Won my second run yesterday in Slay the Spire. I really enjoy the game and I'm learning a lot about deckbuilders at the same time. It gives me plenty ideas for my own deckbuilding game.
I don't normally post my discounts on masto as I quite like the vibe here but it's so rare to actually be in a themed steam fest and get to play with the official festival asset art so I'll hope you'll indulge me.
OscarWildeCard, my gay card game, is 50% off and only a few bucks.
I've been so down these past couple of days, I didn't even post my latest video that went live today.
I played a roguelike deckbuilder and while I didn't do great during my first playthrough (which this is of), I've gotten so much better and I might end up doing a second video.
It would me A LOT to me if you check out my tiny little YT channel. Thank you <3
I've gathered together a collection on itch.io of 20+ cool indie games (mostly roguelikes) that you can play in-browser here: https://itch.io/c/3248131/in-browser
I played a bunch of in-browser games at itch.io tonight, and I'm currently hooked on this one. It's called Hellscaper, and they describe it as an "occult tiling deckbuilder roguelike". It's fascinating.
Below are two screenshots, one from when you reach 80 points and get to continue, and then one from the next part (I will probably die soon, and wanted to get a still before I did). It's rad. It's tough. I'll probably need to watch a video on it to get tips.
Das #SteamNextFest ist vorbei und alle Videos sind auf meinem YouTube-Kanal hochgeladen. Jetzt möchte ich meinen Top-5 #IndieGames noch eine Bühne bieten, damit sie nicht untergehen.
I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
Mar 12, 2023 - Day 71 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 77
Game: Monster Slayers
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Mar 24, 2017
Library Date: Nov 3, 2022
Unplayed: 129d (4m9d)
Playtime: 39m
Monster Slayers is a roguelike deck builder, and I actually went back through my emails hoping I hadn't paid for it.
Turns out it was a freebie with a Fanatical order, so I don't have to go back in time to ask past me what I was thinking.
It's just a middling deck builder with nothing that made me want to keep playing. It's not bad, it's not good, it just is. Maybe it was revolutionary back in 2017, but there are just so many better options now.
Banners of Ruin is a roguelite deckbuilder in which a mouse and a bear attempt to take back their city from the corrupt folks who stole it.
With two and a quarter hours sleep last night, I figured I'd get in early for a NewPlay and review, because I'm not even sure I'm going to make it through the morning.
Banners of Ruin came in the same bundle as Shred 2, and where Shred 2 felt like a "oh well, nothing lost", Banners of Ruin is a bit of a surprise.
Although it's quite different, it reminds me mostly of Slay the Spire, and while initially put off by the idea of trying to play a deckbuilder and remain conscious, it's actually fun.
The tutorial was well done, but a little bit too loquacious, and determined to hold my hand even after I'd grasped the basic mechanics, but once through the tutorial, I had a fun, if short run.
On the downside, it insisted on starting on a secondary monitor, and we had a fundamental disagreement about which monitor is which. It also supports a quite limited number of resolutions for a game that was released mid-2021, only running up to 1920x1080, but Fullscreen is an option, and the graphics don't suffer at all.
All in all, Banners of Ruin seems to be a fun way to kill 15 minutes here and there, and is:
Aces & Adventures is a fantasy RPG deckbuilding roguelite using poker mechanics.
It's the fourth game in this month's Humble Bundle, and the first where, in spite of a tutorial, I had no idea what was happening half the time.
I don't know. I'm still not sure exactly what happened.
You play as one of several classes, each of which (other than the first) you unlock by playing. I completed playing "Spring" as a dwarf warrior and unlocked the rogue class.
It's turn-based combat, in which you have three decks in play simultaneously. The attack deck which is a standard 52 card deck, a second deck of ability cards, and a third deck of upgrade cards.
At least I think that's what was happening. Admittedly, I'm very tired right now, which might have stunted my understanding of how to play, but I muddled my way through to completing the first... section? Quest?
