Arcanium: Rise of Akhan
I’ve only played a few runs so far, but this is already my favorite roguelike deckbuilder of all time. It’s the first one I’ve played where you actually, crucially, get to build your deck. Let me explain.
You know how in most of these games, your deck consists of literally every single card you pick up throughout each run, causing the driving force to become finding ways to remove cards from your deck, lest it become a bloated mess with zero synergy? And once you realize that, you’ll usually pass on cool or interesting cards unless they fit 100% seamlessly into your current strategy? Does it ever start to feel a little disappointing when it seems like your entire deck plan for a run is determined by the first few cards you get, because of those design choices? Enter Arcanium.
– Real player with 163.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Early Access Card Game Games.
–This is a really good deckbuilding roguelike game.
–They are testing MAJOR rebalancing and mechanics changes. The early game feels prohibitively difficult now, even on easier difficulties. I’m not a fan of the recent stuff. Many, if not most, characters feel helpless early. It feels like players have fewer viable options than they used to. (PS: With major changes, some of this review might be out of date, sorry).
–The max deck size of 12 cards feels too restrictive. Your deck composition doesn’t change much over time. Of the 36 cards you’ll end the game with, 12-18 will be starter cards. Maybe reduce the size of the opening decks?
– Real player with 104.4 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
Read More: Best Early Access Turn-Based Tactics Games.
“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
Breach Wanderers
Breach Wanderers does an excellent job of putting a fresh spin on the Roguelike Deckbuilding genre without needing to completely re-invent the wheel.
There are two main changes that make the game work:
First, unlike in other games you have control over both your starting deck and your card pool. Your starting deck will be 12 total cards and you can include up to two copies of any common rarity card you have unlocked. This means you always have a functional deck from the start of the run and can immediately focus on a specific strategy.
– Real player with 492.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Early Access Turn-Based Tactics Games.
This is a very promising game, but at the moment it’s a bit lacking with the content. I recommend if you just like these type of games and looking for something new to play. Not enough card selection and too many cards are kind of useless. It feels like I’m mostly using the same small amount of cards and playing a couple of very specific ways. I’m not that wild about how you pick the cards that you might get as rewards. You basically pick the pool of cards your rewards will come from and when you beat an enemy you get to pick from a couple of them.
– Real player with 90.4 hrs in game
Deepest Chamber
2 days in is too soon to give a full evaluation, but I am certainly enjoying this early access game. It’s a crowded genre, and this game is not without its similarities to others. However there are stand out aspects to this game that I greatly appreciate. The enemy combat prediction is unlike I’ve seen before and very enjoyable to dive into for each of the classes. Each enemy has a variety of various abilities, each tied to its own cool down timer, and fully visible. Building my decks as i get to know the enemy better has been a joy to evolve.
– Real player with 55.0 hrs in game
Deepest Chamber is an interesting title, with great visuals mixing elements from Darkest Dungeons and Slay the Spire.
I agree with a lot of the reviews, both hoping to see the development of the game in the future, but also the negative side, such as lack of card synergy, trinket management and cluttered UI.
A downside I would like to add is the evolving difficulty.
- Whenever you complete a certain amount of kills of various enemies, you will be able to “unlock” them into more opponents you will meet in future runs.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
Doors of Insanity
First thing I’ll admit is that I’m a simp & beta tester for the devs, but that’s just because I genuinely think they’re cool guys who are worth supporting. This also means I’ve gotten the game for free, have a bias, etc. You get the idea. Plus, I also think this game is genuinely fun, it actually made me like Deck Battlers in the first place.
Doors is a game similar to Neoverse, Slay the Spire… Deck building, turn based RPG combat. If you’ve played those kinds of games before, you know what you’re getting into.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Im a huge fan of Slay the Spire in which I was told by the publishers that this was inspired by it (obviously). I’m not the best at making reviews but heres my opinion & reasoning.
Pros:
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Great art style
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Character creator even though its not much
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PVP (havent tried yet but hey you can play with people at least)
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Unique to the cardbased rougelite/rougelike genre
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Leveling system which makes you wanna replay to get stronger
Cons
- Only one character so theres no true style or unique start, every run starts nearly the same.
