Malys

Se volvio aburrido. El juego no tenia algo que me atrape, El gameplay se vuelve aburrido al rato, cuesta desbloquear cosas nuevas. La historia es visual, osea, con solo ver imagenes de juegos ya podes entender de que va el juego y la verdad basta y sobra, las conversaciones con los NPC me las skipeaba a cierto punto porque no aportaban nada. Visualmente el juego es lindo pero no muchas mas.

First, the positives: the game is dripping with style, and a lot of the demon designs are sick. The writing is solid, though not enough to stop me from getting frustrated with the sheer amount of it after a while. I enjoyed the concept of the central gameplay mechanic— "burning" (discarding) your cards in exchange for mana to spend further cards— but I felt like the deckbuilding options available didn't capitalise on it in a way that is satisfying to me. The game employs a branching map, but I never felt like my decisions were in anyway meaningful (or enjoyable). The deckbuilding too rigid and the passive relics I found too weak to ever make me get that dopamine rush of going infinite, or feeling triumphantly powerful over these unholy enemies. It felt sloggy, even when I was winning. Where the game really grinds to halt is the Greater Demon fights, which for some reason have three phases and gigantic health pools, but are only worth a paltry 40 currency (normal fights grant 18, and are an order of magnitude easier). Narratively I like the concept of having to discover a demon's true name before you can really begin to lay into it, I just wish there was a mechanic rewarding meta-knowledge to shortcut the process. All-in-all I was disappointed, I wanted to like this thing but it never really clicked for me.

Yeah, I'm enjoying this. I've never played a deck-builder before, but I really enjoyed the previous game from this studio and was nicely eased into the idea of this game through their kickstarter logs. I think it's pretty accessible for people who don't normally play this type of game; I don't know how it holds up to the rest of the genre. But I find it addicting and have stayed up too late on multiple runs just wanting to push one more encounter, one more exorcism, try just grabbing one more card. The story is presented with some lovely prose, but the narrative isn't the strongest part of the experience for those who just care about the gameplay. While I predicted the first major plot twist several hours in, it still felt good seeing that I was right, and I'm now curious about the (maybe?) multiple endings. All in all, a good time. I've enjoyed the 22 hours so far and am looking forward to more. Edit: post-completion, I actually felt like the last stretch of the game passed *too* quickly. But overall, it was really fun. Also, hearing Montaigne every time I booted the game up was just. Wonderful. Happy to have supported this game from its Kickstarter efforts (which failed, so I did not receive the game for free; I just bought it on a Steam sale). Well worth it.

I actually found this game to be extremely compelling, and intensely disappointing. First, the narrative elements are mostly well done, and add an extra layer to the game which is captivating. I stopped to read basically every unique encounter because they were all so well written, from each of the characters who act as merchants basically, to the simple descriptions leading up to even basic enemy encounters, which are worth reading through. The overall atmosphere that is cultivated and especially, ESPECIALLY, the visual design is probably some of the best that I have ever come across in a game, ever. Some of the enemy designs are breathtaking. I would like to think that generally I have a really high tolerance for horror media, I engage with horror media a lot, but some of the enemy designs here are actually, legitimately unsettling. Especially the mini-boss ones which are illustrated to be staring literally directly at you, it's actually slightly hard to pull your eyes off of them to look down at the cards, it's a borderline immersive experience. The gameplay mechanics, when they work and everything goes well, are super fun. I like the resource mechanics more than something like Slay the Spire, especially because of how all of the mechanics are carefully and intricately weaved into the aesthetics of the game's setting. Unfortunately, I give this game a thumbs up because I want to support it somehow, even though a positive Steam review means basically nothing at this point, but I can't seriously say that I recommend it broadly. But there is so much potential here it's crazy. This could be such, such an incredible game. But it looks totally and completely abandoned. Like the production value is so clearly insane. A complex, obviously professionally very well written narrative with tons of dialogue, so many incredibly detailed illustrations, it's obvious that a team of people really worked on this. But there's like not even more than a couple hundred Steam reviews and a tiny amount of social media presence which fizzled out like a year ago. Just, how is that even possible!? Regardless, it looks like the last update was over 6 months ago, and going off of how much attention this is getting I can't even blame them for abandoning it. It must be kind of crushing to make something this good and to have it not be appreciated in the way that it should. But gosh, so much of the experience of playing it just sucks. It's buggy beyond belief. Mechanics not working like they should. Visual glitches. Dialogue glitching and just not playing. Random blank screens. It's non-stop. And the balancing is horrible. The glow deck is totally broken, you just snowball every single fight and it's clear that an appropriate counter to the glow mechanic was never implemented. But the initial damage based deck is horrible. You get whittled down as debuffs get stacked harder and harder while the deck lacks both resources and defense. And like other people have pointed out, the length of the mini-boss fights is ridiculous. I had one which went over 40 turns, they can literally take like 30 minutes if you really draw it out and truly fight for your win. It sucks to play the game knowing that none of these things will ever be fixed, and this wonderful example of how good a video game can be as an interactive art-form will just rot further into obscurity. Most gamers would probably be immediately hostile to these sorts of things but it's nice that Malys includes elements of diversity. It's done in a way which I didn't find to be patronizing, othering, and without drawing unnecessary attention to theses topics. UPDATED THOUGHTS: After playing another 20 or so hours I've found that Malys has undeniably grown on me. Once you get a hang of the flow of each "exorcism" then the balancing feels much more even across each deck and run. At first I thought that the miniboss-esque exorcisms were too long, with three phases and several hundred health usually for each phase 2 and 3, I've found now that it's really not bad at all and once you have a decent deck going you'll just completely blow through everything without any resistance. At first I thought that the game was stacked against the player, but now I'm consistently having runs where it feels basically impossible to die, when you have like 7 phantom, 200 shield, and a mini-boss at like 20 shackle consistently. Card draw is really the number 1 thing, you can get like three or four hands in a single turn while also cutting the cost of pretty much all cards down to 0 for a whole turn. Actually feels really good to pull off. Still, it's just obviously an abandoned, discarded gem of a game. Love the characters too, they're all interesting in their own right and feel well fleshed out. It's nice to see how the MC's and other character's relationships grow, I really like the MC and the hot demon guy as a pair, if this game had the audience it deserved there would be literally so much fanfic stuff of those them.