In any case, I think I need to give Aces & Adventures a pass this time, and blame it on myself, so for now it's:
Aces & Adventures is a fantasy RPG deckbuilding roguelite using poker mechanics.
Yeah, when I woke up this morning, I decided to give it another shot over coffee to see just how much of my ability to understand the game had been clouded by exhaustion.
Turns out, pretty much total.
When I played it this morning, it all made a hell of a lot more sense, both the way that the various kinds of cards work, and also the synergy between them.
In addition, I could actually remember a bunch of poker hands that evaded me last night.
Essentially, each round presents you with one or more cards with a bunch of hitpoints, health points, armor, etc etc. The cards also might have certain abilities.
You get one attack per round, but triggering abilities doesn't count as an attack, so if you can clear the board before your attack, you do that.
This morning's run had a card with first strike, and another set of three cards, that each time you kill one, the rest get stronger, so it helps if you have an ability card that synergises with your draw that enables you to hit all enemies for three damage at once.
Which I did, and required two spades to trigger.
During the attack round is when the poker hands come into play (pun intended); you play your hand and then the AI attempts to defend.
If you play a single Ace, for example, the best the AI can do is block that with an Ace. Play a King, and the AI can block it with a King, or trump it with an Ace, which means you take damage.
But a poker hand? Double or triple your damage, particularly if you've collected some upgrade cards that stay with you until the end of the round. Maybe you pick up a card that's +1 damage per spade played.
It's a nice damage addition when you drop a single spade, but when you drop a straight?
That won me the round against a boss mob.
So with some sleep under my belt, it's fair to bump Aces & Adventures up to:
November 10, 2023 - Day 313 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 333
Game: Friends vs Friends
Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 30, 2023
Installation Date: Nov 10, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 16m
Friends vs Friends is a combination multiplayer PVP FPS and deckbuilder.
Those two things go together like chocolate ice cream and nachos; I like both of those things, but not in the same bowl.
It's the fourth game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and is reinforcing my theory that some devs are trying use the bundle to juice their player base to try and reach critical mass.
The opening of this game took me by surprise. I do not remember another game that has a fully animated theme song intro.
For a moment I was genuinely wondering whether this was a cartoon of some kind, because it feels just like the opening to a 90's Saturday morning cartoon.
The theme song alerted me to the fact it was a deckbuilder, but not that it was also a FPS, so when I found myself staring at a cel-shaded 3D environment, and while the environmental design and character designs were well done, I was at a loss as to what to do next.
I wandered around hoping that I'd trigger some kind of tutorial, some idea of how to play the game... nothing.
I found a shop, and guns I could try out, but no idea how to obtain them. I couldn't work out how to start a match, and I didn't want to start a match without knowing how to play.
Eventually I gave up, and started a 1v1 quickmatch; I muddled my way through, winning 1 out of 5 matches. I tried a 2v2 match with bots, in which my "team" lost both times.
Turns out, the guns are cards in your deck, you win matches, get cash, use the cash to buy new cards, build a new deck (or upgrade the old one).
After the 2v2 match, I spotted a question mark icon tucked away in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which on a 3440x1440 screen wasn't exactly obvious, and it contained a set of instructions for how to play the game.
For me there are few issues with the game; the first one is in the title. It's a game that would probably work best with 1 or 3 friends (multiplayer options are 1v1 or 2v2).
With everyone either in the same room in a LAN game, or all on voicechat together, this could be amusing, because some of the card effects were amusing. Playing against randoms? No-one to laugh with.
Some cards were confusing "If I play this, does it affect me or the opponent?" No idea, even after playing it...
...because it's a PVP FPS. The pace of the game means it either feels like nothing is happening, or feels like everything is happening, as I'm trying to shoot, and look at my deck, and not get shot, and pick out a card, and I'm dead.
Unfortunately, Friends vs Friends feels like it had potential, but it all ended up just a bit:
KARDS is a free-to-play (F2P) deck-building customisable card game (CCG).
Just like what it says on the tin, KARDS takes inspiration from battles and military units of World War 2.
