. Deck-Building is fast and easy, chaining cards together for combos or allowing for an additional helpful card to be played is really fun, and while I didn’t use a lot of other cards, I can definitely see some ideas on how to use them for other play styles so I like that there is multiple options on how to play.

Real player with 38.5 hrs in game

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech on Steam

Gremlins, Inc. – Card Game

Gremlins, Inc. – Card Game

This original digital card game offers intense sessions for 2 to 6 players. At the core of gameplay lie two key mechanics: “hand management” and “take that”.

SET IN THE WORLD OF GREMLINS, INC.

The game is set in the world of corrupt capitalist gremlins of the future, the setting that’s already familiar to the tabletop community from the digital board game Gremlins, Inc. .

This card game is a standalone game with its own original set of rules and mechanics, and does not require ownership or previous experience with the previously released digital board game.

BUILD PROJECTS WHILE ATTACKING OTHERS AND DEFENDING YOUR OWN ACHIEVEMENTS

The sessions are played for score and for rounds. The player with the highest score at the end of the session wins. Build temporary and permanent projects, play instant action cards and camouflage your plans from the opponents while preparing your attacks.

SINGLE-PLAYER AND MULTIPLAYER MODES

The sessions typically last between 20 and 60 minutes. The game supports single-player and multiplayer modes, including peer to peer sessions as well as games played on the official servers, and allows to play with different decks.

PROVEN BY REAL-LIFE SESSIONS

Before we set to make it into a digital game, this project existed as a real-life card game enjoyed around the world in 6 languages.

A VIBRANT COMMUNITY AND A PUBLIC ROADMAP

We release this card game under the Early Access program as we’ll be expanding and modifying it based on the community feedback. The roadmap includes such features as team mode, ranked sessions and the support of Steam Workshop.


Read More: Best Card Battler Strategy Games.


Gremlins, Inc. – Card Game on Steam

Indies' Lies

Indies' Lies

An easier, and more enjoyable DBG

Different from the traditional deck building games, we have made many adjustments and optimizations in many aspects, the deck building process will be smoother and more flexible, allowing more players can experience the fun of DBG.

Solitary different role experience

There are 3 professions in early stage. Among them, each profession has three characters. Around each different profession, each character has its own unique and surprising gameplay, different talent trees and varied lieutenants, which will make your deck building more diverse. There will always be something you would like!

Cleverly designed lieutenants System

Players can invite up to two lieutenants to join the team in the game. Different lieutenants have their own positioning and building routes, some of them are strong DPS hero, some of them have strong tank capabilities, and some of them can make the attack of the main character more powerful. You have to make choices depend on the need of your team. A good choice can make your experience more refreshing.

Rich and Variable Talents

We designed unique talents for different professions and deck building. Even the same profession will have different talent selection routes for each game. 200+ unique talents can satisfy all your growing demands in the process of deck building.

Unique Plot Mode

The game has an original fictitious worldview and unique stories.

When you use different characters to complete the games, their own stories will be unlocked, and you will uncover different clues. These clues will take you further to the world under the influence of both old and new gods.

Indies' Lies on Steam

Cabals: Card Blitz

Cabals: Card Blitz

Well, I have had many hours of fun trying to level up in this groovy title.

I just ran out of content upon reaching rank II.

There is strategy, and nail-biting, edge of your couch moments, and

there are times you take a break and play something else while you let

your high levels take time to level.

Looking forward to my first card over the monumental level 10 but

will wait for new content that is promised. With NO real end…

there isn’t a lot of drive to carry on at the moment.

BobMan’s Final verdit:

Real player with 464.4 hrs in game

I’m currently #4 on the worldwide PvP ladder in this game.

As you can see by my time spent in this game, I really tried to like it. It’s a fun browser game concept.

BUT you asked for $$$ after essentially everything you do. You can still have fun, but it’s God damn annoying.

Which would be something I could life with, if this game was more than a cash in.

There’s so much wrong:

  • At some point PvE simply ends. You LITERALLY can’t fight a single battle anymore.

  • You can only fight 5 PvP battles/ hours without paying $$$

Real player with 356.3 hrs in game

Cabals: Card Blitz on Steam

Erannorth Chronicles

Erannorth Chronicles

I got this game for free because I won it as part of a modding contest for Erannorth Reborn. So I had to put effort into making the mod and win the contest. So it wasn’t really a handout.

This is the best deck builder RPG I ever played.

The character creation alone allows a degree of freedom that no other game like this can hope to achieve.

