Cardnarok: Raid with Gods
Been looking around for some indie games and found this little gem. I love the theme and ideas behind this game especially with the choices of heroes from mythologies of all backgrounds.
The combat definitely requires strategical thinking, planning and careful calculation in order to level up fast and build decks that work with your team. At current state it’s quite playable and no bug that bricks the game experience.
The developers have been patching updates aggressively and that is a good sign.
– Real player with 189.3 hrs in game
Interesting take on the genre
The core loop is:
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a string of StS-like maps
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connected by a monopoly/Game of the Goose-inspired overworld
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coupled with Rogue-lite Metaprogression
The combat is pretty standard with the caveat of 3 characters (with somewhat varying abilities) in “tag-team”
The Deckbuilding part follow the newer trend and allow the player a high degree of control over the resulting deck
Overall the game could use more polish and some extra content, but it’s a solid buy if you’re a bored deckbuilder.
– Real player with 27.6 hrs in game
The Last Hex
–-UPDATE—
Several months ago, I reviewed this game and gave a generally negative review mainly because of difficulty. This was before the developer made substantial and significant changes to the game. I am pleased to announce that the developer has made this game much more playable with multiple difficulty modes (which all games should have) and added a lot more content. There is an element of strategy with this game, and by playing it many times, you can pick up on the cards and the gear that you really want to keep that will give you maximum success. After the develop made the necessary changes, I have logged in over 200 hours to this game. If you play on Initiate level, the potions don’t really matter too much until you get to the boss camps and the final boss where you can use as much potions as you want.Thanks to the developer’s earnest in making this game better, there is new content every month. Overall, because of these changes, I do finally recommend this game if you have an hour or two to spare.
– Real player with 312.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Roguelike Deckbuilder Board Game Games.
Getting close to 20 hours in right now, and unlocked about half of the heroes to play with. So I wouldnt be surprised if this game will amuse me for 40+ hours, which is very good considering its current pricepoint and that its still in early acces. However, i believe the game is 90% complete so it’ll prob leave EA soon.
Anyhow, its a slay-the-spire-like deckbuilder that is easier at some points, and harder at others.
For example, in here you can take your time to build your char before you fight the big boss, no set path to take. You can actually go back to shops to buy specific cards or items.
– Real player with 131.3 hrs in game
Hand of Fate
What drew me towards this game was the aesthethics and atmosphere shown in the trailers, and I was not disappointed.
The game is presented as you, the protagonist, sitting across from the dealer, a mysterious hooded figure, to play game of cards.
Everything in the game has a representation as a playing card.
The playing field is a bunch of cards, laid out in small mazes.
Your equipment is made up of cards like weapons, helms, shields and a plethora of rings.
Your enemies are cards in 4 suites (dust, skulls, scales and plague), each of which is a theme (e.g. the card “2 of dust” is a pair of bandits).
– Real player with 64.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Roguelike Deckbuilder Action Games.
I’m going to try and be as thorough as I can with this review. I’ve been playing the game since before it was released on steam. I think that now they’ve made it clear the game is almost finished I’m going to explain why this game is FAR from finished.
Let me start out by saying that I’m an old gamer, yeah an old guy still playing games. So, the definition of what was and what is now considered a ROGUE-like are two completely different animals. The old rogue-likes were fun games were you crawled a dungeon in search of treasure and weapons much like the new ones. After that the definition has changed. Old rogue-likes required you to use your wits to advance your character in such a way that you could accomplish your goals as long as you played your cards right “no pun intended”. The new rogue likes are a smorgasbord of take it up the proverbial gluteus without any way to counter/block/prepare or even chance your way out of a situation. This growing trend of masochistic (why people think it is) enjoyment has literally turned rogue like games that could have been great from games that lasted weeks, months, & years into ones that only last a few hours, days, or weeks. That’s if you’re willing to deal with them for that long.
– Real player with 42.0 hrs in game
Born of Fire
Nice game for an early access. It is playable although not release material yet.
It is quite similar to Slay The Spire, but adds the possibility to summon creatures and play PvP.
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Good graphics
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Free to play
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Easy to learn, mechanics are quite simple
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Looks quite repetitive in current state
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Still a lot of bugs
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Not much versatility right now in deck building, compared to Slay The Spire
For single player, deck thinning with armaments seems to be quite a strong strategy.
– Real player with 231.9 hrs in game
Coming from a competitive card game background, this game has a really solid foundation to be a great game. I could talk about how the game takes the elements of slay the spire and makes them better, i could also talk about the many unique interactions this game has to hold deep within the mechanics of the game. But most of all, the devs care. The devs seem to care what the players think of their game, are willing to push out fixes for their game ASAP. These are all reasons you should at least take an hour or two to learn the game and try it out.
