Building a deck of deckbuilders

Crossposting a bit but one of my favorite games have a sequel and it’s out!

The game is insanely complex so have the fun is trying new combinations and stuff. The original is one of my favorite roguelike games.

This one is less a roguelike, apparently? You should make a thread for the sequel.

A mini review and thumbs up from me for Blood Card 2: Dark Mist. Link to the steam page and copying my review below!

If you enjoyed any of these other games, you will probably enjoy this one (and vice versa) - Blood Card, Fate Hunters, Meteorfall: Krummit’s Tale.

What they have in common is that you have a set of characters to play as, essentially just deck archetypes, and the gameplay challenge is to learn how to play them effectively. In Blood Card 2 these characters, Berzerker, Priestess, Chaos Knight and more, are very, very different in how they can be played effectively.

The rather unique twist and hook for Blood Card 2, also the original Blood Card, is that your deck is also your health pool. So when you take damage, cards from either your draw pile or your discard pile get temporarily absorbed into the ‘bodies’ of your attackers, regained only when you kill them.

This single innovation is really key. It means that the thin / lean / tight deck approach that is often desirable in other deck-building roguelikes is not at all effective here. However a fat deck stuffed with low value cards is not so great either, it could just result in slower failure. So you are challenged for navigate your way to something in between, fat enough to survive taking damage and thin enough to provide sufficient utility from your higher value cards. This balancing act is rather special and absolutely worth experiencing for deck-building roguelike fans.

Unlike many other deck-building roguelikes there is minimal ‘meta progression’. Completing runs unlocks the characters you can play as, and unlocks higher difficulty levels, that is all. This is not a bad thing necessarily, the gameplay is solid and enjoyable, like a puzzle but a loose puzzle with lots of possible solutions. Within each run there are many variables to be experienced thanks to a large number of passive boons (like relics / artefacts) and cards.

Oh geez, now you know I have credibility with deck-building roguelikes, right? Erannorth Reborn however, the first game, was utterly incomprehensible to me. I could barely perceive the depth through the miasma of features that the UI just did not provide easily accessible explanations to me. How to explain this phenomena, deck-building roguelike buddy / genetic twin? :-P

wow, didn’t know this was so close. I just streamed some Erannorth Reborn last night and relearned a bunch of it. Love the game.

edit: think I’ll dive into this today on stream then and figure it out. Got a few days to kill with console Inquisitor Martyr on 21st and New World 28th :)

Some of the reviews are saying the new game is a bit easier to fathom (though no less complex) due to UI changes, in particular.

it definitely is. played on a stream a bit this morning and will dive back in after lunch. I’m getting a bit confused just because I’m thinking in terms of the old one and the changes are throwing me off, but overall it’s much easier to read and follow what is going on. Readability in general is better as well and I’m liking the new art style way better than the last one also.

I like how Blood Card 2: Dark Mist uses its six classes to explore interactions with the cards-as-life cycle from draw to hand to discard to enemy. Journeying through the classes was good.

I didn’t see more to keep me occupied beyond winning with each class. The fact that wins were unlocking a few cards or boons, IIRC, annoys me. I accept the classes unlocking, as each of those is a different view on the game. I very much dislike having elements parceled out that don’t majorly change how to play. It feels like the game’s just not giving me either the full set of tools or the full challenge. This annoyance has plagued my enjoyment of many deck-builders, so it’s not a unique dig against Blood Card 2: Dark Mist.

I’ve pursued some achievements, but Hereafter’s completion of entire games impresses me. That seems like a lot of RNG to endure while knocking out the final ones. I want to pick one of these games and give 100% completion a try, see if by forcing myself to go deep something else about the game emerges.

The first one is a bit like late 80’s 90’s RPGs. There’s lots of figuring out and tinkering. My suggestion would be to start with one class and race combination that suits you and only learn that combo.

Most keywords are tied to a specific race or class but it regardless it will take dozens upon dozens of hours to get familiar with everything.

Personally I would start on the second game from what I heard. I still can’t pry myself away from Monster Train.

Can you please PM me your twitch/youtube handle? I think I read your posts for over a decade now (from Gone Golds days?). I figure I can put a face/voice to these posts lol.

Re: Blood Mist than playing the classes besides the daily. But the classes were ridiculously fun for me. The Summoner class is one of the most refreshing take on a deckbuilders ever. I finished it on all difficulties and all the classes and never had a dull moment. I can’t say that about most games.
I would agree with the unlocking thing. That’s why Trail of Fire is amazing. You can unlock everything via the menu.

