Tainted Grail: Conquest
Song: Tainted Grail Artist: Vlakabaka
“Sometimes I feel I’ve got to, run away, i’ve got to, play a chill card game for a run or two
And the love we shaaare for card games is all in d’ere, with 9 classes, lots of deckbuilding and re-play-aability
Some runs might end baaad and some might go well but with this game time seems to goo noo-where
And this Tainted Grail is full of story, voiiiice acted characters in a daark tainted woorld
So taaake Gabens tears awaaay and buyy diz game here, cause you dont want to hear any-moe from mee
– Real player with 73.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Deckbuilding Story Rich Games.
It’s very similar to Slay the Spire and Monster Train but you’ll like it more than either of those if you prefer a dark aesthetic. The music and story are also more substantial here than other games in the genre. You get access to 3 classes (basically archer, fighter, invoker) which determine the type of base deck you’ll play. Every class is broken into 3 subclasses (i.e. invokers can be summoners, blood mages, or necromancers) that each have unique passives and a unique subclass ability. It’s honestly pretty remarkable how each subclass feels very distinct from its counterparts.
– Real player with 69.4 hrs in game
Aeon’s End
If you want to try out Aeons End, or really prefer to play games digitally, it’s pretty good but brief. If you have all the physical base sets, expansions, and so forth, I don’t think you’ll be getting rid of them anytime soon for this (unlike, say, how Sentinels of the Multiverse is so good on digital that I’ll never play the physical edition again).
I won’t comment on game play and such, but there’s a decent tutorial that goes over most concepts (while letting players discover the synergies of the game themselves). There’s also currently no multiplayer for those who demand it (I suspect it’s in the works though), nor AI players either; one player controls all the mages' actions (although you could potentially do “pass and play” gaming). It’s a non-issue to me, but a determining factor for others.
– Real player with 86.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Deckbuilding Dystopian Games.
My Biases: I backed this on kickstarter not because I have played the physical game but because I really like the developer and the game seemed to be very fun if their streams were any indication. I really enjoy the game from what I have done so far.
Aeon’s end is a cooperative deck builder game where up to 4 mages try to beat back monsters that seek to destroy humanity. The game is an uphill battle but certainly winnable. There are many ways to approach the battles and lots of variability depending on the mages and supply cards you use.
– Real player with 70.1 hrs in game
Dark Stone: The Lightseeker
Even though the early game may be boring, the game allow for in-depth strategy and planning, with gradual unlocks over time which allows for you to plan ahead with better starting teams and permits for you to build larger teams during the runs, while also increasing the maximum difficulty with each complete run.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Deckbuilding Roguelike Games.
I got the opportunity to play this throughout the beta recently. I was new to the deck building genre, but not roguelikes, and have thoroughly enjoyed the game. It is certainly plenty difficult for me and Jinny has been incredibly receptive to feedback on balance and UI/UX changes. The English localization is still a work in progress, but its not bad by any means.
Definitely recommend if you enjoy the genre.
– Real player with 17.2 hrs in game
Dungeon 100
· Going down 100 floors if you’re a true man
Dungeon 100 is a Diablolike + Auto Chess + Roguelike type of game. The core gameplay is to complete 100 levels of dungeon with a combat style of your own through the combination of skills.
· Diablolike game without the grinding
No gears, no perks, only the completely free combination of 100+ skills that gives you the pure excitement of building.
· He who fights with dragons become the dragon
Every 15 levels will be hold by a dragon. After you defeats the dragon, the character will be taken over and become the boss of this level, with the skill set he/she currently has. You have to beat your former character to move on deeper into the dungeon.
Book of Demons
This game is a gem. I’d like to highly recommend it to any player who enjoys a mix of action, planning, and collecting.
What could make you love this game?
First of all, the art style. It catches the whole idea of it being a “book”. Well designed pop-up book graphics, both in the world, the character sheet and inventory (your card deck), as well as in the menus. And if you are a fan of Diablo I & II, you will notice that Thing Trunk got one important part – that made those titles stand out – just right: the lighting. Be it torches illuminating that tiny space just outside your radius of view, be it the ominous glow of a not-so-distant boss… it does a great deal to help you “feel” the dungeon. And of course: it pretty.
