Now that I've put a good, I think, 2 hours into this game I am comfortable writing a review. Fair warning, my reviews are LONG. If you just want the TL;DR please scroll to the bottom of my review.
Let me start with how pleasantly surprised I am with this game. I was expecting something far less polished, but instead what I got was a shockingly fun deck builder that I know I'll come back to so I can beat the "hard" version of what is available (the one where you start with 0 RAM). However, there are a few faults in the game which should be mentioned.
I'll split this review into sections for the convenience of anyone reading.
TUTORIAL
Tutorials can be hard to implement. ESPECIALLY for a deck builder like this. The tutorial does a fantastic job explaining the core mechanics of the game (for the most part, I'll get into the exception to this in just a moment). You learn about the discard pile, how to use the cards in your deck, etc. HOWEVER, the tutorial is VERY condensed. This isn't a bad thing, the tutorial gives you a visual que of where to look with a yellow outline so you know what it's talking about. But this also means that you might miss something, as did I.
Notably, what I'm talking about is the "refill hand". If you are like me and play a TON of deck builders and card games, the name can be misleading. Since I was just starting out I didn't understand if perhaps the refill hand meant that I could swap my hand 4 times in the run for a randomized hand. Of course, I found out the correct answer later (it's hand size), but it's still worth noting. Especially since I did not get information on what refill hand meant upon hover OR the question mark.
LOGS
Thankfully, this game actually continues the tutorial in a way, so new people can learn how cards function and read up on what did what. The game does this through logs, which I actually think is fantastic (it also fits the aesthetic of the game very well). Unfortunately the logs feel underutilized and almost hard to understand...
Text is small. Now, I don't expect there to be a ton of accessibility features or polished graphics in a beta, that's silly. However, that doesn't mean it is absolved from criticism. Since the text is small and a lot of things are able to appear in the logs in quick succession (making it overwhelming to read the logs at times), there should be a way for people to find important information in the logs at a quick glance. Information such as power (system) being color coded (say blue as an example) would be helpful. An example being, "Thrusters: (In blue or whatever color text) +1 Power".
This small change would make a world of difference, I have no idea if it would look good, but if there was even a toggleable option I think it would be amazing. Now that I mentioned Thrusters earlier... I would like to talk about something.
THRUSTERS, POWER, AND REACTOR
The game does not do a good job explaining these (BEFORE YOU READ ON, THIS SECTION IS VERY MUCH BASED ON HOW I PLAYED AND PROBABLY THE SECTION THAT COULD BE IGNORED/DISAGREED WITH MOST, BUT I'D STILL LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT).
I saw these as levels, each level requiring more energy than the last. And while they do serve that purpose, they also actually act as a booster of sorts, Thrusters adds one notch of system each round (system being the energy to complete the "level" for lack of a better word), and I forget what Power does despite just checking while writing this review.
Now, what is the problem with this you might ask? I'm sure the tutorial went over this, and surely the log also details this. And you would be correct. However, as said in the tutorial section, the tutorial is very condensed (meaning it's easy to forget things by the amount of information you need to keep track of). And, because I didn't even THINK to hover over what I thought were just simple levels, this lead to me being very confused when the Thrusters activated and I thought it was a bug with a different card until I checked the logs.
"Well that's the answer right there! The logs! That helps!" Yes! You would be correct, the logs do help! Let's disregard and pretend that the logs are fine and there no flaws with it. Unfortunately, and this may seem nitpicky, if you have read the entire review so far you will remember this, "Thrusters: ...+1 Power" That wasn't something I made up (the color portion of course was), this is real text in the game. THE GAME CALLS IT POWER, IT DOESN'T EVEN USE SYSTEM.
Again, nitpicky, however, if you did your best to learn the stupid mechanics by name like I did, this would screw you over. Wait.. I should talk about that one mechanic.
SHUFFLE/DRAWING CARDS
Lol. I probably used this the least. In fact, I viewed these cards as one thing and only one thing. Strategic discard pile cards. Since these cards add a card to your discard pile, this can be used as a fairly safe free RAM piece with a bit of gambling involved. I personally don't have a problem with this, although, it's a bit problematic that the play portion means nothing to me. Even the corrupt versions of this card don't scare me off. Maybe I'm just a bad player? I don't know, but I just never saw incentive for wasting RAM playing these cards. The only time I DID see incentive for drawing was with the one draw 2 card. However, I was very disappointed when I only drew one (this is how I found out what refill hand meant). I think an easy incentive would to make these cards ignore hand limit size. However, I don't know if that would work or not. I'm not a dev.
QOL AND BUGS/ERRORS
I decided to condense these two since I only have one QoL suggestion and only found 2 errors/bugs.
- I think it would be amazing QoL if we could save decks that we like. That way I don't have to keep clicking the same cards every time a new run starts.
- An error I found is on the Tunnel card, there is a "^" on the Discard thing. On no other cards does this exist, so I assume it is a typo.
- What I think is a bug, but didn't remember to check the logs on is that, on the regular difficulty, my starting RAM became 2 at one point and I am unsure as to why. Again, I assume it is a bug, but I don't know for sure.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I like this game. I know I'm harsh, but it's just because I don't feel like going super super in depth. I think getting the bad out there is more important than gushing about the good. But I truly do believe this game is good. Again, it's a beta, I know it will improve. Do I think the log needs some work? Yes. Do I think some balance changes should be made to the draw/shuffle cards? Yeah. However do I also think that this game has a good bit of challenge and strategy? Yes. Do I think it's fun? Also yes. It's a solid game. Go try it.
TL;DR: Good game, has a few issues but nothing super extreme. I only found one bug, but I'm not even sure it's a bug. Game has a condensed tutorial but it's fine. You learn the game quickly and all it's mechanics (2-3 runs in you get a decent grasp on stuff).