Breach Wanderers

Start with Slay the Spire. Make it so that you have a basecamp and an ongoing currency, with ten characters that are unlockable with currency earned for making runs. Make it so that you can pick the length of each run, as well as the specific stages in order of each trip. And also make it so that your starting deck is also largely something you can control. That's a lot of interesting ideas. The problem comes down to execution. For reasons entirely unknown to me, the game loves trigger conditions. It doesn't indicate whether you've met the requirements or not, but if you don't meet the requirements, you expend the costs and don't get anything. Indeed, compared to several roguelike deckbuilders, this comes off as technical at best and unfriendly at worst. But to be more specific, this isn't creative out of the box exploits I'm talking about here--this is cards playable out of the deck. There are several other problems. Conditions that can't be cleansed, conditions that are permanent buffs getting short term modifiers, and status effects that just do flat damage for a longer time (so why stack them?). Simply creating a keyword like 'persistent' or 'temporary' would do a lot to make this easier to keep clear; this is a single player game, having effects and abilities that do nothing or override common effects (like Cleansing debuffs often NOT doing anything...so is that really worthwhile as an effect?) So that's how this game comes across: This is a management+deck builder. You are basically building a hot rod kit before starting a run, and hoping to get the hot rod across the finish line. This isn't particularly daunting, but several other games, like Griftlands, Monster Train, Neoverse, Balatro--are going to at least calculate what things would do before you do them. I would rate this behind all five of the games I've mentioned. But I'd also call out that the content is considerable; having ten characters with progressions on each of them and 400 cards to unlock (this may be something like 100K orb thingies to unlock the library), the concept of building a hot rod deck and racing it over monsters is good fun. Average quality, high quantity. Potentially worthwhile if on sale/Humble Bundle.

I've played this simultaneously on Android and Windows using the crossplay feature. My actual total hours combined is easily triple whatever Steam is showing. The game mechanics are very good, though the difficulty curve jump between depths 1-2 vs 3-4 is an absolute cliff face that could be smoothed outa little. 1-2 is a complete cake walk while 3-4 demand really well built decks, and in the case of four, a lot of luck. The different characters manage to feel unique even though a vast majority of the game's cards are generic. Deck building feels more like a traditional TCG than most deck builders. The monetization is incredibly fair on Android, but the most relevant part here is that any bonuses purchased on Android carried over to my Steam save. My only issue with the cross saving is that it requires a password to be input every time instead of leveraging something like Google Play Store and Google Drive. It's a minor QoL annoyance that the developer appears to have no intention of addressing, as I'm guessing it's not an easy implementation.

Absolutely enjoying my time with the game. The highlights: being able to craft/edit your starting deck from cards you collect along your journey has been pure joy. Mechanically, the game plays similar to other deck builders in the genre, and its done with pretty solid balance. I find depth 3 to be a sweet spot in difficulty, providing a good challenge with a 3 boss run that takes about an hour. Lower depths are shorter runs and easier time if you want a more casual experience, while just unlocking depth 4 is going to be a spicy stress test in your deck building if you crave a real tough challenge. In terms of classes, i appreciate each class has its own style and perks to unlock, providing even more options when deck crafting, deciding which character best fits your vision for a deck idea or style. Design wise, the game has a clean and intuitive interface and art design. While not optimized for controller (sadly) I find it plays great on the deck. It’s become my fave cozy deck builder. Really hope to see a sequel in the future.

It's just very run of the mill. It's average in every single department, why settle for mediocrity if you can have anything else really?

Good Game, seems easy at first, but than it gets very complex with LOTS of mechanics! Recommended for deckbuilding lovers!

