Moonsigil Atlas

Editing my review from positive to negative. The overall game is good but I am so tired of devs not releasing games with proper save system. The game says 'SAVE AND EXIT' , I expect the game to save my progress. This is a roguelike, but certain fights CAN BE VERY LONG. I don't have time to sit through an entire boss fight all the time and would love to just exit and start backup where I left off. This game doesn't use save files but auto-saves, so there is zero excuse why this isn't the standard.

Game has that same stupid feature as StS (the first), where if you die or quit before beating the first act boss, it restricts your starting boons to two of the worst choices (instead of the usual 4). Like, if you're going to make a big deal about not being like other deckbuilders, why on earth would you carbon copy the worst mechanic of the world's most famous deckbuilder? What could possibly make you think it's a good idea to punish players for having a bad run and losing quickly by forcing them to choose from options that will make them even more likely to have a bad run and lose early? Literally nobody likes this feature; the most popular mod from StS is the one that removes it. Even the StS crew realized this was a mistake and removed the feature from the sequel. StS got a pass on this because they were first, and had no basis of comparison. These guys - with the full knowledge and experience available from the decade+ of this genre existing - thought that this was worth implementing. Somebody actually went out of their way to add this to the game. Nobody that moronic should ever be allowed to make game design decisions. Refunded.

Moonsigil is quite a fun, albeit, very challenging deckbuilder. Unlike other deckbuilders, you do not use energy per se. Instead you have sigils (cards) that come in all different shapes and sizes. And the more you can fit/ rotate onto your moon, the better off your turn will be. This next part, take with a grain of salt. While I do have some experience with deckbuilders, it feels like that not all runs are winnable. There were times that I had a really strong deck, but I lost a run due to poor draws (which I tried to mitigate with more draw) or I came across an elite that completely countered my deck. Now, could those losses been a result of mistakes that I made? Possibly. I don't know. But fortunately, this doesn't happen all that often, at least, not for me. There are three different characters, all of which play differently from eachother. And each character has a number of different card types. Examples, there is a demon-like character who has cards that burns the moon's tiles where you can play powerful cards on those burnt tiles (ash effects). With this character you can also stack omens (which are basically status afflictions) or you can focus on a resonate build where play and ash effects activate multiple times. And this is just the one character. Basically what I am saying is that there is a fair bit of replayability here. The music and sound effects are good and the visuals are absolutely stunning. I really like Moonsigil Atlas, but the one thing that really lets it down for me are some of the achievements which requires insane level of RNG to pull off. Examples: There is an achievement called Cornucopia which requires you to have a forbidden card, a card from each character and a bane card in your hand at once. Aside from the fact that you're never guaranteed to get all of the above in one run (which is already a tall order) but then you have to be lucky enough to draw all of these cards at the same time. Ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, achievements should be a measure of a player's skill, not how lucky they were. Anyway, I give Moonsigil Atlas a 7 out of 10. Edit: One thing that I forgot to mention which will lower my score is that this game punishes players for starting quitting and starting a new run with two horrible boons that add sweet F all to runs. These boons are 6 more health or the first two combats are defeated for you. Useless. So if you're a having a bad run, which can happen a fair bit in these types games, apparently you're suppose to waste your time and tough it out for your inevitable defeat, otherwise otherwise you'll get punish by being offered with the two worse starting boons ever. I asked the developer on the forum to change this and I'll ask again here. Please consider getting rid of those god awful boons. My score for Moonsigil Atlas is now 6 out out of 10.

+ Artstyle and Presentation are truly enganging and pleasant. + Gameplayidea is unique - It does not feel very engaging or rewarding to play - as a roguelike deckbuilder its core mechanic is not engaging enough to keep you hooked, -> Had high hopes and a bit of hype from the demo but release so far is a bit bland.