– Real player with 159.5 hrs in game
Overview
Book of Demons is a hack & slash which pays homage to Diablo with a few twists - it is set in a paper-cut universe like in a pop-up book, and everything you can equip, use, do comes in the form of cards that you assemble into your loadout to conquer the said Paperverse. You start out with 3 card slots out of the maximum of 10 available. Card slots are unlocked using gold and cost incrementally more. As of the build I played (0.75.11062+), only the Warrior class is available. The other 2 classes - Mage and Rogue will be released at a later date according to the roadmap but apart from this the game is pretty complete for an Early Access game. The total of 32 cards in the Warrior’s arsenal are divided into Artifacts (equipment - e.g. weapons, armor, trinkets), Items (e.g. potions, bombs, town portal scroll) and Spells (e.g. Mighty Blow, Charge, Blade Storm). All Artifacts have a mana cost which effectively reduces your mana pool available for using Spells (Items have no mana cost). Leveling up allows you to increase your health or mana, which translates to taking more hits / casting more spells. You do not actually grow stronger by levelling up. Instead you increase in strength by discovering new cards or upgrading your existing cards using gold and runes you find.
– Real player with 144.7 hrs in game
Cards of Cthulhu
Cards of Cthulhu is a casual little game, simple in design but with suprising depth. You pick cards for your deck from a choice of random two. Two cards at the beginning and more are added as you progress through the battles. Then you jump onto your motorcycle, grab your shotgun and ride across the wasteland to face off against Cthulhu himself - who stole your girlfriend, as villains in games have traditionally been fond to do.
Each opponent you meet on your way you fight by playing your cards (and autoattacking with your shotgun). Simple enough? The depth of the game is knowing when during a combat round to play each card, in battles with consequitive fights of more than one enemy which card to save for the next enemy, which card in a given situation perhaps not to use at all, which cards to deny your enemy from playing, and when to not play cards.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
This game packs a lot of style and fun in a simple package, It is relentlessly focussed on play dropping you right in the game and back to the start when the game ends, which is minor but a refreshing change from the typical game with lots of menus and cut scenes wasting your time. This one has confidence in what it is delivering and delivers it proudly.
Each game you collect a small deck of cards each of which can be used once against a monster or set of monsters. In this way each run feels fresh because you are building a new deck which will be played differently than other decks.
– Real player with 8.2 hrs in game
Crawlyard
The performance starts – unending, ever changing, cruel to its actors and viewers alike. Yet you are far from being powerless: you can affect the Mansion’s backstage, send puppets to explore its mysterious rooms and rewrite the play however you see fit.
Every new pattern will bring new opportunities, your bonds with other members of the audience will grow stronger, until one day you finally discover the perfect scenario that the previous owner of the Mansion was obsessed with.
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Card combos: rooms affect each other in many surprising ways. Find out how you can utilize it to develop your own winning strategy or make your runs more challenging. But beware: some patterns may prove to be too difficult for specific puppets.
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Indirect battle system: strategy and preparation are the key to success. Plan your way carefully, exploit the rooms' mechanics, use spells and make event-related decisions at crucial points to end up victorious.
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Adaptability and growth: your puppets already offer different play styles for you to choose from, but with the items found in the rooms you can customize and buff your heroes even further – or uncover new doll parts to build unique fighters.
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Intertwining stories: meet other characters bewitched by the call of the Mansion. Get them to open up to you, learn about their traumas and manias, and affect their future – perhaps in a romantic way. The more you give, the more you obtain in return.
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Choices matter: the others are stuck, but you can still move forward, unraveling the threads of their unfortunate fates. Will you advise your new comrades to do what they want? Or will you suggest they search for what you think they need?
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Reach the Endgame: grow stronger, collect enough hints and find the perfect pattern – the ultimate room layout that will reveal the Wishmaster. Have your desires fulfilled at last… unless you found something, or someone, along the way that made your change your mind.
Going strong! We’re a small indie team, and every wishlist brings us closer to completing our passion project. Thank you for your patronage!
Want to become a part of the growing community and share your impressions about the game? Join our Discord server to stay in contact, learn more about the development process, and get exclusive sneak peeks into the project as it unfolds!
