Malys

This review was quite difficult to write because I really care for Summerfall Studios and wish them all the best. I also saw the difficult path Malys had to take to get to release. I was one of those "wannabe Kickstarter backers", even though I wasn't really interested in a "roguelike deckbuilder" to be honest - I just wanted to support the studio that gave me so many great moments with Stray Gods, their previous project, and I believed in their ability to create a good game. Unfortunately, as of right now, Malys feels more like *parts* of a good game to me. I'll give Summerfall credit where credit is due: it seems like they had to make some tough decisions about what to focus on during such a short development period and they made the right choice by focusing on the core gameplay (and especially the deck-building aspect) - it's definitely viable, feels good and could form the basis of a good game. I also really like the art style, and I think the semi-black and white aesthetic suits the game and I assume allowed the developer to save resources a bit. For me, the Malys started to fail after about 2-2,5 hours, after I've already done a few runs. The game is quite difficult, and simple luck plays too big a role in your run's success. Sure, the game has difficulty settings and a few modes that make things easier, but here's the thing – I *want* a challenge, and as a player, I don't *really* want to give up. I'd like difficulty reduction to be *earned*, either through my personal gameplay experience (i.e. "now I know better") or through some kind of meta-progression. Unfortunately, the game isn't deep enough at the moment for the first thing to work properly (it doesn't feel like I've got a lot to improve in my strategy), and the second - is nonexistent. My next major complaint is about narrative design. The text vignettes that precede each encounter become old pretty fast. They simply don't fit into a game that relies on repetition and have a negative impact on the pacing. I usually don't like to skip anything in games, but I started doing it here - but even then I had problems because the dialogue skipping UX in Malys is also a bit flawed. So it unfortunately became quite boring pretty fast. I felt like it's too much of a grind to move on and I wasn't too invested to do that - even with the possible difficulty reduction. Once again, I sincerely wish Summerfall all the best and remain interested in their future projects should they come up with any. And I feel kinda bad writing this negative review. But at the same time, I firmly believe in honest criticism, even if it may hurt a little.

I like what they're going for here but it just doesn't come together for me. I think part of it comes from an over reliance on narrative text. I don't think every enemy need to have a narrative. It really bogs down the game and makes runs take far too long to the point where I ended up skipping a lot of them, which turned into skipping all of the narrative until I started to realize for elites, some events, and the patrons that it started to change. The gameplay is... fine? I think the candle system is very cool and invites a good amount of strategic thinking but the game is pretty easy with the only really challenge being suddenly smacked with almost an entire health bars worth of damage and having to figure it out. I think the game would have been done a lot better as a visual novel or a linear story game rather than the roguelike style

Game is wildly unbalanced. Your entire run will be hard locked if you run into Timult as the greater demon RNG. He has an ability called Pact, which he places on himself and you. All healing or damage directly dealt is shared. One of the starting items is the ability to generate glow which heals you at end of turn. If you deal enough damage to expel him, click expel, the end of turn effect will give him half your heal and break the expel. There is no way around this. Unplayable until resolved. And considering there haven't been any patches in 2026 I assume the game is abandonware. Multi-hour run ruined because of bad mechanics.

After finishing the game, getting the true ending and all the achivements, I feel qualified to give my review. First of all the Good: The combat is SO much fun! I've never played any serious deckbuilders like this before but I absolutely love the comat in this game. Burning cards in order to play other cards is such a unique mechanic that really makes you think about what you're doing and keeps you on your toes at all times. I also really enjoy some of the different synergies for certain cards. The art is incredible as well, the thick lineart and the black and white coloring gives the world such a depressing feel to it which works perfectly for the game. The way each character design looks unique and different from each other really makes me feel connected to these characters. The music and sound design is really immersive too. The way each exorcism has the sounds of the possessed screaming in pain does such a good at showing the horror of what's happening. And by far the best part of the game is the story. I mean, this was obvious coming from the studio that made Stray Gods, but I was still surprised by how much I was engrossed in the story. The way that the narrative made each death feel impactful was so cool and rivals Hades for the way it weaves narrative into the rougelike/lite style. The characters are so well written and I love learning about the past and conflicts of your allies. Now the Bad: While it's really interesting to have each encounter open with a storylet to explain what's happening, it can get tedious when you see the same storylet three times in the same run. I think there should have been a larger variety of these storylets to prevent so much repetition. The same thing goes for the NPC art. It's really well drawn and I love the designs, but it gets a little boring seeing the same character 7 times in one run. Overall, Malys is an incredibly fun game with a great narrative. Both of my issues stem from an (unfortunately) smaller budget than they wanted. I was one of the backers of the kickstarter and I really wished it succeded so that Sumerfall would've had the budget to make this game even better. However, this game is still so much fun and I encourage anyone on the fence to check it out.