I usually like roguelike deckbuilders, and this game has some unique new ideas and mechanics. Unfortunately, the gameplay feels to me like doing math homework... the whole sigil placing aspect is so tedious and slow, and you have to be ultra careful because you can't undo any placement and one misclick ruins the run... I would say this is one of the most hardcore games in the genre with very complex interactions and synergies between cards, which you can also modify in various ways. Nothing for casual players. Also the whole design of the game is so ultra serious and minimalistic, getting a new card doesn't really feel rewarding because they're all just geometric shapes. I tried to like it but kept going back to Slay the spire.

Ok, only 8 hours in, but this is one of the most unique and interesting Deck building Rogue like games I've played in a while! Using shapes as a constraint for "casting" and vector areas of attacks feels fresh in a genre filled with Slay the Spire and Balatro wannabees. I am truly impressed with this game and highly recommend giving it a shot!

This deckbuilder is bursting with creativity centered around the unique board play mechanic. I'm in love with how many ways there are to take advantage of the play area. There are cards that let you swap sign shapes, let you remove friendly and/or hostile signs from the board entirely, affect the effects of adjacent or overlapping signs, disappear when the board is filled, or that remain for the whole encounter with lasting, sometimes gamebreaking effects. The gamepad controls are damn good too.

Definitely one of the more interesting roguelike deckbuilders. Sadly, I couldn't recommend this game to folks who just want to play to unwind... because it's way too dank - this is a specialist's game. I've noticed over 10 hours the mental exhaustion from all the rotating & fitting I was doing with the pieces. And while the artwork is super nice (reminds me a little of Astrea) but it all looks the same, besides all characters having their own RGB color scheme. It also doesn't help there's no boss variety, every Act 1/2/3 boss is the same, you can easily prepare in advance, like 1st boss needs AoE, 2nd boss needs big dmg fast and 3rd boss needs 1-size sigils to negate its board control or just plop down really big sigils with big effects. Lastly, meta progression is fine... but kinda boring, like you can't obtain too many artifacts, so you're left with modifying deck and the cards themselves. And there were definitely some cool artifacts that can pop up, like the one that gives starter attack cards x2 multistrike, so I just played around that and since they could disappear if the board got filled, I played around that with few unique strategies like making the pieces Fragile and cycling the deck to re-use those multistrike attacks. Honestly, if the game had card design thats easier to quickly identify, more boss variety, more chances to obtain artifacts - I'd say this would be pretty good way to get into a more unique deckbuilder roguelike. Also, something tells me the developer plays board games because I swear I've seen this mechanic of deckbuiler where you fill the board with unique puzzle pieces a few times :D Otherwise, fun game to at least do winning runs on all 3 different characters and defeat the final (secret) boss. It's just a little too niche and hard to get into, and especially becomes exhausting when you keep looking at all the same shapes but they have different card names.

My latest addiction. The puzzle element to using your cards adds a level of play that makes me really think about how to synergize my cards. Would like to see more bosses as the end of stage bosses don't change. The first character you get is the least interesting, so at least play until you unlock the second one before determining whether you like the game!

Yes this is basically a Slay the Spire but with placing sigils instead of mana. That is not a bad thing I've seen some reviews saying that the sigil placing is really annoying but that is the game, and it is really satisfying placing sigils and planning out a turn that ends with a full board. This game is really satisfying and relaxing to play, if you enjoy deck builders this is a nice and interesting twist on the genre that fits really well. There are a few downsides... currently there are three characters and some are balanced better than others, especially the first character. The first character is a good intro to the game and mechanics but he feels very week compared to the other two. Luckily you unlock the others pretty quickly so it isn't that big of a deal. The UI is sometimes not helpful such as when you go to place a card on the board and are trying out different orientations you have to drag the card back to your hand if you do not want to place it which feels awkward. Sometimes trying to figure out what a card does is confusing and hard there isn't a way to highlight a card in order to read it without it being placed. I have tried to inspect cards while holding it in my hand an have accidently placed it onto the board. Those are some small gripes with the game overall it is an enjoyable experience and totally worth your time for the price it is asking.