I'm not saying that [b]Animal Hearts: A Card Quest[/b] is shovelware or that Baxter Game Studios is sketchy, but… I tried to look up whether the art was AI-generated and instead found a trail of red flags. Thank you, Baxter, for providing a key in exchange for an honest review and "for supporting indie games."
[h3]Prologue: Gameplay[/h3]
The review key advertised a "heartwarming card-based adventure" with exploration and "meaningful choices."
Here's the game in a nutshell: It's a dumbed-down mix of mahjong and Solitaire, entirely dependent on RNG and kindergarten-level math, and any whiff of challenge is stripped away by an over-eager hint system and additional card draws. One positive: the upgrade shop uses in-game currency only.
[h3]Act I: Setup[/H3]
I played ten levels, found it unbearably boring, and figured I'd knock it out of my backlog with a quick "might be good for kids" curator review. There's no genAI disclosure on the Steam page, and a mobile game artist once complained to me that clients want her work to look [i]more[/i] genAI, so I started poking around for a "Credits" section just to confirm a human artist. Instead, I found a fishy privacy policy and the dev's equally fishy website.
First, the [url=https://mergecars.com/privacyPolicy]privacy policy[/url] looks like a sloppy copy-paste where someone only thought to change the email address to Baxter's gmail account. It talks about Panther & Leopard Games and "authorized publishers" of titles it owns, inconsistently refers to Infinity Scratch and Merger Games, and it's all a hot mess that boils down to "we're recording so much data about players, selling it internationally, and joke's on you." Typical free-to-play mobile game stuff.
So, move onto [url=https://baxtermncl.com/]baxtermncl.com[/url], ©2024 Baxter Games Newcastle. At first glance, it looks legit: a UK-based "indie studio" that specializes in mobile games, claims to be an award-winning team of 100+ professionals, and offers consulting services that hopefully do not include spellcheck or web design. Services include concept art and art direction, but the links don't work. Social media links don't work. The FAQ is lorem ipsum. The contact page suggests emailing contact@example.com, visiting apartment# 616 in "US", or reaching out to nonexistent people.
[h3]Act II: The Plot Thickens[/h3]
A lot of indie devs have incomplete websites. [i]However[/i], not every indie dev's portfolio showcases a mobile game that looks suspiciously like the Steam game you're reviewing, but with a different title and a purple fox-thing instead of a rabbit. Because it's this website, [url=https://baxtermncl.com/projects/abyss-of-the-unseen-oracle/][i]Solitaire Tripicks: Save Animals[/i][/url] is described as a cozy farming sim and frog sanctuary before devolving into lorem ipsum and videos with titles like "intro without text, no copyright, free download."
It turns out, [url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pantherandleopard.solitaire.tripeaks.cute.animals.journey&hl=en_US][i]Solitaire [b]TriPeaks[/b] Save Animal[/i][/url] was published c. 2022 to Google Play by Baxter Games Newcastle and last updated in October 2025. It has decent reviews, and the store page features a purple rabbit. (Still, no credits.)
I couldn't find it on iOS but did find [url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pantherandleopard.SolitaireTriPeaks][i]Solitaire Tripeaks - Tri peaks[/i][/url], an iOS/Android game published c. 2021 by MOBASO (dba Criss Cross Games on Google Play) that features a purple-eared fox plus super-familiar assets. I can't access the dev's website without triggering every protective measure on my PC, but the Pakistan-based company has published ~50 games for both Google and iOS. A 2021 reddit thread suggests that, in 2019-2021, their standard operating procedure was to approach indie devs who'd created generic knock-offs of popular titles and offer to buy their games at a fixed rate.
[h3]Act III: Conclusion[/h3]
A cursory internet search turns up suspiciously little about Panther & Leopard, Infinity Scratch, Merger Games, Criss Cross, and MOBASO. But Criss Cross Games's support section in the Google Play Store refers you to MOBASO HQ or to Baxter's gmail address, and all three "studios" use the same privacy policy. It's safe to assume that these companies are [i]at least[/i] linked under Panther & Leopard's umbrella.
Combined with the website, misleading description included with the review key, and convoluted everything, I can't help but side-eye everything else about this game. It seems to be little more than a lazy port of a mobile game, which was already a low-effort remake of another mobile game. The tangled web of companies that dare to call themselves "indie", and the fact that I still have no idea who or what worked on this game, all reeks of the sort of "cash grab" mentality and dishonesty we don't need to see on Steam.
My recommendation is simply "do not." Hard stop.
[h3]tl;dr[/h3]
Since only my friends will read this whole thing… guys, I really need more Roottreees.
[quote][b]Follow [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45365863/]Eekz Today[/url][/u] for more crafting, life sim, management, strategy, and story-rich recommendations.[/b][/quote]