I would play Monster Train, Trail of Fire, Star Renegade, Hades, Tainted Grail, Ratropolis or One step from Eden for achievements. Those game have almost no RNG and are very skill based. It felt really good to finish those games on the highest difficulty. The only big RNG driven game I 100%'d was Slay. I like the game enough to not mind. On the other hand, I tried to 100% Griftlands again and fell asleep for the third time. I might have to give up on the game.

Ill pop in here a bit late to say I loved Banners of Ruin. It’s not for everyone, and i think it embraces its story a little too much, but the atmosphere and world-building is fantastic and pretty unique for a card game. The combat is meaty, and perhaps a little too much for a card battler. I got about 50 hours out of it, and loved every minute of it - i’m hoping they add some different bosses and pathways - that’d certainly make me play some more.

Cmon now - you got a lot of bottle friend? Fuck, that’s awesome…

Does it mean something?

Wheel that famed net, otter! How famed are the nets? Are they famed like Famous Amos?

Why are they throwing sea salt into the air?

So many questions.

does anything mean anything? It’s atmosphere and flavor in a genre that could just be like playing with a regular poker deck.

The nets are throwing salt in the air as they’re spinning them, because they’re wet. These are obviously salt water otters, hence the term salters. They are pretty famous in the game world.

The Outer Worlds, The Outer Wilds, and now The Otter World?

Needs a more unique name, like Legacy of Conquest: The Reckoning.

Edit: Whoa, nice edit! Now my post is out of context!

Does anything mean anything… hmm, I’m going to say yes. Next question!!!

And oh, they’re spinning the nets around, got it. For some reason I was imagining them winding them around their hands like when you’re wrapping an audio cable. Got thrown off by the phrase “around their hands.” And then I was imagining the otters throwing pawfuls of salt into the air.

EDIT AGAIN: Apparently “got a lot of bottle” is a British idiom. TIL!

I’m very glad Trials of Fire was mentioned again. I had tried it in Early Access, seen its promise, and waited until it released. Which I completely missed.

I did the water gem quest, starting at Hard, and it took eight tries to get through. I stayed with the original characters the whole time. People did die a fair bit, so there still seems to be more synergies to build. Maybe some of the newer classes will work better together, too. The climb through the cataclysm difficulties is likely going to be tough.

My game times have been twice as long as their time estimate. That’s a lot of brain burning for not the victorious brilliance I imagine of myself. Fie, you reality checks.

I really like Trials of Fire’s discovery mechanic around enemies. You start knowing only the size of their deck. As they play cards, that is recorded for you, and pulls from instances of that enemy type. It’s the right level of exploration and automatic record-keeping for me.

I don’t know if you did it yet but I recommend you turn on the Story Choice Spoiler. It lets you know what % if each selection during events. It saves time and trial and error. More games should have this option.

Edit. Just saw this, Gordian Quest looks to be on sale for 70%. I never seen it this low before might be a price error? Anyways, it’s recommended by @LordGek and @Lykurgos and the rating is 89% on Steam.

Sale link:
Gordian Quest - PC - Buy it at Nuuvem
Offers end 3 days and 21 hours from this post.

Edit: I just checked and the sale is gone. So it was probably a pricing error.

“Story Choice Spoilers” is a great setting. The fiction doesn’t convey those outcomes and their likelihoods, so for me it actually helps immersion. It gives a better sense of what I would know in the world. And what’s this? “Unlock Features”? I grouse about this all the time. I think I must turn that on, regardless of my hesitation about designer intent.

Well well well, Gordian Quest was already on the wishlist. Awaiting its escape from Early Access purgatory (oddly, you go there before you live). That’s quite the discount for something that hasn’t had an official release. For their sake, and for funding completion of the game, I’ll hope that is a pricing error or it spurs remunerative sales.

Oh yes, Gordian Quest is well worth getting. It has tactical combat comparable to that in Banners of Ruin, maybe even a little stronger given more grid spaces. It also has a very cool character progression system that runs up to 60 levels, an at least fairly good core narrative campaign plus a a great challenge endless mode. Also, it is still getting developed, and the pace of development is encouraging and steady, so this one is building up into something great.

Maybe not Trials of Fire great . . . but then again . . . maybe . . . ?

Thanks for the tip! Was waiting on that one to hit 1.0, but at that price I’ll go ahead and grab it now.

Doesn’t appear to be discounted at all to me. Maybe we missed the window, maybe something else is going on. IDK.

it’s on Nuuvem, not steam. At that price, BOUGHT!

Check Hereafter post