Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck!

A really fun strategy turn based card game that is unexpectedly good, I wasn't much looking at the art style of the game that isn't really my cup of tea BUT OH BOY WAS I WRONG the story, the cards, the boss monsters, the boosters, each and every single on of the elements that come together to make this game are just so perfectly placed. It might look cartoony/childish at first but when you actually get to playing it the game has so much more to offer and it might even make you end up scratching your head thinking what cards should I use to get out of this situation. A really fun and unexpectedly enjoyable experience for me overall a 9/10

My son read all the Last Kids on Earth books and really loved them. A game set in that world that reminds me a lot of Slay the Spire is a perfect match for us. Faithful to the LKOE stories and decently challenging encounters. I still have a ways to go through the campaign but 6 hours in (as of this writing) and it's been good fun.

Last Kids on Earth: Hit The Deck takes the standard deck-builder format and expands on it in a few interesting and fresh ways. The game takes place over a series of missions where the deck you build over time for each of the 4 playable characters remains throughout the course of the game. It’s refreshing to build a deck in a deck-builder and be able to keep it over more than one play session, continually refine it, and master the play-style. Alongside that, each mission has an interesting extra deck to draw from called the ‘story deck’ where you can draw cards based on your environment that are specific to each mission and use it to your advantage. With all of the interesting unique objectives for each mission, the story deck, and the various mechanics, Hit The Deck is a very fun and fresh take on the deck-building genre. Mechanics: Before every mission you start in the tree-house, which acts as a hub or main menu where you can access various mechanics, including: The armory, a place to view your achievements, a custom card crafter, and an upgrading station for all of your gear. The armory is where you can access all of your gear that you’ve earned and upgraded. Before a mission you get a choice to take 2 of many item options (per character) to take on any given mission. These items add a set of 3 cards to your deck that do different things. Some items might add 3 cards to your deck that focus on area damage while another will add status effect cards or evade cards. The Armory lets you build your deck to fit your play-style or the mission you plan to embark on. Each of these items add different cards depending on the character you put them on as well which makes mixing and matching different styles and effects extremely fun and diverse. In each mission after a fight you might get an option to add a card to your character’s deck, you will get a choice of 3 cards that pertain to the character that you are adding cards to. These cards remain in that character’s deck between missions and can help fit that character to better show off their play-style. Something else that you may get while on missions or buy in the tree-house are consumable items. These consumables take the form of yummy snacks that can be the difference between winning and losing a fight. I’ve mentioned how items and cards pertain to specific characters a lot and this is because with the Teamwork mechanic you can take more than one character on a mission with you. This makes building your deck and what items you take even further and enhances the strategy and fun through the roof! This is a good time to mention the ‘Teamwork” card type, they are cards that act like skill cards that affect one or both members of the party and can add a huge boost to your power. Some give you and your partner energy, or strength, or reduce the cost of cards in their teammates hand. It allows you to set up for extremely powerful turns that can win fights in an instant if you play your cards right (pun intended). Teamwork really opens the game up to a lot of really fun strategies and makes the game a lot more replayable as it allows you to explore each character and give you time to master each of them. Issues: I haven’t had very many issues with the game overall. It is stable and never crashed or bugged out on me in any way during my time playing it. There are a few things however that made my experience a little off at times. For example: In the game you use evade cards to evade attacks and sometimes it’s hard to tell how many times an enemy is going to attack you and it makes it difficult to use the right amount of evade cards to avoid damage. Another issue I’ve had with the game is that before a mission starts sometimes it will play a cool cutscene from the animated series of Last Kids on Earth. These cutscenes sometimes stop too short and cut off the cutscene in a jarring way or might feel a little lacking in context or significance. I think this could definitely be fixed in the future to make the story or context more cohesive. Conclusion: Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck is worth a shot, especially if you enjoy deck-builders already as it has something new to bring to the table. I personally haven't seen the Show or read the novels but The game did a good job overall introducing me to the characters and premise. It manages to keep you interested in the premise and game as a whole using the various cutscenes from the series that are full of charm and humor. At the same times it’s also extremely accessible and easy to play without needing very much experience with deck-building. I recommend this game!

I'd like to be more on the neutral side. My playtime (8 hours) is around how long it takes to complete the game. There's no meta progression and the custom cards aren't really anything special. I don't really see a reason to do another play through on another difficulty. So that sucks. You also unlock all the trinkets at around 4 hours, so like, there could be so many more. I was hoping hard and etc would have more incentives. No real replayability. Honestly it's a quiet good game. It was fun and engaging and I liked the synergies you can build with different units. The story and such was dumb but enjoyable. This had a lot of potential to be greater than it is. >.<

Slay the Spire with team ups and a cute, kid-friendly story. I dig it!