fun twist on the roguelike deckbuilder, i am a big fan. has a few bugs, but nothing catastrophic. i recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

Very beautiful game! For those who liked slay the spire is very similar. Waiting for new patches, new content and some bug fixes!

I cannot recommend this game, although I wanted to like it due to the theme and atmosphere. Here's why: Major: 1) The game has too many options for what can be done with a deck making it difficult to get good synergy with mechanics. It feels like the project started overly ambitious and too much was added that never got trimmed down with balancing. 2) In spite of point 1 the game is very easy to win once you understand a few things, the primary being that since cards are the energy source anything, that draws cards is often paying for itself coupled with miracle cards that are free when you draw them after your turn begins. 3) Even knowing how to win every fight with no real risk the fights are very long meaning its boring due to the lack of pressure and also because it takes so long to end. 4) Despite the fights being so long the game is very short. I beat it twice in my 15 hours of playtime. There is a hidden Steam achievement still so there probably is another story bit to uncover but I'd rather not. 5) The game crashed 3 or 4 times during my playtime for seemingly no reason which is pretty annoying after investing so many rounds into a boring fight then being forced to do it all over again. Nit-picky: 1) The story snippets before each fight are cool at first but being presented with 2 pages of text you have already ready for the fifth time feels bad. The story itself was mediocre in my opinion with the plot twists feeling cookie cutter. 2) The UI is bad. It is very frequently the case that clicking on a reward directly on the box multiple times does not register the selection which is sloppy programming. Also when being presented with card rewards their upgrades should be viewable since they often dramatically change how valuable a card is.

I hope the Game keeps being Mantained, this is a real Hidden Gem that deserves to get some more further Development and Attention. Also, there's a very Annoying Bug regarding the Card "Reversal of Fortune": it's supposed to put the Last Card Played or Discarded on the TOP of the Draw Pile, but it Most certainly DOES NOT do that! It's a shame, since the Combo with the Miracle Cards being put on the Top and then being Drawed is very useful, but it doesn't actually do that, most of the times, because it doesn't do what the Card says it does; it just shuffles the Card in the Draw Pile. There's also a Similar issue with the Pocket Keyword: if "Read the Signs" Discards a Card with Pocket – might be worth poiting out that the Pocket in Question was given by the "Prepare" Card – not only the Card doesn't get Drawn as it should, since it should put the Discarded Card on the Top of the Draw Pile, but it doesn't even get Put into the Draw Pile AT ALL; which is contratticting to the text on the Cards.

That was it? That was the end? ....I mean...allllright?

Я не большой любитель рогаликов и ещё меньший любитель картонок. Но мне понравилась прошлая игра разработчиков, да и тематика игры привлекала. Всё-таки не так часто выходят проекты явно вдохновлённые Хэллблейзером. В общем и целом, я доволен. Ходим по карте, встречаем npc, читаем телегу текста с подводкой и изгоняем демонов. На среднем уровне сложности игра, по крайней мере по началу, довольно душноватая. А вот на лёгком уже как-то бодрей и если не тупить по кд, то всё становится чуть проще. Не настолько просто, чтобы кидать в противника всё подряд, но достаточно, чтобы не умирать. Хотя тут как с генерацией данжа повезёт. Иногда попадаются довольно неудобные комбинации. И иногда бои с врагами превращаются в состязание "кто кого перетанкует", что не очень весело. Ну и как работают некоторые геймплейные механики, я так и не разобрался, врать не буду. Так же присутствует стандартная карточная и рогаликовая кутерьма: улучшить карты, убрать карты, купить карты, купить предметы и так далее. За всё это отвечают отдельные сюжетные npc. Карт довольно много. За три полных забега я ни разу не использовал полностью одинаковую колоду и тактику. Почему именно три забега? Ровно столько нужно для получения истинной концовки. Это не так уж и мало, учитывая, что на лёгком уровне сложности два последних рана в совокупности заняли у меня 4 часа. Стоило оно того? На мой взгляд - да. Я пришёл за атмосферой Джона Константина, и я сполна её получил. Хотя стоит отметить, что сюжет держится строго в жанровых рамках, поэтому местные твисты - не всегда твисты. К сожалению, ещё стоит отметить техническую составляющую. Она неидеальная. Изначально я планировал играть на деке, но быстро выяснилось, что местный интерфейс и управление не особо под него оптимизированы, поэтому пришлось сесть за пк. Но и на нём иногда возникают проблемы, а один раз аж fatal error выскочила, чего я уже лет 5 не видел По итогу: кайфовый геймплей; классный арт, музыка и озвучка (когда есть); крепкий, но стандартный для жанра сюжет; небольшая продолжительность и неидеальное техническое состояние. Я остался довольным за фуллпрайс, а по скидке так вообще бомба должна быть.