My main exposure to digital CCGs was Hearthstone. Where Hearthstone kind of lost me was the sheer number of cards, and the ever-changing "meta-game", which I could not keep up with.
In 18 minutes, it's not really possible to grasp whether there's a meta-game involved, but the tutorial was fun enough.
Given that it's F2P, I'd need to spend a lot more time coming to grips with it, but what I saw was enough to make me want to come back again.
Of course, without digging deeper, there's a risk that it's actually pay-to-win, and my opinion might change if that's the case, but on the surface, KARDS seems:
January 6, 2024 - Day 371 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 406
Game: Roguebook
Platform: Steam
Released: Jun 18, 2021
Installed: Jan 6, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 28m
Rating: 4 - Good
Roguebook is an isometric roguelike deckbuilder using hex-based gameplay mechanics. It's game five in the January Humble Choice bundle.
The game has an impressive opening animation that leads you to the "Roguebook". You are trapped in the titular Roguebook, and need to gain brushes and ink to reveal what's hidden in the blank hex tiles on the page as you attempt to reach an exit.
Each of the inks do differing things, with some revealing smaller and larger areas around you, and some revealing (n) tiles in a straight line.
In the uncovered tiles you will find gold stashes, locations where you can donate gold to craft a card, basic & elite fights that provide the brushes and ink.
One of the more interesting things about the game is that Richard Garfield was involved in the development; his name may not ring a bell unless you're familiar with another game he created, a little tabletop game called "Magic: The Gathering".
I'm not a big deckbuilder fan, but so far Roguebook seems to be:
Oaken is an isometric hex-based tactical roguelike deck-building strategy game. It's game 7 in this month's Humble Choice Bundle.
Oaken is very pretty, but I'm not sure I could explain the storyline, even if I tried. You're some kind of spirit making your way down an oak tree, through various battles, and building out your deck in the process.
February 18, 2024 - Day 414 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 450
Game: Iris and The Giant
Platform: Steam
Released: Feb 28, 2020
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 16d
Playtime: 27m
Iris and The Giant is 2.5D RPG/roguelike/deckbuilder. It's kind of hard to pigeonhole.
You play as Iris, and the game is an exploration of her mental health and struggles with anxiety. Cut-scenes that start to flesh out the backstory can be triggered during battles.
As deckbuilders go, it's quite unique, and the game has a certain melancholy air to it.
February 24, 2024 - Day 420 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 456
Game: Neoverse
Platform: Steam
Released: Feb 19, 2020
Installed: Feb 1, 2024
Unplayed: 23d
Playtime: 34m
Neoverse is a 3D-ish rogue-lite deckbuilder.
It didn't get off to a good start. There are three main characters, all women. The opening cutscene seemed to be entirely about them engaging in various battles aimed at the male gaze.
One of the main characters featuring in the game art is a character wearing a skintight silver bodysuit, viewed from behind and below the waistline, with her butt being the focal point.
As for the game itself? Nowhere near that. It's set in a multiverse, where you and two other characters need to enter universes to fight a series of staged battles to unlock more cards and save the universe(s) through card battles.
As rogue-lite card battlers go, Neoverse is (just barely):
February 25, 2024 - Day 421 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 457
Game: Black Book
Platform: Steam
Released: Aug 11, 2021
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 23d
Playtime: 43m
Black Book is a rogue-lite deckbuilder RPG.
Black Book is set in 19th century Russia, and is a card-battler/RPG built around Slavic folklore.
You play a woman who lives with her uncle, whose betrothed husband-to-be seemingly unalived himself.
Not willing to accept this, she seeks out and makes a deal with the devil to become a witch, and seeks to break the seven seals on a tome given to her by her uncle, which may contain the power of something which can save him from Hell.
The "cards" in this case are spells within a spellbook; it feels much like a very dark Slay the Spire, with an RPG layered over the top.
However, the devs have layered an incredible amount of Slavic folklore into the RPG side, which (due to my upbringing) left me feeling a little bit uncomfortable.