Acolyte of the Altar

I... what? Sorry, that's just the total sum of how I feel right now. So much so that I had to come here and write about it. Annoying, I know. So, I started my first run and after 1.3 hours I... won? And the credits just roll, leaving me with the distinct sensation of whiplash. I suppose I play a lot of card games so perhaps I'm slightly above the average player, but that 1.3 hours represents the tutorial time, the time it took me to talk with my wife for a bit, go make a cup of tea and come back and finish the game. Why was this made? I usually don't feel so negative about smaller indie games, but this just left me feeling confused. Why would a developer bother wasting their time making this if they weren't going to bother doing something with it? I felt like just as I began to appreciate what the game was doing, it just decided to be done. Obviously if this was meant to be a full-fledged replayable roguelite, this would be expected on some level, but from what I gather this game is a rather linear experience with a triflingly small number of battles. I think I did about 8 and got hit with the "Thanks for Playing" message. I mean, I guess I've spent $5 on worse. I suppose I could look at it like that. And honestly, it's not the money--I'm literally just confused. I've played tech demos with more content. Hell, I've made homebrew games with more cotent than this. This has to be the least disorganized review I've ever written, but there it is. The bewildered, disoriented thoughts of my experience of this game, start-to-finish. Is what's there wrong or bad? No. But there's so little of it that it's probably best to simply find something else to do with your time.

I held off on reviewing this title because it felt a bit content-light at launch. Recently the devs have begun adding in new card variants that are unlocked at the end of runs, and this little bit of meta-progression really invigorated my enjoyment of the game. Acolyte of the Altar is a game that oozes with style and vision. Kudos to the art and sound design of the game, which completely immerses you into this bizarre alien world. Everything from the card art, to the stone tablet motifs on UI and card frames is consistent and purposeful. The soundtrack is haunting and dark but also full of bops. After some balance adjustments, the game feels really great to play, and while some particular deck strategies are more powerful than others, there's enough going on that I'm tempted to explore other strategies even when they're less reliable. I think this can only get better in time as more waves of card variants are added to the game. The battles in the game play out a lot like puzzles, but each feels unique and interesting. Learning them over the course of several runs makes a big difference in your chance of success. They're all various degrees of brutal, but they all feel pretty fair. Honestly I've come to love this game and this weird world. I'd love more, and hope the devs continue to add to the meta-progression elements to keep digging in for more runs. I would love more games in this world and in this style. Hope Black Kite Games finds success with this. Bravo devs!

Knowing if you win or lose a fight before it starts is not a fun concept for a game. Enemy attacks are deterministic, if you have the answers in your deck -> you win if not -> you lose If your options for manipulating the board were less limited, this would not be as much of a problem. At that point the game would just be a puzzle tactics game, with you having the ability to "solve" every fight. But right now it is a puzzle were the answer is clicking the give up button, as soon as you know what you are up against.

I had some really mixed feelings playing this one. TLDR: The art is gorgeous, the sinergies are there, but the game simply lacks content (even with the new unlockables update). I played this game demo when it first came out, and now on Auntum sale I finaly gave it a go, but after two runs with the blue faction, one with the green, and a victory with a deck made of red and blue together, I didn't felt that compeling feeling to play another run like so many other deck-building rogue-lites. The game have 18 different enemies, and their desing are amazing, just as the way their powers seems so tailor made. BUT, at the end of the day, there are only 18 of them and that's about it. Now about the faction, boy if you like the deck-building part, you're going to starve here, you have a deck limit, and by the middle to late part of a run, you have to replace some of the cards you've choosen with new ones (yes you can't get pass a maximum of cards) and that crippled the experience for me. Other than that, even though the fact that, there are many cool concepts with the cards, the combat loop feels a lot like Ascension BoardGame, which frankly is the worse part of that game. So for the lack of replayability deck-wise and enemy-wise plus the fact that the combat is kind of shallow, I don't recommend getting this game for the actual price that it costs, specially for people like me who are not from USA. Maybe someday if the game get a 50% or more discount, I will buy it again for the art and the concept.

