itch.io

Strength (:

So I have kind of commented on this like it was a early access game from steam and not like a 10 week project made by people who are learning to make games right now, so you are probably aware of most of the issues I present, and just ran out of time.

Wonderful art obviously, nothing I can say about that, you guys clearly know what you're doing.

I do like the idea of a deckbuilder where your cards don't have a cost to get into play, but a recurring resource cost, with health being deducted when the resource runs out. Deaths ascend ability plays really nicely into that, conceptually very smart. In deckbuilding Roguelikes it's often valuable to keep health high so you can use it as a resource in a difficult boss or elite encounter or one that your deck is not equipped to handle, so effects like that make it fairly easy to survive at low health, but put you in grave danger in the already dangerous fights. None of this comes to fruition right now due to the current balance, but (I hope) that changes in the future.

The overall gameplay is very unpolished though. It lacks any difficulty and every encounter is the exact same, no increase in difficulty, no rhyme or reason to opponent plays and opponents often just skipped turns. Handcrafting multiple opponents with different decks would go a long way. Maybe even give them some unique cards the player doesn't have access to? It also did not feel like my deck was progressing in any way, it was a mess of cards at the start and a mess of cards at the end (because i mixed up the make trade and leave shop buttons :/).

It is also unfortunate that the only things you can see at a glance from cards is their stats and maybe their abilities, but not their Karma (why Karma, does that have to do with Tarot btw), even though it is even more important than a cards stats.

The positive Karma cards also all felt the same. I just got rid of the ones with 3 and bought some with 5 at the first shop and never regretted missing out on any effect. Their only relevant aspect being cost. That made the above point of Karma not being visible all the more annoying.

Sun is a (conceptually) busted card, as you can just heal to full in one easy fight, even with the current difficulty, that is of no concern. Maybe make it +5hp on play or something or the card damages itself when the effect triggers or can only do it 5 times per fight.

I did not like how I could not see what ascending major arcana does beforehand. Some of them like Sun getting -1/+2 even feel like downgrades 2/5 (or sth around that) seems better than 1/7

The audio went to just the left ear at some point, with the right ear only receiving an occasional and painful *thud* that sounded like someone took a swing directly at my eardrum. Turning my headphones to mono did fix the problem (for me).

Overall, I still really enjoyed my time with this game and would love to see it get updated in the future.