– Real player with 123.9 hrs in game
Mage Tower: Call of Zadeus
Mage Tower is an open-world roguelike deckbuilder with no set paths.
You play as a hero on a quest to stop a warlock from summoning an interdimensional monster known as Zadeus. Travel across a randomly-generated world, visit towns, and delve into dungeons. Battle the monsters roaming the land, collect cards, and upgrade your deck.
Find the boss wizards' castles and destroy them.
NO NODES, PLEASE
Travel in any direction and explore a randomized map full of towns, dungeons, monsters, events, and other secrets. Swap cards in and out of your deck anytime. Collect overworld powerups and spells. A free-roaming deckbuilder you can play however you want.
UNIQUE DECKBUILDER COMBAT
Mage Tower is a digital sequel to the 2013 internationally published card game Mage Tower, A Tower Defense Card Game, with hundreds of new cards. It expands the original’s first-of-its-kind deckbuilder combat system, which was inspired by tower defense games.
PUSH YOUR LUCK
Activate up to 6 dangerous idols before battle to make the fight more difficult, but give better rewards. This makes every battle meaningful and challenging, as you place the biggest “bet” you can based on your deck’s strategy vs. the enemy’s deck.
PICK YOUR CLASS
Over 80 character classes. Each class comes with a unique class card that cannot lose durability or break, meaning it will be your most reliable card and often the card you build your strategy around.
NINE YEARS OF DESIGN
Mage Tower’s cards are a rich well of variation, featuring mechanics that have not been done in even the most popular card games. Escape the lurch of endless “4 Damage + Random Combat Mechanic” cards!
FEATURES:
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Single-player roguelike deckbuilder.
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350+ cards (most are UPGRADABLE.)
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80 classes.
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Late 90’s aesthetic.
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Cards lose durability after battle; fortify and repair the ones you like.
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4+ biomes, each with different enemy types.
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Push your luck before battle with the Idol system.
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Discover boons, random events, and overworld powerups throughout the world.
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Crazy boss fights! Battle dozens of plant monsters, wizards with otherworldy spells, or multiple cards representing the various parts of a single foe.
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Dungeons with unique rewards, but one life pool to last you through.
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More advanced, strategic, and complex cards than other deckbuilders. BIGGER TEXT BOXES!
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Easy to learn - the original game has a 2.83/5 complexity rating on BGG.
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Sequel to the 2013 card game which raised over $24k on Kickstarter and has been sold in game stores internationally.
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No “open-world slog” - always on the edge of your seat pushing your luck with battles and managing your deck and card durability.
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
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
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
School of Magic Prologue
Very interesting i like how magic/cards works
– Real player with 1.5 hrs in game
Hey Everyone, yeah i really liked the Artstyle of the Game. The Soundtrack is well executed. The Combination with the Skill / Spell Cards is pretty stunning. I played the Demo and want definitly see more, when the whole game is finished. People who are invested in Kill the Spire, will be entertained and others have a more easy way to get into that system with the Action RPG part.
Keep on the good Work developers,
sincerely
Rince
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Erannorth Reborn
I’ll start with the base game itself and tackle modding later on in the review despite it being my favorite part of the game. While modding is a major focus of the game it’s not what you expect to be paying for right off the bat.
First up, gameplay. There is an open world game mode that I haven’t played much of (yet) and thus won’t be talking about. The core game mode is the rogue-like card-based rpg formula we’re all familiar with by now. There are a great deal of difficulties and game modes such as draft in the base game letting you have your own variety. These game modes will set you on a journey across Folkswave, the area of focus within the setting, where you will hopefully but almost certainly not find success. On this journey you’re certain to make friends, find loot, kill monsters, explore the unexplored, and generally have a great time.
– Real player with 381.5 hrs in game
TLDR: Thumbs up for a very complex card battle game with rpg-like character customization and alot of depth. Though there is alot to learn from card text and tags, this game is an addictive hidden gem: 9/10.
This review is long because I was frustrated trying to learn about the game when I started. So I wanted to talk about what approach worked best for me.
At first the game felt linear, but there were so many abilities to discover that I didn’t mind it. Monsters are fairly diverse too as you move across stages. Plus there are events that give you choices. Eventually though it started to feel just a little repetitive, but that was only because I didn’t understand all the different game modes. Each mode has 3 tiers of difficulty so it’s easy to get locked into wanting to see how far you can survive through the tiers.
– Real player with 188.1 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.