Cribbish

Realized the visuals are all AI generated trash once I started it up. As with any creative endeavor, if you're willing to let a computer generate part of it, I have no reason to believe you didn't just generate all of it, and I'm not going to spend my money and time on something you couldn't actually be bothered to make.

Requested a refund pretty quickly. For those who aren't familiar with the original card game this is based on, this adaptation lacks an entire phase of the game which really takes away the feeling of playing Cribbage. The way it currently is it's just a game of scoring poker-like hands with extra steps, and there's a much more polished roguelite that does that already. If you've already played Balatro, you'll find some slight differences in strategy here but I don't think it's different enough to stand out. If you haven't played Balatro and you're interested in this kind of gameplay, go play Balatro, it's more polished and the artwork doesn't look like it's AI-generated. For something positive, I think the tutorial was well made and I respect the concept of making a roguelite out of Cribbage even if I didn't like the execution.

This is an incredibly fun twist on Cribbage, which is a card game I have been playing for 40 years now. I wish I could share it with the family I grew up playing the actual game with, I think they'd find it a ton of fun. It's just the right degree of frustrating to make you come back for more, as any good roguelike should be. It makes successful runs all the more sweet! I haven't been playing too long but already have some favorite relic combos for now, though I'm sure I'll find more that tickle my fancy. The dev is very responsive in Discord for questions, which is also fantastic. I highly recommend giving it a shot if you love Cribbage and roguelikes. Perfect game for sleepless nights and winding down. Edited to add: I'm playing on Linux (not the deck, just straight Linux Mint) and have no problems whatsoever. I don't even have to force compatibility on it. Bonus points for a smooth experience there.

So the cribbage rouge-like (Crubbish) is fun, but that is primarily because Balatro is fun. There are issues I have with the game that prevent me from recommending it. It doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from its main inspiration (Balatro). Basically you are playing your main hand and the crib as a second hand every round to source points to meet a goal. This is fun as you sculpt two hands with different amounts of information. The scoring of a cribbage hand is different, but in practice it doesn’t feel that different from sculpting a good hand in Balatro. An issue I have found in Cribbish is a pull toward build variety, having a lot of 5s is good, great when paired with cards worth 10, especially jacks. The other cards might feel more important if there was pegging, but alas. There is no pegging. I understand capturing a very multi-player aspect of the game would be very hard. I would assume pegging would also generate small numbers which differ from the explosive point buffet that playing a hand generates. I was somewhat hoping that pegging could somehow be intertwined with how you generate money but the only thing I’ve seen that resembles pegging is a relic tied to discards. Speaking of discards, they feel weird. There is a limit to the number of cards you can discard so there is (almost) never a reason to not just discard them one by one. It feels less like important resource management because of this. Other aspects of the game play feel good, even if similar to balatro. There are fun relics, and combing relics. There are potions that can store cards, relics, upgrades and points for later use. Neat stuff really. The UI is functional, things behave how you expect and you can get a good idea of how points are being generated if you want to dig into it. My only other gripe is the art. The game doesn’t look great. At least most of the art looks like AI generated place holder art, which could be fine if I saw any indication that it was placeholder art. I don’t see any road map or statement that suggests that there is a desire for it to be better. It needs the consistency that a true art style provides.

Steam has no multiplayer Cribbage games. This however, this game is a treat. It's not traditional cribbage, but it's still a lot of a fun, and totally scratches that itch I had for Cribbage. It's like Balatro, but with Cribbage scores. I can definitely see myself spending at least 2,000 hours over the next 3 months, on this game alone.

I was disappointed to find out that this was literally Balatro with Cribbage. While that may appeal to some, I didn't like Balatro. Also there's no PvP aspect to the pegging system, which is a dirty deed indeed.

Is this game Balatro meets Cribbage? Yes. Is it awesome? Yes.

This game is likely too complex for Cribbage fans that are trying it as their first roguelike deckbuilder game. At the same time, the game lacks balancing and is too random for players like me who have played many such games before. It all comes down to good RNG in the early game, the first 10-20% of a run or so. A few relics are completely busted but most are so weak that having a full relic lineup does not really help to survive. But if you are lucky, then it all becomes trivial and the last half of a run feels like a waste of time, except maybe if you like watching numbers get bigger. Else, the fact that you know you are going to win kills all suspense, you keep playing because you must. Speaking of watching numbers get bigger, even with "speedrun mode" activated, which cuts the scoring animation time by a lot, those animations are way too long still if you have crazy combos going on. Some relics can merge and become a stronger relic, but all info about it is hidden when in game. And referring to a website in order to figure how to trigger those merges feels like a step too many. Hiding info this way in such a game is poor game design. UI is as bland as it can be. And not pleasant to use. Getting important info, such as current deck's composition requires way too many clicks, for example. The game also suffers from being too close to real Cribbage in its scoring. What I mean is, what will you try to build? A deck all made of 9's, or a deck all made of 5's? 5's, of course. So your deck will tend to always become the same thing, run after run. Most of the card upgrades can be picked blindly, no strategy there. In the end, to generate bigger scores you can improve the value of 15's, or raise the value of pairs. You'll be doing that run after run. The only "out of the box" way to get higher scores is to hold more cards in hand, which can be done via upgrades or relics. So you could, for example, hold 7 same rank cards in hand that translate to scoring 21 pairs. That is interesting at first, but you'll soon realise you always need those bigger hands to stand a chance. So it feels like a path you must take, nothing optional in that. You can buy the game on sale for about $3, but the price tag won't redeem it. The $10-25 I paid for other games in that genre made more sense. But I'm not here to tell you how to spend your money, only to tell you this is likely not the game you are looking for. Too complex for pure Cribbage enthusiasts, too random and unbalanced for roguelike card games' fans.

So a Balatro copy, but with a much worse and less known game as the platform. Brave move. As someone who doesn't know Cribbage, it seems pretty boring. The tutorial makes a solid effort at explaining it but I still don't get the difference between the main hand and the crib hand. If you like Balatro and want more of it then this is worth a try, if you got bored quickly with it this will have the same result.

https://youtu.be/WgYfMg0Gjgs Anyone who understands or is willing to learn Cribbage will have a refreshingly fun time playing Cribbish.