Vault of the Void
Challenging, fair, and fun deckbuilder that respects your time and brings meaningfully novel mechanics to the genre.
Vault of the Void doesn’t feel like early access, yet I am excited that it is.
When I started my very first game of Vault of the Void, I wasn’t sure if it would click with me. I needed to see depth, but at first there was only complexity. I wanted the stimulation of challenging puzzles and the pull of seeking and sequencing powerful combos; instead, I was met with loads of text (with tooltips for some things) and a bizarre mechanic where enemies announce their attack, make their attack, but don’t actually do damage until the end of your following turn.
– Real player with 162.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Deckbuilding Games.
This hidden gem deserves more recognition than it currently receives. Personal views sees this game as a fantastic deckbuilder game. I’d even deem it on par with Slay the Spire, the corner-stone and genesis of many deckbuilders on steam. Here is a perspective to appreciate this unrecognized game:
Vault of the Void establishes a sense of strategy to it more so than other deckbuilding games. This includes each battle reward known prior to starting a floor. This allows the player to strategically plan their route from the start of the game. Additionally, the player, prior to the run’s beginning, inspects the vault guardians at the final floor. These vault guardians possess mechanically intense battles, and rewards to fight the final boss: the Void. These two out of four vault guardians must be killed prior to killing the Void, so prepare for difficult fights and satisfying rewards by strategically building decks.
– Real player with 101.6 hrs in game
Phantom Rose
Scarlet Rose Redemption
Phantom Rose is a rogue-lite deck building game with great artstyle and a troubled history. This is an updated review, written after finishing max difficulty level adventure.
Pros:
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Absolutely breathtaking anime-like dark artstyle.
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Great (sadly short) piano soundtrack, that compliments the atmosphere very well.
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Good selection of different cards and combinations.
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Requires some thinking and strategy without being tiresome.
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Easy to start, easy to put away (i.e. play a bit to kill time then come back later easily).
– Real player with 20.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Roguelite Games.
Time to slice up some teddy bears.
Truth be told, I have been following the sole developer of Phantom Rose for quite some time. One day someone I was following on Tumblr reblogged Makaroll’s art and I followed them soon after. Though, it wasn’t until I finally made a Twitter account that I came across some surprising news. This artist that I happened to come across one day was developing a game. Looking back, I have no idea how I missed this (maybe it was one of those weeks where I was too busy to visit Tumblr), but I was excited to find out more. It didn’t take long before the teaser trailer was released to reveal that it was going to be a card game and the level of hype I had skyrocketed. Despite being really terrible at card games, I was definitely going to pick up Phantom Rose.
– Real player with 19.6 hrs in game
Devil’s Deck
Not really sure why all the mixed reviews for this game. I have really enjoyed it. Devil’s deck feels like a bit like Magic the Gathering, but roguelike ala Slay the Spire. Many mechanics are handled differently than MTG IE: “trample”, Mana, attack order, no interrupts, etc.
The deck types are interesting, and offer multiple sets of card synergies. I enjoyed playing with the blue deck, and constructed successful combinations of decks based around different mechanics such as returnhand, attack on entering battlefield, token summon, etc. I played both the green and red deck pretty extensively as well.
– Real player with 53.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Indie Deckbuilding Games.
Honestly, it’s fun at first. But then you start to realize that there isn’t any “random” to the enemy computer’s cards. I find it hard to believe that with an approximately 5% chance to draw a random card from their graveyard they would pull the “draw extra cards” card 4 times in a row. I thought I miss-remembered the famine guys ability, thinking maybe he could pull any card, but it clearly says “random”
I’m not sure if there is a mechanical error (or intentional because that’s how inexperienced game designers add difficulty, by hiding strokes of egregious luck behind the word random) OR if it’s a translation error. However, this isn’t the only inconsistency within the game. Numerous times will you find the Order of Operations for an end of turn battle phase not work the way it should, with some cards activating before the others have finished. (for example, there is a card that when it attacks the enemy directly, you draw two cards. I put the snake gloves on giving him multi attack, which DOES draw 4 cards, in two sets of two. At the end of the field is the golem that has attack equal to the number of cards in your hand. If the next minion on your side is the golem, he only gets the first set of two cards for his attack. However, if there is a minion between those, he gets all four bonus cards to damage.)
– Real player with 53.0 hrs in game
Spellsword Cards: Demontide
It’s not finished so maybe this review is not fair but it’s not in early access.
I finished only the 1st chapter because the 2nd is not done.
Pros:
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creative monsters, unqiue enemies
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long campaign (example: longer than the Northmark’s campaign)
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autonavigation in quest menu
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some art is nice
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gauntlet / puzzles minigames
Cons:
- the campaign is not polished
I couldn’t finish the 1rst chapter when my hero was a warrior because I couldn’t defeat two monsters (stirred up & in flight),
and I don’t like the slow grind (job board)
– Real player with 22.3 hrs in game
Sometimes I think what’s happening with Steam and why there are so many negatives. One reviewer says that ‘it needs a pass over with someone who understands card games’. Really, mate? Dev has just designed the whole card system and is good at it. Dev is often active and updates the game, but it seems that you want to push him away.
The game is good, it has a really interesting character development, cool story and well-designed battles in which you have to tune your deck. It is a deep system, not crossing the line of ‘read the fine print’, check the guide here to see it yourself:
– Real player with 12.0 hrs in game
Folding Edge
I’ve got the 1st round clear.
Good job, actually it is better than I expected.
The group making this game should then continue to modify the details to make it better.
