Frost
Frost: A solo deck-building PC game
(This was originally posted on my blog, GoPlayListen . It is largely aimed at tabletop gamers, but hopefully others will find the review useful too)
I’m pretty wary of computer games that mimic ideas from the board and card game world. It’s very rare they manage to capture the subtlety required to make a truly great tactical or strategic game, focusing more on visual bells and whistles and (usually) adding too many luck elements to hold the interest for long. Unless they’re a direct port from an existing tabletop game, they rarely seem designed for gamers.
– Real player with 17.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Deckbuilding Games.
Certainly not a game for everyone, but if you’re intrigued by the theme or the thought of pushing your luck in a hostile card-driven affair, then Frost is a pretty cool pick.
Aside from being chromatically challenged, Frost is notable for being a solitaire experience inspired by real world deck-building card games such as Dominion and its subsequent imitators including World of Tanks: Rush and Resident Evil.
The action, such as it is, takes place in the sort of post-apocalyptic setting that author Kurt Vonnegut made popular in his seminal novel Cat’s Cradle; a freezing world where tribes must now band together for their very survival. In the game’s ‘Classic’ mode you become a leader who must collect the resources needed to traverse the land in search of a mythical place called the “Refuge” whilst also trying your best to outrun the titular snow storm that threatens to consume all.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Card Survival: Tropical Island
After playing this game for 200 Hours I can give it a big Thumbs up as long as it is anywhere near your alley.
If you wan’t to skip reading you can check out the gameplay instead ( links at the bottom ):
Short PROS :
a) Developers are regular with the updates, open to suggestions and fast with bug fixes.
b) Game is simple to play but has a very deep complex system simulation under the hood which gives it a lot of potential for all kinds of players.
c) Plenty of Perks to tailor and roleplay your runs or make them as easy or hard as you will.
– Real player with 254.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Crafting Games.
This is weird, this is confusing, this is hard… oh I get it.
This is a challenging, extremely enjoyable game - as someone who is perpetually dehydrated in the actual world (I forget to drink water), it has endlessly amused me that twice I’ve died in the game - I’ve died about 15 times, but twice specifically - from forgetting to drink water while I’m busy crafting.
Please, stop playing this game, have a drink of water - then return to playing.
Interesting system, moving cards (or items) on top of each other to create various actions. I really like the perk system, and the options to unlock various perks to make the journey a little easier - though not entirely simple - and a bit different each time.
– Real player with 81.9 hrs in game
Atomic Cards
Some of the reviews for this game are allegedly fake. I am here to provide an honest review from a layperson who enjoys card games, roguelites, and roguelikes. This game is decent; however, I will hesitantly give it a thumbs down because of the lack of options. Be aware of the following… Firstly, this game needs a seizure warning; some random events cause the screen to flash in all sorts of colors. There is a lot of needless clicking; you will be clicking boxes or crates several times, providing either food, medicine, or ammo. There are no volume controls or any options, honestly. This is likely due to the engine used to create the game, which the developer mentioned in the community forum. (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1701140/discussions/0/2954915322322930678/ )
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Card Battler Games.
The game in its genre (card RPG game), in my opinion, is very good. There are many different characters, constant events and complex moral choices that will definitely not let you get bored.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Thea: The Awakening
About time I wrote a review for Thea. I have played the game for 900 hours now and I still don’t see myself getting bored with it anytime soon. More on the replayability later but first a quick overview.
Thea: The Awakening is a turn-based survival strategy game on a procedurally generated hexagonal world. It plays a lot like the early exploration phase in Civilization. The main difference is that the game is about survival instead of expansion. You won’t build an empire with a large army, instead you have to defend your only village from evergrowing threats while also finding the time to go out and gather materials and do quests so you can become stronger. If you don’t keep up with the enemies in terms of power they will overwhelm you but don’t worry, there are many difficulty modifications. You can play on 50% (very easy), 350% (very hard), and anything in between. The game has a lot of RPG elements, an excellent crafting system, and a card game to resolve various types of conflicts. The game combines regular fantasy creatures such as orcs and elves with slavic mythology. If you don’t know anything about that you’ll meet a lot of new creatures here such as Stryga’s and Baba Yaga’s.
– Real player with 1201.0 hrs in game
A Review of: “THEA: The Awakening”
A Single-player, 4X Dark Fantasy, Hex-Grid, Turn-Based Strategy-RPG, Card Battler, Resource Management Survival Game where Choices Matter with Crafting and Replay Value.
I’m usually either a fan of Grand Strategy games or RPGs, turn-based War-games and War-sims. I had this game in my library a couple years before getting around to trying it out. Now that I’m playing it; it’s great or certainly could have been with a few GUI and QOL improvements.
It’s very RPG-like, with lore and Slavic-based mythos. I love deep lore games that tell a storey (BG / Planescape). I also like games that base their lore on “real world” mythos (Inquisitor) and this game makes tons of references to eastern European folklore.
– Real player with 177.2 hrs in game
Overfall
A game more than worth it’s money
I’ve owned overfall since it has released in early access and it hooked me straight away, Be under no illusions, the game is tough, You will die and you will have to start over, this is a rogue-like after all, but a very rewarding one at that.
With little introdution you are thrown into a world full of fantasy and myth, rich in different stories. On every island you go to you will encounter a little bit of a story, sometimes just a few lines of dialogue, sometimes a whole murder mystery. Most of these encounters are little self-contained stories, sometimes funny, sometimes serious. And often ending in a fight. What’s even better, many of them will only unfold the second, third or even fifth time you encounter them, as with playing other characters, your choices and options change.