[h1]Fun post-apocalyptic roguelike deckbuilder[/h1] If your main beef with [i]Slay the Spire[/i] is that you can't pair up the Silent with the Defect, check this out. Each (fairly brief) jaunt out into the monster-filled world to hoover up supplies or cross quests off your list features a pair of your junior heroes and their unique decks. The basics are familiar--hit the bad guys, evade their attacks, mix and match buffs and debuffs--but the combos and synergies between decks are the key here. And once you start making use of Teamwork cards that (for example) add cool cards to your teammate's deck, you may not want to go back to boring one-deck play again. I'm not super familiar with the cartoon this is based on, but the voice acting and cut scenes are strong--and brief, so you can get back to the deck-building, zombie-slaying action ASAP.

Seems like a cool deck-builder so far that often uses paired characters/decks that share cards from a common deck in the middle that can always be played (all cards cost energy though). Some of the fights are like, what? uhoh... but then you get some nice combos and surprise you just beat a boss! The art style is whimsical and bright and there are cutscenes from the show I assume (I haven't watched it). It's fast and makes you think but doesn't consume you like a deep strategy game or a finely crafted narrative game would. Overall, this'll be good to play when I only have a few minutes or if I want to watch Netflix or something at the same time.

This review is based on the launch version, though for full disclosure I did two test runs beforehand. And if it weren't for that, I wouldn't have thought to pick this up. But in short, I'm glad I did. Personally I found this game to provide a fun challenge that rewards experimentation with different combinations. I do think there are frustrations at times--sometimes winning is just a matter of waiting for the right story deck cards to appear, which can be a long wait OR an instant win, neither of which is very satisfying. But normally it works out to a good match. I learned to do better as I went, and I had a lot of fun building decks that could unleash a barrage of debuffs onto foes so that I could quadruple my damage. I also enjoyed the card creation mechanic, and not for nothing, I took a lot of childish joy out of the goofy naming options. I just wish I could have found picture options too. Narratively...look, I'm not familiar with The Last Kids on Earth, and the best I can muster as far as interest is that it makes me feel nostalgiac for the so-so Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch in between the ones I was actually excited to see. But I'd venture a guess that fans of the title won't be disappointed in how its treated here--after some time, I felt affection for the characters that are lovingly designed with distinct playstyles. Interestingly, the story is presented as vignettes that are not in chronological order, giving it a sort of scrapbook feel. It's unique, but probably not enough to win over others who are jaded by cliches. Lastly I want to note: I played this on Steam Deck. I wouldn't recommend this in general since the cutscenes don't play right and a few of the cards had text too small to read easily. But if you don't care about the story and/or you've already played it once and want to take subsequent playthroughs on the go, the gameplay works just fine.

This game was enjoyable, and fun in a quirky, sweet way. I don't personally know much about the Last Kids on Earth, so can't say whether it holds true to the story, but the way it's presented here is enjoyable. The writing, acting, and animation were all high quality. The monster design is especially lovely. For the game play itself, I tried it on two difficulty settings, the lowest and second hardest. As someone who doesn't have much familiarity with any kind of video game, I found some of the mechanics difficult to pick up, and wish there had been slightly more explanation of how things worked. This would likely not be a struggle for someone who plays more frequently though, and wasn't so bad as to make the game not enjoyable. The actual deck building is fun, and the way the battles play out is both challenging and quick enough to make the game not feel like it's dragging. There are lots of options and combinations to try, and getting to swap between characters was a lot of fun. You can tell there was thought and effort put in here, and I'm excited to play through more of the game!

Fans of Slay the Spire (and StS-adjacent games), don't get put off by the kids' book "wrapper" on this game! There's some fun, smart deck-building stuff going on here. (If you don't know Last Kids on Earth, it's a huge kids-book series and accompanying Netflix show. As child apocalypses go, it's at the opposite end of the grim-intensity spectrum from Last of Us. Think Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets Zombieland.) The main innovation over default StS-style games is that you play two "party members" (out of four total you can choose from) on each mission, so you're drawing from two decks--a little like multiple PCs in Across the Obelisk. As you might imagine, the real fun starts when you begin building synergies between the different characters and decks, as you choose which new cards, gear, and consumables to include for different quests. I feel like I'm still just scratching the surface a few hours in, but definitely recommended.