Relief

It's not a bad game. But after my first run, I'm not really motivated to do another one. Still contemplating a refund. The game feels rough and unpolished, has taken some questionable design decisions and overall needs more time in the oven.

I rewrote this review, which originally listed some obvious issues, after the developer responded and quickly pushed out a patch addressing them. If you see the developer response, it's referring to those. [h1]Verdict[/h1] I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys card games and the process of discovering new systems/combos (so long as they're not put off by the art and content warning, so I won't be recommending this to anyone I personally know...). I believe there's enough there to enjoy enough for long enough to justify the price (at least on sale - I got it for $12). If you were only interested in buying one roguelite deck builder and playing it for hundreds of hours, I'd probably recommend Slay the Spire (STS) instead if you hadn't already played it, but I found this fun even though I've already spent hundreds of hours across STS and its sequel. [h1] Wait, how is it fun even when you've already played STS?[/h1] This game has a different take on act progression. Acts are divided into 14 days. On each day, you can pick any one thing that passes time, regardless of location on the map. The shop is always available, with goods refreshing each day. Resting or card upgrades are also always available, but only up to a certain number of times per act (2 by default). There's also an enchanting system / periodic mission (for enchantment currency) that can be kinda fun when it works out. One example is a buff that plays all other copies of that card when the enchanted card is played ("synergy"). Another gives a 0-cost copy when played. Additionally, the characters all feel distinct from STS characters, even if there are similarities. I find it a lot of fun to get to know a new character's kit and discover synergies or cool combos. [h1] More on the characters[/h1] [h2]The fox idol[/h2] I spent most of my time playing the fox idol, failing most of my runs after the first, because I really liked the kit. There are two main themes: [olist] [*] Status creation and transformation [*] Kin cards (cards created by other cards, with certain powers ("abilities" in this game) that grant bonuses to them) [/olist] Even though status creation and synergy is not a new concept (ironclad in STS1 and defect in STS2 both have it), it still feels distinct from those precedents. Probably because automatically transforming up to 2 statuses per draw (though sometimes it doesn't transform them, for reasons I haven't figured out) is distinct from having to exhaust them using other cards and the cards they transform into have other synergies. Certain kin cards give energy when drawn or played and others give you card draw when playing kin cards, so you can imagine the neuron activation for random BS go. Of course, you're not shoehorned into that even with that character. My first run where I was successful revolved around a card that gave stacks of permanent block each turn (think metallicize and plating from STS) and an enchantment that gave me a free 0 cost copy of it. I could outscale just about anything during that run. [h2]Green mage lady[/h2] I've only used her a few times, but one of those runs was successful with a pseudo-infinite revolving around an artifact that gave a free 0-cost card when exhausting a card. The first mid-act reward gave me the chance to re-draft my deck completely, so I built a deck that completely tailored to that artifact. The 0-cost card pool contained: [olist] [*] A card to exchange the costs of the highest cost card and lowest cost card in my hand for that turn. I used this to play my expensive abilities (which in turn gave me cost reduction via another artifact). [*] A card to recover 2 energy when energy is at 0 [*] A card that exhaust and shuffles the discard and draw piles, then draws a few cards [*] A card that tutors any other card from your draw pile [*] A card that does damage and then increases its own cost and returns to hand [/olist] Now, you might be thinking that sounds horrifically unbalanced, and you might be right. But even as strong as that was, the final boss proved a bit dicey. It had too much hp for me to finish in one turn with my pseudo-infinite and I actually ran out of self-exhausting cards. It then debuffed me to lose hp for every card I played (bypassing block), meaning that it was a difficult race against time from there. She has other interesting mechanics like different elemental types on spells, where heat and frost consume each other, but I haven't successfully built around those cards yet. [h2] Ghost cat lady [/h2] Unfortunately, this character is one where I think the balancing could use work. She has two main archetypes: [olist] [*] Summon (creates ghosts, which are similar in many ways to defect orbs in STS) [*] Backlash cards where they're typically stronger than other cards at the same cost, but do self-damage as well [/olist] Unfortunately, the deck starts with one self-exhausting summon card and no other way to summon. If you get offered abilities or skills that rely on summons, but don't get any summon cards early or in the shop, you're completely out of luck. They're also a bit weaker than defect orbs in STS since they apply at the start of your turn (though you have more ways to "command" them to do things immediately). The starter relic that can restore up to 6 hp per combat can be nice once you get enough ways to summon, but it feels very weak early due to the above and proportionally much weaker than the fox lady's, for example. Having it summon once at the start of combat would probably go a long way (making command and evolution usable even without drawing the one starter summon card), especially if it triggered the hp recovery itself (making it easier to pick the backlash cards early). Maybe I just haven't given this character enough of a shot and the weak early game is compensated for somehow, but it felt rough enough that I lost my motivation to play her more. [h2]Rich lady [/h2] Her kit reminds me a little bit of some mechanics from Magic the Gathering, but not any other characters from this game or STS. She starts with an "idol" card (thankfully with retain) that can consume "tribute" cards to become stronger. Feeding it one card increases the damage, another makes it deal that damage in AOE, and a third changes the cost from 1 to X and does the damage X times. I haven't played her beyond my one or two failed runs. I haven't seen whether there are any idol cards beyond the starter one - maybe I just didn't come across one, maybe there are more that can be unlocked for play using the rogue"lite" aspect of this game, or maybe there just aren't any - but it was fun and I do intend to spend some more time with her before I move on from this game. [h1]Room for improvement[/h1] The enchantment system I mentioned earlier can be fun when it works out well, but it has too much variance to be worth playing around in my opinion. For instance, quests to beat an enemy without playing skills often result in taking a ton of damage (depending on your character and deck, at least), but all you get is an essence that might fail. Even if it succeeds, you don't know which of the many enchantments the card will get. Some might be useless to you while others might be amazing. I don't think that letting players control the enchantment is the right move, as it might homogenize runs and make certain things too strong, but it would be good if it felt like it was worth actively engaging with. There are also a ton of unique buffs and debuffs to keep track of and it can be a bit overwhelming compared to a game like STS, where each enemy typically only has one unique buff/debuff beyond the basics. I don't necessarily mind the complexity, but it can be very easy to miss an effect caused by an enemy. [h1]tl;dr[/h1] For ~$10, the game offers enough to be worth a shot. I'd like to see it refined and iterated on, but you could buy it today and have fun binging it for a bit before moving on.