– Real player with 190.5 hrs in game
Overfall is a fantasy turn-based rpg filled with tons of lite questing as you forge your own destiny by leading two heroes on a path to unite a single race of your choice torn by faction and conflict. Here are some of its most prominent features to give you the gist of it:
PROS:
*High replay value due to ton of unlockables from Classes, to Companions, to Trinkets, to Weapons, to new Skills/Spells.
*Neat turn-based battle featuring the usage of a 3 step action-point system consisting of Movement (Step 1), Utility (Step 2), and Attack (Step 3). This allows tons of combo and synergy between classes and companions!
– Real player with 108.5 hrs in game
Survival Draw
I think this game might be a good one, its not great at the moment but can be fun. I palyed it till day 113. I tried to kill me with cards at the beginning of day 100 and that was somehow hard. So i found it not that hard, im sure i could play the game with no end ( meaning that its not a challange). the hard mode becomes very easy with the possibility to creat a custome deck.
There are a lot of tweaks needed (Like the layout, the card giving system (the cards bonfire and more cards are basicly usless after day 20), there should be levelup options and funny interactions for discarding speciale cards. Also more random diasters/blessings, maybe a funny story or a sidestory in form of a sketch after some days. More cards (diffrent one) and it needs to be alot harder as you go on.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Survival Draw is a card game where you have to keep your stats up - you have health, hunger, water, sleep, and sanity, as well as whether you’re sick and/or injured. cards can either raise or lower your stats (or raise one while lowering another). a cool game in concept, but it quickly gets boring; rarely is there any strategy as to which cards to play and which to discard, and I found I could easily raise all stats back up to max within a few turns.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
无尽之路
FAKE Minimum spec, running 10FPS on 1080p 8GB RAM 1GB VRAM 2.8Ghz Quad-core , with the minimum you would run a slideshow, Unity Engine sucks at Performance
– Real player with 39.5 hrs in game
i love this game it needs alot more update and fixing but its a great game
– Real player with 34.3 hrs in game
The Zone: Stalker Stories
This is the Zone – a post-apocalyptic world of strangeness and confusion, treasure and danger, exploration and tactical card battles.
Advance through twisted monsters and deadly anomalies. Unearth artifacts of mysterious power. Develop your psionic abilities and crush foes with the force of your mind.
Create your perfect deck by equipping artifacts and researching new powers. Carefully manage your expedition to maximise your loot and how far from home you can go. Take side quests with unique rewards. Make friends… Make enemies.
Inspired by games such as Slay the Spire, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Darkest Dungeon, the Zone blends a new take on deckbuilding with a full narrative RPG – a rich story crafted by industry veterans (Mount&Blade, The Next World).
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Gorgeous hand-drawn art
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Gripping story, colourful characters
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A beautiful, dangerous world to explore
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Deep inventory management - Assemble your deck and abilities by carefully choosing your equipment
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Research powerful upgrades for combat and exploration
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Complete side jobs to gain unique rewards
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Many different items and abilities to mix and match your perfect playstyle
Cards of the Dead
At first the game felt fine…and then it becomes clear that the only way you can progress is by brute-forcing it. There’s no strategy, there’s no cleverly using character abilities. It’s just sheer dumb luck and the deck is massively stacked against you. It didn’t become apparent until after the 2 hour mark, and the second story is absolutely infuriating in how badly it is designed in regards to gameplay. REQUIRING SERUM TO USE A GUN THAT YOU HAND OUT LIKE CANDY IS BAD WHEN YOU HAVE TO USE THAT TO SURVIVE.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
The rules are simple, survive.
That being said, the game is really difficult. But, there’s pretty frequent auto-saves to help you along. If you enjoy RPG’s and are willing to play a card-game variant, give it a go. I’ve enjoyed it so far.
After an additional 5 hours, I can say that the game is still difficult. It’s a lot of trial and error, which I can appreciate as you’re really learning how to play as you go. I’ve just beaten the game and am only missing the 100% completion achievements, so that’s probably another hour or so, but overall, the game’s decently short. Personally, I’d recommend the game as it’s priced, especially for all those that love Indie games, but on sale, it’s definitely worth it!
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Evolution Board Game
UPDATE I no longer work for Northstar. This review should be considered to be for the first year of the game.
So up front… I worked on this game. I want to be super clear about that. (In case you can’t tell by me having more hours logged in it than it’s been out in the wild.
So why review. Well obviously I want the game I worked on to do well… but there is more than that.
For those who don’t know, Evolution was a table top board game first and has been for years. It was one of my earliest modern board gaming experiences and I still love to break it out and play it. The constant evolution of strategies and plays with the traits that can be played makes the game very replayable.
– Real player with 967.7 hrs in game
I’m definitely addicted to this one. Good game balance, I never feel like any build is just too powerful. Challenging AI. Cute/Beautiful art. Fun facts. Satisfying sound effects; glad I can turn the music off without turning them off (though the music is good to).
I assume you could unlock brutal mode right away but playing through the campaign on both difficulties has been both an enjoyable difficulty progression and given me plenty of content to consume. Especially with the fun of trying to unlock sketches. But Darwin gets super annoying on the second go through.
– Real player with 99.7 hrs in game