Tournament Ark
(tl;dr version: Check back in when Early Access is over.)
This game has a sizable amount of polish issues- from areas of the game which should allow you to check your deck, but don’t, to a sometimes rough interface, to the bizarre fact that there’s never a “back” button in areas where it’d be expected, to the fact that there isn’t an input delay set after a match end (meaning you might accidentally click on a post-match event selection while trying to click through the end of the match). The game also has some longevity issues that’d be easily remedied with just a bit more late-game gameplay customization options, as well as some significant balance issues.
– Real player with 53.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Comedy Card Battler Games.
I’ve been playing this game since i found it in Itch.io and all i can say is that it’s extremely adictive and there’s so many different options that each run is completly different and unique. The game itself is a Slay the spire-like game with easy to learn but hard to master mechanics. What makes the game so enjoyable is the combination of both different backstories and archetypes which give a rather diverse gameplay and strategies. If you like cardbased roguelikes like Slay the Spire you’re gonna love this game
– Real player with 42.1 hrs in game
Space Food Truck
Mainly writing this because I disagree with what the majority of the negative reviews are saying, as someone who cranked out 40 hours of gameplay (split quite evenly between online and offline play) and who completed games on the hardest difficulty level. While I have ideas on what should contribute to a negative review, which will come later in the review, but let’s start by tackling the points I disagree with in the negative reviews.
I believe RNG gets the majority of the blame because a random event occurs at the beginning of every turn, and at every new planet, so it’s pretty much in your face all the time.
– Real player with 102.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Comedy 4 Player Local Games.
This game has the potential to be very fun. Myself and a few friends brought it and really enjoyed the game initially. But we quickly realised that this game is too hard, and not even hard in way that challenges you properly. We have been playing on mild difficulty, since the upper difficulty was seemingly impossilbe.
The game is hard beyond the player’s control, since much of the game mechanics are the result RNG. 90% of the RNG is bad! You receive negative effects that can see you wiped out very quickly. For example, we upgraded our shields to the max very early on, but in response, we started taking much more damage from RNG events.
– Real player with 44.7 hrs in game
Watch Me Stream My Mental Breakdown
A deckbuilder game with a novel theme and a twist in mechanics because it has a visual novel built around it, with its own set of problems and goals. It’s designed to be replayed, with the goal of earning permanent starting cards after winning the overall game, so it gets a little different every time. The plot is simple, but that’s fine because the point of this game is the cards.
I thought the little details in the story were charming. “Panda” really captures the essence of a streamer, and it makes dealing with disappointed parents feel more lighthearted when they’re pandas. It’s a game that’s not trying to be serious so you can focus on the cards and I appreciate that.
– Real player with 43.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Comedy Card Battler Games.
I want to enjoy this game, I really do, and I understand a lot of the references and tropes in it are geared towards jaded streamers who agree with the fact that there really isn’t a guide to go about streaming successfully. That being said however, I want something of a guide, a meter, something more than viewers to tell me I’m successfully streaming. I’ve tinkered with the length of streams, I’ve tried to be conservative, tried to be nice and run the nontoxic suite, I’ve tried to be combative and run the ego trip end the stream as quick as possible, I’ve tried to go full immunity and keep my chat from hitting me, I’ve let chat beat up on me to rest up next week, doesn’t seem to matter, I don’t see any difference in my stream results. Maybe it picks up when you get your viewership set, either way I don’t know if I have time to keep playing to try to find it, I don’t even know if this is something I will revisit down the line. If you play the demo for this know that you’re just going to get more of the same, it never seems to pick up, never gets fully explained mechanically. Dunno if there’s more to do with this, if the devs are going to keep making changes, but I’m not happy with it at this point.
– Real player with 23.8 hrs in game
Card Hog
10/10: Highly recommend
Playing this game from the very first day of release I can say this game has a huge potential.
Buggs are fixed within few hours and new content is added nearly every day.
Even though game mechanics are simple as you spend more time playing you can master these mechanics and find your own way playing this game.
Based on your skills one run can take from few minutes up to hour and more.
