Poker Quest: Swords and Spades

Totally awesome game! There are an abundance of different characters to play. It is easy to play and, although harder to master, it is still very enjoyable.

There's no doubt this is a very well designed game with massive amount of replayability through sheer amount of item combination, playable characters, and various encounters. In that scale, it might even surpass Slay the Spire or any other deck builders in the market, and I understand that it's a difficult game to balance, but the lack of damage mitigation and availability of healing is frustrating even for a seasoned deck building fan. I adore the RNG in all of these and never get frustrated for losing to pure RNG but at this state of the game, where it will no longer receive any balance, I can't recommend the game.

PQ is a rouge-lite/rouge-like that uses a standard 52-card deck as its engine. Despite this fact, and the name of the title, gameplay actually has basically nothing to do with poker. Instead, you will take turns against the computer drawing hands and attempting to use those cards in conjunction with your equipment and possibly your character's special power. Activation of your equipment may be based on the rank, suit, rank and suit, or mini-straights, mini-flushes, and so forth. There are dozens of characters, with the primary difference between each being the character's special power (noting that the starting loadout is also unique for each character, but this has less effect end-game). These powers range from direct damage, to manipulating your opponent's hand, to resource gathering, and on and on. The diversity of powers (and hence characters) is quite impressive. Apart from the special power and loadout, each character has a base draw size, bonus draw size (powered by the collectible resource "gems"), equipment limit, and vision. Each of these base characteristics may be upgraded through the use of the primary in-game currency (poker chips). The gameplay itself takes place over a StS-like node system. The possible interactions at each node are impressively numerous. These range from typical battles (gaining you chips), places to trade resources (health, food, chips, gems) , shops to purchase more equipment, blacksmith to upgrade equipment, various mini-games, special boss battles to gain unique powers, and much more. Of special note are the mini-games, which come in three flavors, standard Texas hold-em, blackjack, and 5-card draw poker, with the wrinkle in each being that you get to allocate your drawn cards across three hands at once, with each hand then compared to a separate hand of the opponent. This was very nicely done. The nodes are separated into three areas, with each area ending in a boss and containing a castle in the middle. The castle contains a random assortment of 4 things you might find on a standard node in addition to a couple of tougher fights. After completion of the three areas you will face a final boss, after which the run will end (90-120 min?). Win-or-lose you gain experience, which goes to unlocking the next new character as well as providing you points to spend on your meta-progression. It is noted that you can play without meta-progression, but this mode is quite difficult, and even more suspectible to the randomness of the nodes (most specifically your potential lack of access to shops and blacksmiths). The mechanics of the fights themselves are dependent on your equipment (and the enemies "equipment"), which fall into the following categories: standard attack, poison, fire, lightning, curse, offensive manipulation of your hand, defensive manipulation of the opponent's hand, and block. These effects vary in effectiveness across the characters, but generally speaking you will want to focus on poison, curse, and defensive manipulation. You will want to avoid lightning (which is unreliable) and block (which has a cooldown and isn't worth the equipment space). These general guidelines aside, you may be greatly restricted by the equipment you are offered in shops, with access to shops themselves being largely completely random (aside from the first castle, at which point you are likely chip-poor anyway). By way of my thoughts, I found PQ runs extremely easy to get into. Noting that my recorded playtime is greatly exaggerated by idle time, I do probably have a few hundred hours into the game. The core gameplay is fun and the within-run power ascension is very satisfying. The run-to-run diversity in what you may encounter is large, and in conjunction with the dozens of characters you may unlock, keep the game relatively fresh. That said, there is a consistent formula for winning and the existence of the same bosses in each area greatly restricts your build options. Most notably bosses that gain a card when you hit them, which pretty much require you to focus on poison and strong curse builds. Prior to purchase you may carefully review the negative reviews, some of which bring up some valid criticisms around randomness and balance. However, I think what is here is really solid, and provides a full and unique card-based rougelite/like experience. Beyond that, the game is ridiculously cheap on sale. Overall: 8.5/10

400 hours in and I'm still enjoying the game. There are 3 game modes within the game for multiple challenges. The daily challenges have surprise characters for each holiday such as Santa for Christmas and the Easter Bunny for Easter. A lot of different ways to build your deck with a plethora of characters and weapon choices. If you like Balatro and RPG, you will enjoy this one.

Brutal RNG game where you try to make it as far as possible each run, you can more or less forget about consistent victories when playing Classic mode, even if there is a lot of room to optimize plays. I still haven't made it to the final boss once. Upgrades Mode makes the game easier overtime through meta progression, I presume the game is a lot more doable on that one, but haven't tried it. Playing Classic gives +100% more XP however, which is used passively to unlock classes. Should the game decide the opponent draws good cards every turn, there's not necessarily a lot of counter play. Same enemy can be absolutely devastating or completely harmless, depending on luck. Just died because I assumed opponent's hidden cards are unlikely to be be Ace and King. If one doesn't mind the RNG and is okay with the concept of attempting to get as far as possible instead of winning, I'd still recommend waiting for a sale.

It is so frustrating after a while. I can not use energy while I have 25 energy. The attack cards are senseless. The resources and options are limited. One of the heroes is trying to play poker-like, but it is impossible to do and annoying. The idea of the game is great but the implementation is ...... umm...weak? ..no....the game is not weak but.... . I don't find the right word here, folks. Try it out yourselves.

I remember playing this game long ago back on Kongregate when it had even more rudimentary artwork. So, it was fun to see it pop up here when I was looking at the Steam deckbuilding event. it's quite fun. You equip your hero with weapons and armor that fire off with poker combinations, and attempt to defeat a series of monsters. I would like the game even more if the map were a Puzzle Quest-inspired RPG map with stories and quests rather than an FTL/slay the spire branching roguelite thing, since I never feel inspired to complete those flowcharts in the way I do for an RPG map, but if you like that kind of thing, I'm sure you know what you're getting into. Very fun mechanics :)

Doesn't feel very fun. Power spikes rarely come and the RNG is really rough. Some character designs are just awful, you can lose to the first encounter if you're unlucky.

I played this on Kongregate for months before buying it, SO MUCH FUN! I love poker type mechanics, and the fighting and honestly everything is fun to strategize

Rogue-lite, у якому розробник намагався зробити бій у вигляді покерних комбінацій. Добре продумане керування ресурсами, ігровий цикл хороший, механіки гарно пов'язані між собою, є різноманітність ворогів і можливостей маніпулювати ресурсами, загалом гра затягує. Але, по-перше, графіка дуже слабка й неоднорідна. А по-друге - є постійне відчуття неприємних обмежень. Очевидно, що для rogue-lite ігор нормально починати кожну наступну кампанію з обмеженнями, а потім прокачуватися. Однак тут у самій механіці бою закладено те, що гравець повинен починати всього з двома картами. Через це починати кожну нову кампаніє стає неприємно. Якщо ж заплющити очі на таке обмеження і на графіку, то в гру можна зануритися надовго - тут відносно немало контенту. Це непогана гра на випадок, коли хочеться відволіктися на щось не надто складне, унікальне і затягуюче.