Malys

Premises solid, gameplay solid, artwork just great but sadly it feels quit unbalanced, too much RNG. Haven't been able to reach the last boss. Perhaps skill issue but I like to play games with a good balance in playable instead of outright hard mode. Or to be delivered to the whims of the RNG gods. Luckily the game was cheap. Won't play anymore.

I wouldn't recommend the game; I went by the reviews, but it's really not good. Game balance is practically non-existent—it's basically a matter of chance right from the start of a fight. You have to discard cards—which are often useless anyway—just to play others; it's stupid. It’s the same with the mechanics: a card might cost 3 AP (or "candles"), but sacrificing it only generates 1. The enemies are fine until you hit an elite; that’s where the balance falls apart because everything is left to luck—either your deck can kill it or it can't. You can tell within the first few hands that you have a 90% chance of losing. I played about 7 runs and only managed to beat an elite once. The elite that appears is random—it doesn't take your starting deck or odds into account at all; it's just a "can you do it or not" situation. There doesn't seem to be any progression—though I haven't played enough to be sure—and retrying isn't satisfying. Each fight takes about as long as a *Slay the Spire* battle but lacks any balance. It's a shame, really; the art is great—dark comic-book style—and the atmosphere is suitably gloomy, but I can't recommend the game as it stands. Maybe patches will fix it.

A very interesting attempt to bring a complex, engaging narrative to a genre - roguelike deckbuilders - that doesn't generally have a lot of narrative to it. I don't know that it's wholly successful, either as a narrative or as a deckbuilder - in other words, it's neither Hades (still the standard-bearer for grafting narrative onto a roguelike's 'try, try again' structure) nor Slay The Spire (the standard-bearer for deckbuilders, still) - but the fact that it's even attempting to challenge both at once, and not falling flat on its face in either endeavor, says a lot about both its ambition and its successes. At the end of the day, I find the moment-to-moment gameplay fulfilling, its characters and art style compelling, and its narrative engaging - it's hard to offer a stronger recommendation than that, I think, even if it's not necessarily blowing the doors of of anything in its approach. Edited to add: It's also the rare roguelike deckbuilder that actually has difficulty options, which I appreciate... even if I didn't notice they existed until AFTER my first successful run. (The devs could definitely stand to make those 'pop' a little bit more, I think.)

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.

I'm confused by the end. Is it the end? I don't know, and it seems no one on the internet knows as well, this game is quite obscure.

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.

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.