A fairly decent roguelike deckbuilder with really cool lore/worldbuilding and some clever mechanics that set it apart from its peers. It has shortcomings: Balance in particular can feel off, both in the playable factions (the 'blue' Empiricists feel overall more powerful than the 'red' Ravagers and the 'green' Sylvans) and in the bosses you can encounter (some of the bosses can deal unavoidable health damage that you generally won't have counterplay for). And as the developers have formally marked that they've finished working on this, the content that you see is the content that you get; there's a reasonable selection of cards, bosses, and events, but it won't take you *too* long to see most of them. That said, I had a few good hours of fun with it, and I don't regret my purchase. If you're interested in games that prioritise repetition and mastery over novelty and variation, Acolyte of the Altar is worth taking a look at.

It's alright. As some people say, the game is super light on content. Theres 3 total factions, and then you can pick a secondary faction. You fight against bosses who instead of cards or creatures, they just have set abilities that unlock as the game goes and trigger every turn or every few turns. Honestly wasn't a huge fan of this, because it feels like you have much less control than if the playing field was level and they had creatures you could attack or kill or play around. Yes you can adapt a bit to an ability but for the most part you just have to play how you do and face the consequences. This is even more so because every creature has totally different abilities and so there is a lot of variety and originality with creature/ability design and how they function, but its not like you pick a path or can do much about it. The final boss, who is the same you face every time, is super cheap and with stupid abilities, and you have to get lucky you get the one ability for each class that can beat him. This mechanic also leads to bosses feeling more like puzzles than actual strategy and adaptation. The game is also super repetitive. Clans, although different from one another, don't feel that different in the way you can play them, and you see the same cards over and over after a few runs. You unlock stronger versions of cards but there wasn't much to unlock so the metaprogression was quite slim, leading to less variety and motivation to keep playing. You also fight a lot of the same creatures every run and it feels stale after a bit. After I finally beat it with all 3 classes theres nothing else but playing the same content with negative modifiers that add nothing to the game but make it more artificially difficulty. Its not bad for a few hours, but one of the weaker card based roguelikes I've played. Come in with tempered expectations. 7/10

Enjoyable game! Has three deities ('colors' in M:TG-terms), of which you can pick up to two at the start of the run. Enemies have pre-defined abilities, for which you must plan turns ahead (and only very few have RNG inbuilt). Some allow for alternate win conditions, which I really like! With some cards you can also exploit the ability slots of enemies. Knowing the enemy is half the battle and the other half is your deck. Extra card draws are not that common and keeping the advantage between the board and hand is really important for this game. Spamming creatures is not always the best solution ([i]except, well, sometimes it is[/i]). For some enemies, you also have to think about which of your creatures attacks first or which you summon first. Your leftmost creature on the board usually takes the damage from beasts abilities. Over the course of a run, you swap out cards of your deck to get more powerful combinations. You cannot change your deck size (which you need to make count over the course of each combat). At certain points of the run passive relics with different effects will help you further. You can have some strong combos, but don't expect to be able to kill the enemy in the first turn. All enemies have a certain sense of danger. Features nice sfx and vfx, especially for the spells (and some enemy abilities)! I also like the display and themes of the beasts you fight, it really adds to the experience. Looking forward for alternate card unlocks, which will come with the next big update. Also devs: please make the OST available at one point :D

Fantastic solo deckbuilder roguelike with some fresh ideas. Basically, you're on a raid-boss-train, fighting gargantuan demigod type things, that all have different behaviors that are usually telegraphed clearly, eliminating a large source of RNG-based grief. Your own deck is randomized, but you can get some control over that too if you choose your rewards wisely. To top it all off, the art is beautiful, the atmosphere thick, and the "flavor" aspects rich. And that's great, cuz I like my games like I like my lady(s): hot, thick, and rich! WORD

Очень интересная и самобытная игра. Ее полный аналог в настольной версии - это игра Aeons end. Суть игры следующая: Вы выбирает одного основного повелителя и одного второстепенного. Основной дает вам перк. Затем отправляетесь по миру убивать боссов. Босса разные с совершенно разнообразыми навыками. Побеждая боссов вы получаете награду. Карты и артефакт босса. В конце предстоит схватка с повелителем. Игра имеет роглайк элемент и после прохождения открываются новые карты и возвышения. Разработчикам: Добавьте поддержку геймпадов. Добавьте русский язык. Добавьте кнопку "выйти". Игра шикарная и очень интересная. Крайне рекомендуется к покупке всем любителям карточных боссбатлеров и вдумчивого геймплея.

Way way too short for the price. The replayability isn't that good