Daughter of the Rift

Oh man, what a great little indie. I am a huge lover of both Mass Effect and Slay the Spire, which this game advertises itself as an amalgamation of. And while it has some rough edges, I think it does an admirable job of delivering some of the joy of both. Follow a strong narrative through a unique sci-fi universe largely focusing on the romance of the PC and her partner and their child, as well as a caste of compelling party members. And then fight baddies with a unique but generally approachable deckbuilding combat system. Overall recommend!

It's a solid deckbuilder that's focused on a storyline. I haven't gotten super far into it yet but overall I'm enjoying what it adds to the formula. PROS: - The position-based gameplay is cool and allows for different sorts of battling that StS or other deckbuilders - The team-based combos are also neat, allowing you to explore different deck combos with different characters - The storyline seems solid so far (if a bit traditional) and helps create a reason for doing all this - There is a good variety of status effects and abilities so I can see complexity coming about the more you play CONS: - Definitely quite a few bugs throughout, the game is still a bit early. Nothing game-breaking so far, but lots of cosmetic things. - I got into one situation with the spacing where the enemy was very far back with a long range attack, and I had no cards that could hit him, nor was I allowed to move to his "side." So I just had to wait until I drew the righ card or died. Seems like the positioning system has some kinks like this that could be worked out, like maybe reducing the number of spaces per side when there are fewer enemies left, for example. - The cards could use another balance pass as well in some cases, where they start to feel the same; more cards that have obvious utility (like moving AND shooting, but doing less damage) would help make it feel less like a "strictly better than" situation some of the time. Really looking forward to seeing where the game goes as I play further and the devs add more updates.