– Real player with 38.0 hrs in game
Faerie Solitaire Dire
Original, positive review, left unedited:
I absolutely LOVED the previous Faerie Solitaire games (having played them several times through and would still go back for more) so this game was an immediate purchase! The game is in Early Access.. with not all of the story/items/etc available as of yet.. but that hasn’t dulled the enjoyment of it at all! I’ve played what is available from beginning-to-end almost a dozen times as of typing this. It’s such an enjoyable, not your standard “run of the mill” solitaire game. I’ve browsed through the forums on here for the game, and the developer is very active there should any problems arise (as well as taking suggestions during the games development). I look forward to the rest of the story being added, and of course being able to collect/hatch all the adorable pets as well! I highly recommend picking up this game to add to your collection! :)
– Real player with 371.4 hrs in game
This is a great solitaire game! They have some tricks up their sleeves to prevent us from winning such as cards that are covered by dirt and slowly appear when we make matches until the dirt is all gone and the card is usable. In later levels they have the same thing but if you don’t match it when it’s usable then the dirt reappears for every move you make that’s not a match, like clicking through the card deck. So it’s difficult to clear that card because you have to have other cards that can use it and at the right time. Another thing is a card that is blank but with a number that counts down every time we make a match until it gets to zero and flips over and is usable. Then there’s a stack a cards covered by a strange colored backing and the way to clear it is to uncover another strange glowing card back and click on it to clear the other one. For help, occasionally you get some wild cards that can be used and then select any card on the tableau to clear it. Wild Cards are very useful when you run through the entire deck and still have a card or two to clear.
– Real player with 22.3 hrs in game
Gamble Tower
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Three clans to choose from, choose a combination of a primary and secondary clan to achieve different builds!
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20 different enemies that vary and change between floors!
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Two main boss battles with unique mechanics.
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Over 50 different orbs that you can modify and upgrade in different and unique ways.
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Capture and use enemies (and the enemies’s tools and weapons) as a way to improve your deck
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Random events, shopkeepers and interactions between each combat!
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The tower and its content are procedurally generated between each run, no run is the same as before!
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Gender swapping
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And the content list is still increasing!
A deckbuilding roguelite game where you hire a hero to crawl his or her way up to the top of a distorted tower in search of treasures, while you bet and gamble against other gamblers to profit on your hero’s misadventures.
Here you have Orbs (which actually look more like gemstones) that have a plethra of uses and effects but act exactly like cards, you have things such as Summons, Equipments, Attacks, Special Orbs and more!
A variety of different kinds and types of enemies and other gambling challenges await for your unlucky hero inside not very friendly rooms, where you might find a reward at the cheap cost of your hero’s life.
You must find precious orbs and synergize them with the other gemstones available in your orb to assure your success on this expedition! Find them on chests, enemy loot and other quite… interesting places.
Each run is different in this randomly generated tower, where you might find a lot of weird NPCs and gambling gadgets, therefore, keep entering surely not suspicious doors to your heart’s content.
Kyvir: Rebirth
The mechanics are nice especially if you’re looking for a game to pass time you could get back to where you left at if you needed to quit. I get defeated several times before understanding the strategy to win enemies and bosses. There are a lot of choices to choose once you unlock it, from gears and cards to bosses' patterns. Your gameplay will also depend on your loot drop luck or RNG.
I know it’s the genre of the game, but it’s too repetitive to a point where it’s obvious what gears and cards you need to have to win battles. Overall though the game is pretty great.
– Real player with 81.7 hrs in game
This is a very good deck-building game – a less stressful, shorter version of Slay the Spire, if that makes sense. If it’s less creative than Dicey Dungeons, well most things are. One of the better non-Spire roguelike deckbattlers out there.
It’s very functional for Early Access and I’ve only encountered one bug; since the creators want some feedback, here goes:
• The bug: there is no way to un-select a card after you’ve selected it. This seems unintentional and is a very poor UI flaw.
• In several luck-based events, certain things cost “coins,” but the amount of coins it costs is cut off because the text box is too small, or the amount just hasn’t been typed in. This is basic beta-testing stuff – reduce the font size or make the box bigger.
– Real player with 68.0 hrs in game
Mage Mountain
A little unbalanced, but it’s early access and fun to play. And it’s got STATS
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
We all know that synergy is the best and most satisfying part of any deckbuilder. Well, this game is ALL SYNERGY!
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Mark Out! The Wrestling Card Game
I love this game and i see the potential
Especially combining card is really fun and i want to be able to combine two combined cards with eachother and just go crazy with it. I like all the references to other companies the naming of moves are great like the one horn demon. And praise no microtransactions
But and this is something that needs to be sorted you can basically take about 2 moves have a 2 energy lead, reverse literally everything and then just win from either the opponent not having any cards left or they keep hurting them selves and then you use one of your cards to put them out of their misery.
– Real player with 60.0 hrs in game
If you’ve played RAW Deal, With Authority or Synamic D this is a game you want to check out.
It’s still in Early Access, but the foundations are already here for something awesome . A wrestling collectable card game, much like the games mentioned above where you build your best desk of cards to challenge the AI or PVP for EXP to level up and VC (No micro-transactions).
VC earnt from winning matches is then spent on opening packs of cards to acquire new moves to add to your collection.
There is also a create a wrestler option where you can watch your CAW perform the cards moves during gameplay and a create a card and combine option, where you can cook up any move you wish.
– Real player with 38.8 hrs in game