For now, you can play few modes:
Endless Dungeon Crawl - 3x3, 4x3, 4x4
– Real player with 17.9 hrs in game
This is a great game when you just want to play something for 15 minutes. This is a card game but not one where you have a deck of your own and play cards on a field. Instead there is a grid of cards randomly chosen from enemies, weapons, healing potions, and more, and YOU are one of the cards! You move around the grid up, down, left, right by clicking on the card next to you that you want to go to. If there is an enemy there you’d better have a weapon otherwise you take damage equal to the enemies HP. Your HP is 10 and you need to be careful not to take too much damage because healing potion cards do not always show up when you need them. If your HP goes to zero, you die. Other helpful cards are shrines that make every enemy on the board poisoned or on fire for a few turns. There are also spikes to watch out for. They go up on one turn then down on the next. You can walk over them when they are down (it looks like ground with a bunch of holes in it) and that neutralizes that threat. Some enemies move and follow you as you take your turn but most stay where they are so you can maneuver around them, grab a weapon, collect coins and then come back to kill them. But each move you make creates a space for a new card to appear and it could be an enemy, a weapon, spikes, healing potion, or just flat empty ground.
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
Quantum Protocol
PROS
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Game is incredibly cheap for the sheer amount of entertainment it offers.
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The gameplay is completely unique and will feel both fresh and familiar if you’ve played YGO or other TCGs.
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Everything from visuals to music to UI hit a very good standard that lets it blend in the background as you play.
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The game still receives frequent update with a developer very receptive to feedback.
CONS
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Learning an entirely new set of skills can feel a little arduous at the start.
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The ‘fail until you succeed’ logic surrounding the game can make things feel a tad hopeless.
– Real player with 76.0 hrs in game
Full Disclosure: I received a copy of the game to playtest during development. You can even fine me in the credits as “SaruRoku”!
Quantum Protocol is first and foremost, a Cardgame, with a story that’s presented in a visual novel style.
The visual novel elements do string along a fun, but mostly lighthearted story, without any of the “choices” that would make a visual novel game, but they do provide levity and a change of pace after most stages, as well as giving you some insight to the various characters who’s decks each follow their own themes.
– Real player with 71.2 hrs in game
Lost in Random™
As much as it pains my heart, I cannot recommend Lost in Random. While it started off as a visual feast for the eyes, embodying the art style of Tim Burton and feeling like playing a live-action version of The Nightmare Before Christmas, the game was clearly rushed to production, and its quality suffers heavily because of it.
Here are the major detractors for Lost in Random:
- Repetitive game play, lack of variety (the card mechanic and its related interface are unnecessarily difficult to navigate and, when you finally do figure out how it all works, you will get bored)
– Real player with 32.7 hrs in game
Lost in Random is a gorgeously crafted adventure in a fairy tale world, with lots of Alice:Madness Returns vibes and a Burton~esque art style.
Without spoiling much about the story, you live in the world of Random, a kingdom with 6 districts that’s being overseen & ruled by an Evil Queen. You control a cute girl named Even, searching for her sister Odd, which gets “abducted” in the beginning of the game by the Queen to her castle.
– Real player with 25.5 hrs in game
Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition
GoD is a fun little rogue-like with a lot of character, but not a lot of content.
The card based gameplay is very straight forward compared to a traditional TCG, so the mechanics shouldn’t be a stumbling block for most players for very long. Each of the different character classes (13 in total, I believe) has their own starting decks. These decks are expanded in battle by collecting equipment dropped after each battle. As with most RPGs, the common drops are low quality, only granting you a single card or buff, while the rare and epic loot drops can grant you 5 powerful cards and multiple buffs. You can also equip your Dungeoneer with a special item or blessing before exploring a dungeon, and these can offer advantages like extra hit points, larger starting hand sizes, or increased damage.
– Real player with 137.0 hrs in game
Just finished the game at 15hrs. Interesting game with innovative system. Still, I had to consider really long whether to say I’d recommend this game or not. In the end, the positives won out.