– Real player with 59.9 hrs in game
UPDATED VERSION (March 2020)
Game has changed name from Starship Helmet, but same card style battles + campaign. No tutorial but clearer translations, so expect to jab at it for the first couple of games, it becomes obvious soon. Enjoyable.
Improved balance, campaign and new special weapons, plus crew that can improve cards.
At first glance the new graphics look worse.
Still a couple of Chinese parts. Easy to guess the meanings by jabbing at them. [In the original game entire cards might be in Chinese - seems fixed.]
– Real player with 22.9 hrs in game
Monster X Monster
I really like this rogue like card game where you manage a team of 4 monsters with a deck each. The cards in the decks depend on the body parts of your monster which can be modified during a run. It plays pretty well for an early access title.
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Yes I recommend it, with a big ol BUT.. BUT this game is nowhere near as polished as most of the games it is emulating. I understand it is in Early Access, but it doesn’t really feel like there’s been any improvements to what everyone else complains about since I opened it last in July 2019. No detailed explanations(I still have no idea how to use any of the items you can equip on your team), the ESL can be tough to navigate for some, my kids had no idea what to do in a few parts until I encouraged them to just “click around a little bit”. All in all it’s a fun glimpse of what could be a great game if the devs would fix the issues the community has complained about already.
– Real player with 18.5 hrs in game
Ravenland
This game is very rough around the edges, but it’s also a lot of fun and has a lot of potential. Hopefully it gets completed and doesn’t die out in early access.
– Real player with 15.6 hrs in game
Definitely not a bad unity game but I’d hesitate to suggest anyone spend more then a few dollars on this game in it’s current state. Even with just my few hours in, I feel like I’ve gotten almost everything I can out of the current game.
A nice time sink if you pick this up on sale but don’t expect much depth.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Urban Cards
Well, I first wrote a semi joking review about how this game was sucking up all my time and you shouldn’t get the game unless you wanted to be sucked into it like crazy but now that I’ve spent even more time playing it and the recent update came out, I wanted to change this review to reflect a truly positive view of a game that I enjoy a lot.
I play a lot of roguelites, no game genre speaks to me more than one where I can sit down, start a new run from the beginning, and either lose or win it within the hour and still feel satisfied with myself, even wanting to start another run out right away.
– Real player with 68.0 hrs in game
–The game’s alright. Very uneven gameplay. If you lose on debt it will feel super-frustrating, there is only one card in the game that can regularly clear more than 1000 debt at a time and if you miss it you will lose. This happens too often to recommend the game.
–The music is pretty good. Production values are otherwise indy. The voice acting on the Gamer and Harbor characters is so annoying it’s better playing against them on mute.
–Debt is the worst thing about the game at present. About a third of my losses have ended on “I’ve only encountered 1 card that can reduce my debt, and the hacker boss gives me debt every turn, so I have X turns to draw Money Laundering before I lose” or “this enemy has 2 cards in his deck that can give me $600 debt, if he draws both of them before I draw Money Laundering, I lose.” I don’t think I’ve gotten past day 2 of any of the Oper playthroughs where I’ve failed to find Money Laundering. The debt that I pile up is mostly from uninteractive enemy effects (the hacker’s boss inflicts a passive $100 debt per turn, and some enemies have multiple copies of the ****ing card that gives the other player $600 debt to the enemy). If you have to lose on debt, at least it should be from a lending minion, those are interactive.
– Real player with 50.9 hrs in game
能量冲击 Energy Shock
“A deck building card game with black & white artworks."
Energy Shock. This is a turn-based action roguelike game made by Meowtoy Games. The game is currently in early access and supports English, but there are some parts that are not translated. But it doesn’t matter to play the game itself. In particular, if you are familiar with deck building roguelike games, there will be no difficulty in starting this game.
Game story begins with black and white animation prologue. Players set off on an adventure against the dark lord. As you know, most of these kinds of games have common story settings. In other words, gameplay features will be more important. The biggest attraction of this game is in the battle. It has a distinction from other similar deck building roguelike. You are duel with an enemy on the just one line street. It is somewhat strategic and has a majestic vibe.
– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game
Please note before buying that this game does not have a full english support yet!
Even for an early access, the translation is terrible: many grammatical errors, typos. Some of the lines aren’t translated at all.
The game itself looks fine, but I can not recommend it for the english speaking community.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Chrono Ark
Definitely a game with balancing issues, some runs feel easy you can make it to the end without any issue. The abilities you draw end up being very useful and actually carry you through… then some runs every random mob will just one shot half your party. The game literally has random mobs that do more damage than any character can possibly have the max health of.
For instance a level 3 healer character in the second zone has roughly 27 hp. There is a chance you will fight a 3 mob battle that can do roughly 40 damage per turn. They may not do the damage abilities but if they do you’re just S.O.L. Its insanely frustrating that every single aspect of the game is random chance but you need all of them to work perfectly in your favor to stand any chance.
– Real player with 111.8 hrs in game
Chrono Ark is a roguelike deck builder with solid gameplay and pleasing visuals and audio.
You start out with a party of two that expands to four as you touch the campfires at the end of stages,
with each stage having interactables and non random encounters that you can fight for loot.
The game has plenty of replay value with the large roster of 14 playable characters (about half of them have to be unlocked), each having about 14 skills + too many equipment to count.
As a further boost, playing the game drops a resource that carries over into the hub that you can spend to unlock upgrades as well as equipment and skills.
– Real player with 107.6 hrs in game