“A-Stranger” and “DaGibus” reviews already say pretty much of what I would say myself (and much better than I would too). So I will point at their reviews instead. Let’s just say I agree with them.

Real player with 439.9 hrs in game

Edit: With the introduction of Pariah mode I’m having a lot more fun and feeling a good sense of progression. I’m getting some loot rewards that I can’t use yet which is a great motivation to keep going and get stronger. It was really tough to start out in that mode so I ended up starting in Quest mode until I felt I had good enough healing and crowd control to move my toon from the Book of Heroes to Pariah mode.

This is a really fun deck builder for people who love theory crafting and min/maxing character concepts. Many combinations of customization to explore. I like that you can play in different game modes so if you want to explore a world map you can do that, but if you’d rather just get to the tactical fighting you can run a gauntlet instead. You can also customize a lot of game parameters such as the number of enemies that will arrive in a typical encounter, etc.

Real player with 158.4 hrs in game

Erannorth Chronicles on Steam

SteelPinion

SteelPinion

SteelPinion is a steampunk turn based tactical strategy game with a dash of autobattler. Deep fleet customization synergies can be created or disrupted by the modding community. (NOTE: This steampage will be updated frequently as development continues)

An Alternate History

Experience a conspiratorial retelling of history where steampunkery,

chivalry, and explosive elemental weaponry prevails. Procedural spice flavors every encounter with new unknowns in the otherwise hand-crafted environments. Meet three warring factions with distinct technology and heros.

Tactical Battles

Combat in SteelPinion is a mix of well known tactics game genre staples, with a new difficult to implement mechanic - simultaneous turn resolution.

Position your airships well, allowing your best armored angle to withstand opponent’s salvos; all the while exploiting their exposed angle.

The advantage is not always as simple as “get behind and shoot em” since players may have altered an airship to their liking and your dismay!

Unique “Steamflakes”

While we want the game to have a low barrier of entry and will have some preset faction fleet configurations; players are encouraged to branch out mixing faction components and create a strategy that wrecks.

Speaking of which, salvage wreckage from other players and add their components to your own fleet as a reward for your victory.

Don’t worry if you lose, your engineers back at the shipyard can literally work miracles and bring you back from a pile of scraps. (Reminder to hug your nearest engineer buddy… umm on second thought, don’t do that).

Sit Down

Sitting can be exciting when you are customizing individual ships components/subsystems and pilot abilities that work together. Use a deck building approach when designing your fleet for a cozy unrushed experience.

Flip Tables

Hate customizing? Just want to see stuff blow up before putting on your pajamas? Then use player published presets to get by and smash our inferior AI (you’re better than AI right?).

Know Better Than Us

An ole saying “the customer is always right” has conflicting reception. We know that players inevitably will surpass us in playtime, eventually knowing the metagame better. So we want to make absolutely sure that the metagame is always in the hands of the player. A carefully integrated repo will expose public mods, automatically making them available in the game for playtesting and fun - woohoo devOps automation!

Friendly for Kids

That doesn’t mean “made for kids”, however, you can safely play this in front of your favorite young mind without fear. The game’s violence is steampunk machines blowing each-other up. Just like a little boy crashing a tower.

Get bailed out if you’re an underdog

You are admiral, and you should live with the consequences of your bad commands - or not. Get bailed out by allocating more engineers to repair your desolate fleet. Everyone knows that assigning more engineers speeds up delivery time! In the same way, you can order around your lackeys to “just get it done” and they will; there is no punishment for being a bad tactician, but there are rewards for being a good tactician.

SteelPinion on Steam

Gremlins, Inc.

Gremlins, Inc.

I saw adverts of this game while it was still in beta stage. The peculiar character of the graphics made the whole intriguing but I suspended with the purchase till Gremlins, Inc. left pre-release state. Watched some gameplay videos but without sufficient knowledge of the rules I could only tell that the game has really strong influence on the players. In fact only the description of available achievements made me realize the depth of the Gremlins, Inc. and convinced me to add it to my Winter Sale basket.

Real player with 3910.4 hrs in game

This is a virtual board game with a strong focus on strategy in a non-deterministic setting, requiring probabilistic reasoning (think of poker).

The game is set in a steampunk society of (genderless) gremlins that see the purpose of their existance in grabbing power and profit by tricking and cheating each other. The design of the game material is in a hand-drawn cartoonesque style and visually appealing. Also the available music kits (to be won as prices in free-to-open chests) are a nice feature.

Real player with 1076.9 hrs in game

Gremlins, Inc. on Steam