Extremely difficult from the getgo, and the typical upgrades, shops, or healers are prohibitively expensive. The game clearly wants you to play multiple runs to invest cash into the shops to get a discount, but playing through the game is a slog. Boss fights are extremely draining, runs blend together, and the over-reliance on large swathes of narrative text makes me feel like skipping it, which means I have little to no investment in the game itself.

This is a deeply satisfying, narrative-driven rougelike in the "Slay The Spire" tradition of combat-deckbuilding/progression, but in a "Constantine" noir realm. The only complaint I have is that the particle effects can make my PC/Steam Deck sound like a jet engine, but the game deserves more love, and certainly a playthrough or two! There's truly a lot to love here, with various playstyles up for trying-out (though some are clearly, initially-stronger than others). I hope Summerfall Studios keep showing this title some love with a few updates!

A qualified yes from me. I can see this game becoming very repetitive over time since there's only one exorcist and you can play him three different ways. Unless and until there are updates, that's it. The gameplay is good for me and the mana generation system is a definite plus and adds a layer of strategy to combat, but the game does a very poor job of warning the player when he's about to take damage from minions. Demons can deal damage to the player through minions and many is the time when I've taken significant damage without any warning from the game. Demon damage is well detailed, but minion damage isn't and that's cost me two runs out of the first four I've played. "Higher demons", or what would be called elite combats in other games, can be very drawn out even at the initial levels. There are higher demons that the player must defeat three times in a single exorcism before advancing, and I've only played on the first level of the game. To me, that's excessive. But, if you'll pardon the pun with this game, there are really good bones here. The art is terrific, the dialogue (on first playthrough) is sharp, and again, the mana generation system is creative and solid. I'm not sure I'd have done a full release on this game the way it's currently structured, though. The QOL issues I mentioned earlier are significant drawbacks, but if you can get past them. Malys is worth your time.

Overall, yes I recommend this game. It's not particularly hard and relatively easy to pick up the card game and feel like you're progressing. It's atmospheric, and the narrative is good. I'd certainly play another game in this series to see what story unfolds. Some people have commented that some cards aren't good or have poor upgrades - but part of the game is making those choices too, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should! Disappointingly, there are bugs, sometimes the text doesn't load (one particular Lydia dialogue never loads it seems) and there are some graphical issues in the card game where status effects do no show.. A good proof reader wouldn't go amiss, and there are occasional problems with the music glitching out. Overall, pretty relaxing, not frustrating, worth playing if this is your kind of game :)

Could have been a really good game- I really enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the combat. Unfortunately, the combat system isn't complex enough to work in a roguelike without meta progression- something I think the game desperately needs. The narrative is interesting if you read it, but since it's all in big exposition dumps, it's hard to actually pay attention to. I can feel that this game, having not completed its Kickstarter, probably didn't get the time/resources it needed. Unfortunately, what we were left with isn't really worth it- the fights are slow, the narrative scenarios are repetitive, and the intrigue of the plot falls away for me very quickly, despite my love for a lot of the characters (Gideon.. ^_^) The presentation is as impressive as always, though, and there's good bones here- I do think Summerfall will make a great deckbuilder in the future- I'd love to see the repeated themes of sacrifice and candle-lighting to be reused in something grander.

So, the concept and visuals are really strong here and that's what drew me to this game originally. Unfortunately after a single extended play session, I gave up on the story, as it lacks the interest of making choices. ultimately all the story scenarios kind of blend into one thing more or less, and at the end of the story blurb you inevitably fight the demon possessing someone. No exceptions, no choices that impact the fight, no evading the fight, just encounter possessed person, try and excise the demon. rinse & repeat. So I started skipping story stuff after about 90 min of this type of thing. Very disappointing for someone who loves story in their games. Unfortunately the combat design & difficulty felt really uneven, Lesser Demons came across as incredibly easy while many of the greater demons & bosses felt almost unbeatable. It seems like there is no strategy that can help you at a certain point. These greater demons just apply infinite stacks of damage increasing debuffs you cannot avoid, and then kill you when you get a bad draw or when the damage becomes too much, even if you ward the damage of the attack the increased damage stack still applies, and many of these encounters turn into real drags of both sides continually mitigating damage, each having 100ish hit points. oh and the greater demons have 3 distinct phases, making for a Long, monotonous encounter. There's something interesting about the core system for playing vs burning cards and selecting who to target, but the actual card mechanics were pretty uninspired for the most part. I have yet to see any truly interesting combos that you can pull off with clever maneuvering or by prepping a lot of actions for the following turns. Also there does not seem to be any Rougelike meta progression. so the uneven & punishing difficulty sets you back to square 1 if you lose, and the random "story events" do little to keep it fresh. since they don't differ much and offer zero choice.