[h1][b] TLDR: A promising deck and card pool building system wasted on uninspiring characters, mobile-feeling UI, and a roguelite loop too shallow to stand out in an already crowded genre. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕Can build your deck you start with AND the pool of cards you encounter during a run [h1]NEUTRALS: [/h1] 🔹Poor Steam Deck controls [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖Poor UI/look and feel ➖Abandoned ➖None of the characters I’ve tried felt fun ➖Very grindy [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world consists of three different areas - a hub, the zone map, and the battle area. For the sake of simplicity, there doesn’t seem to be anything different between the zone maps and the battle areas other than background wallpaper, and the hub doesn’t change. It’s obviously similar to Slay the Spire and does nothing to improve upon the already established maps. There is a small narrative in the background that is simply doing quests or goals as you progress, not really worth mentioning. [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] The gameplay loop is similar to Slay the Spire - pick a character, pick a route, and then progress through the area. Where the game differs most from Slay the Spire is in the deck building components, by far Breach Wanderer’s best mechanic. You can build your deck out before you go on a run, and furthermore, you can affect what cards appear within the pool of card drops as you complete fights and gain loot. This is awesome. Otherwise, the cards themselves and the characters are pretty boring and one-dimensional. Most of the characters are based entirely around applying a status effect or some gimmicky version of stealth. There’s about ~10 characters, but it’s a massive grind to unlock them. The first 3 aren’t bad, 1 is given from doing quests, and the remaining 6 or so will take dozens of hours of grinding currency to unlock, currency that you would have to spend on characters instead of on other roguelite aspects, like gear. The difficulty is ridiculously easy at first, another big change coming from Slay the Spire. I beat the game multiple times on the lowest setting, with the difficulty only becoming a challenge when you add in the 2nd area. There appears to be 3 zones in total, but you gradually unlock them as you complete quests. [h1] [b] Technical (Graphics/Performance) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] The graphical fidelity appears fine, if a bit simplistic. I’d say it's around PS2-era fidelity. The negative things here for me is the art style, to me, it’s simply not good. Another thing is the UI. It seems very mobile-like and not great for the desktop. Performance wise, the game ran fine for me, there were slight issues with outside applications when running in borderless fullscreen and lag. I didn’t notice any bugs, but I was confused on more than one occasion why some cards weren’t working. The game explains a lot of the card effects, but there’s still some questionable things on activation. 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Nothing noteworthy for music. I didn't notice anything good. No voice acting. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] As far as content goes, there’s some decent replay value. I played about ~10 games with about 7 of those being repeat character runs. I didn’t notice many different or exciting events, making each run barely different. Also, there is a ton of grinding involved. Based on the amount of gold I was getting from zone 2 completion, it would take me about 5 or 6 runs to get enough gold for some of the higher priced characters. By spending gold there, you’re also taking longer to unlock stat upgrades as they cost the same. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Breach Wanderers (BW) is a rogueLITE CCG game that takes many mechanics from Slay the Spire (StS), while adding its own flavor to the gameplay. However, I would say that given the dozens of games to copy the roguelike formula that StS created, BW doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself and stand on its own. By far the best part of BW is the ability to not only create your own deck, but also create the pool of cards that your card drops draw from. To me, this is HUGE, as I have fond memories back in the day of building decks in Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh!. Creating decks and the upgrade system does move BW more into the roguelite territory, but that’s not a negative, just an observation. Unfortunately for me, that’s where the good of BW ends. Of the multiple runs I did, the multiple characters I tried, there wasn’t anything exciting to aim towards. As cool as the building your deck function is, it does somewhat take the surprise out of the roguelike/lite randomness. I personally think that the pool option should be able to be turned off, instead of only being able to turn off both deck and pool option. I think creating a starting deck helps to set the foundations of a build, but organizing the random pool takes the fun out of it. And even ignoring that part, the cards and characters I tried were simply uninspiring and unfun. It mostly felt like multiple variations of a builder/spender deck, just with different statuses. Instead of having 10 boring characters with minimal mechanics, there should have been 3 or 5 characters with much deeper, more intricate mechanics. Aside from that, I can even complain about the superficial aspects - the look and feel of the game are not the best. The art style is uninspiring and the UI reeks of a mobile port. Overall, I can’t recommend BW. In the oversaturated market of roguelike CCG games, it ends up being a forgettable and vapid experience. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1] [/h1] $15 is a decent price, but I’d still suggest waiting on a sale. $5 is much better. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

Ich bin begeistert - manchmal entdeckt man unerwartet echte Perlen! Das Spiel ist "Slay the spire 2" wirklich ebenbürtig und macht eine Menge Spaß. Sowohl der Spielablauf, die Gegner und die Optik sind sehr überzeugend! Es hat ein sehr durchdachtes Spielkonzept und ist vor allem sehr ausgewogen, was die zu meisternden Herausforderungen betrifft. Es ist niemals unfair - selbst bei großen Herausforderungen kann man mit List und Übersicht manch ausweglose Situation noch meistern. Eine klare Kaufempfehlung und einen Daumen hoch!

If you're a fan of Slay the Spire, this game is one to try. A great deckbuilder with a host of 10 different characters that all have different playstyles (I'm personally a big fan of Drofis and Maighir), and tons of unique mechanics, like summonable allies that do a host of different things. This game has a bit more meta progression, with characters actually being able to level 1-10, with different unlocks happening at each level, including 4 passives that unlock as you level that add power to your character and reshape your builds. Great game. 9/10 deckbuilder roguelike.

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What a gem. I have played almost all card roguelikes and this is one of the best. The creativity of the mechanics, the shear amount of cards and characters that all play so differently. Im just sad I didnt find this game sooner.