Something very important you should know before buying the game: despite the misleading name and description, gameplay-wise this game is not a dungeon crawler, neither is it a RPG. It is more like a twist on deck-building card game. If you understand that before playing the game would be a lot easier to play.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Sketch Crawler
Sketch Crawler is a super-creative deck-building roguelike single player RPG game about the King of Cartoons who lost his kingdom in a wicked magic picture.
The Magic of Drawing
With just one click, you can redraw any object in the game: creatures, spells, walls, furniture, and decorations. Your drawings will be saved and used for further generations of the Sketch Crawler world.
The Мagic of Сolor
In the world of Sketch Crawler, colors have their own mysterious power. By adding a color to a creature, you can add new abilities and powers to it. By adding a color to a magic spell you can greatly enhance it.
Endless Fun
The procedural generation of dungeons and enemies gives you endless gameplay.
Roguelike
You will die many times and start over and over again, trying to save the King of Cartoons. And that’s okay. The cool thing is that once you make it through the dungeon, you’ll keep all the cards you have collected along the way and your next campaigns will be better prepared.
Peacemaker
There is no need to kill to win here. You can let your enemy escape, the amount of loot and experience you get will not change.
Experimental Game
We are experimenting with letting players create whatever they want and make it matter in the game. We want to tempt players to draw.
A Place for a Scene
You will also be able to record voiceovers for all your characters and even for your enemies!
Features:
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Everything you draw appears in a procedurally generated world.
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Conquer dungeons with turn-based card combat.
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Build your ultimate deck from cards you find.
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Redraw found cards to give them new properties.
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Draw creatures and see them fighting for you.
The Monster Within
The Monster Within is a deckbuilding game that oozes atmosphere. The art and music are excellent and do a great job of putting you in the setting.
Admittedly, there are a lot of deckbuilders. So, what does this game bring to the deckbuilder genre other than a fantastic theme? First, the cards you can choose to buy are dictated by your health. The lower your health, the more powerful cards you can buy - but, of course, the closer you are to losing. This mechanism feels really good, especially because the rounds go a little longer than most deckbuilders. Which brings up something else different about The Monster Within - The longer rounds allow you to really build your deck around a theme and capitalize on that theme. The third thing that sets this game apart is that the developer is extremely responsive - seriously. Join the discord and have your bugs taken care of pronto.
– Real player with 17.3 hrs in game
At present i wouldn’t recommend. The progression in the game is based on doing things to unlock stuff (thankfully if you click on the locked stuff, it will tell you what you need to do to unlock it, in theory) sadly in reality, i have beaten the game with the scientist multiple times, it didn’t unlock what it’s supposed to, i beat the game on the blood 1 difficulty again multiple times , again no unlock, so i can’t unlock any more characters, cards or ailments until this is fixed.
What i have played so far has been kind of fun though, so if and or when this gets fixed chances are pretty good i would change my review to recommend.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
JARS
Though this game still has bugs, especially for Windows machines, it is a fairly interesting game that is sometimes a bit confusing to suss out what is going on. It’s fairly good.
– Real player with 17.9 hrs in game
More interesting reviews on Fenol Baron Approves Curator Page
Nice little puzzle game that combines tower defense gameplay, Tim Burton’s humorous grotesque style and easy-to-use game mechanics. With the help of his insects and animals, the boy Victor will have to uncover the secrets of the dark nooks and crannies of his house, entering into a confrontation with annoying pests. You can use from 1 to 3 types of units, depending on the type of mission to be completed and the conditions for its implementation. Each species has its own peculiarity, there are powerful punching bumblebees, and small mosquitoes, prickly hedgehogs to protect confined spaces and other specimens. The set of tactics, albeit not huge, is quite sufficient for a fun game, and various types of equipment allow you to create interesting options for defense and attack. I did not like the fact that some missions had to be completed exclusively in the way the developers intended (most often this concerned missions with one single ward). And the most unpleasant thing was the moment when a prerequisite for starting a mission was the presence in my squad of a certain unit, which can only be bought in a junk shop. It is very expensive and if there is no money for it (and I did not have it), then the only option was to start a boring grind of currency in previous missions, and in the local endless mode. This is a strange idea, to be honest. In all other respects, this is such a solid good puzzle, which is very pleasant to play in the evening, quite sincere and dynamic.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game