Loop Hero
A wonderful, clever and new take on the roguelike genre w elements of other genres that would seem contrary, yet it works perfectly as a whole. There are plenty of secrets and combinations to discover, and I would suggest a new player stay far away from any spoiler guides as a big part of the fun is discovering these hidden elements on your own. Graphics are good for the style they’re trying to emulate and there’s a definite minimalist aesthetic to the game that adds much to the overall story and themes of the game itself. Honestly, after all the time I’ve spent, I really just want more of everything and hope there’s an expansion or, at least, DLC coming. I’d take a sequel too, as long as it maintains the core of the first one. This is, of course, best for people who actively already love the genres this straddles, have an open mind and love experimental games, or, at least, are not slaves to the graphical arms race of the triple A field.
– Real player with 289.6 hrs in game
7/10
Loop Hero is a very impressive and creative indie game. However, the advantages of this game cannot hide the disadvantages.
Roguelike, Management, Tactical. Of course, this game has such rich elements, you might feel very interested in the first few hours. Keep playing this game, you will find it becomes a little boring. You also need to spend a lot of time on this game or you might not pass this game easily, even from my points of view, this game maybe not worth you to spend those time.
– Real player with 107.2 hrs in game
失落的王座 The Lost Throne
What is this game about?
“The Lost Throne” is a trading card game with great world settings. There are various featured mechanics and designs, like unique battle phase after several turns, cost deductions, front and back formations, etc. Besides, we will be developing other modes like tournament system, single PVE, co-op PVE, special PVP and so on.
Why TCG?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions, why choosing TCG as our first game? Although this genre has many predecessors and verified features to learn from: deck building, card trading, different strategies. However, it is still challenging to produce good card designs, balancing and trading models.
Our team is young, and this is our first game. Our team is consist of experienced TCG players and well-known pro players. We aim to provide a solid game with our past experiences for TCG players, while letting other players feel the attractiveness of TCG.
Concepts of Designs
Gameplay is definitely the key of our design. We aim to produce a highly original competitive game with unique player experience. Therefore we devoted many thoughts into the game.
Thoughts on Interaction: How to avoid long waiting time for each turn.
Thoughts on turn-based game: How to balance going first and second.
Thoughts on card designs: How to make troops more “heroic”, rather than expendables.
Our main focus is all about “strategies”, including deck building, unit deployment, battle phase plans. For each phase, players' strategies will be colliding with each other, which is our main idea for the game. It is also what makes “The Lost Throne” unique.
What we’ve been doing in past two years?
We paid much price for the “setback” in 2020. But we also gained many experiences. Therefore our team has entered “Saiyan Mode” this year. We redo the UI, improved game performances, porting to mobile, and make the alpha version of tutorials.
In other words, what didn’t kill us made us stronger. We are now march at full scale!
About our future plans
We have launched our alpha test for mobile version. After the 2 weeks test, we knew two things: Accepetable gameplay, but too many bugs.
Although there is still much to improve for our gameplay, players are still satisfied with our current designs, which is really cheering for us. Thank you for you tolerance and support! There are still many bugs existing, which require many adjustment to our underlying system. Therefore we really need some time to fix them. Also our designers have been discussing and rethinking about the details and possible improvements to our battle phases.
Overall, our future plan includes the improvement to our entire Battle phase, Tutorial refurnishment, PVE alpha version, Tournament systems, and so on. Also we will keep improving the balancing for the current version, while designing the second version. Of course, we will be posting our updates as dev blogs here and looking forward to your feedbacks and suggestions! Please follow us for more information.
Besides, we are planning to launch another community test at a smaller scale. Please feel free to join our steam community and we will be releasing more details within the community and QQ group.
Sefirot Shards
Sefirot Shards is a turn-based strategy game with RPG and Collectible Card Game elements, imbued with the spirit of classic fantasy. Plunge into a world where palace intrigues are replaced by the invasions of the undead, and the gods are playing their deadly game. Gather a squad and solve all the secrets that Sephiroth has prepared for you.
The world in Sefirot Shards consists of many levitating shards, each of which is unique and represents a well-developed location. Among them, you can find city-states, small settlements that live their own lives, fragments where the undead reign, and some do not obey either logic or physics at all. The player will have to explore them together with his squad, simultaneously pumping various skills and increasing the level of skill.