Agreeing with this take on it . . . yet unfortunately the opposing view perceiving that this is a greedy screw-over is also common, not right, not wrong, just a reaction to the way it is presented.
Abrakam have explained what they intended, which was to effectively have the demo piece, which is the only fully ready piece, end, whilst also allowing a further look see. Unfortunately the way it has been delivered appears to be creating significant negative feeling. Whilst I am in the “it is cool” camp I can understand the other view so regret that it may impact negatively on what is probably going to be a great game from a great dev team.
The first Abrakam game, Faeria, kinda suffers from a similar perception problem. It is an amazing, superb value digital card game / deck builder / tactical combat / board-game-a-like and relative to most other digital card games, such as Gwent, Hearthstone, the cost to be able to own the entire card-set is far less. Spend about 120 USD on the base game and DLC and you got the lot, no more transactions ever. Problem is . . . you need to lay that out up front rather than trickle it in, and this deters a lot of folks relative to the initially “free to play” model used by others.
I dare to hope Roguebook will do well enough to attract folks back after the proper launch :-)
I think it will. The game is lovely and has mechanics that are both interesting and distinguish it from the many other deckbuilders out there. Their intentions were good here and they realize this could have been communicated better.
What causes the bad vibes on Faeria is that they went F2P for a bit, which angered the old players ,then reverted, which angered the F2P players. So many bad business decisions.
Think they’re good guys, just forced into bad decisions (possibly by folks bailing them out)
This is also why I have no faith in their future games.
Sounds like Mythgard is setting themselves up for similar impact, potentially. They are giving out the entire core set of cards for free, which seems to be angering folks that acquired the core set via other means.
Spellweaver also did a giveaway recently, but I think there was less anger there because they are a super small community and need the extra players around (of all the CCGs out there, Spellweaver is one of the best looking - great art style).
Was watching some gameplay of the EA version (launching tomorrow) and it seems way more compelling than the demo did (can’t recall what I didn’t like about it). The gameplay reminds me a great deal of Into the Breach (and Superhot, ofc)
I really enjoyed it with the exception of it felt like it got really hard really fast for me.
I have been playing a ton of Erranorth Reborn last few days and streaming it and have been hooked hard. The open world sandbox adventure mode is quite fun too.
You think Erranorth is worth picking up, then, even though he is working on the sequel? Also, it looks like the more recent additions have improved the art quality some. Was the older stuff updated at all?
What’s your Twitch ID? Might look up your progress. Nevermind, found you 😁
Also, Erranorth has a steam workshop plugin now “New World” that fully replaces all of the art, fixing some of the, um, questionable art choices of the original. That, and a massive balance rework a few months ago and the final DLC made me pick this back up again. It is a very good game with lots of combos to explore. It also brings my SSD drive to its knees while loading – not sure what is going on there, but starting this up freezes everything for a surprising amount of time.
definitely worth. There is so much depth and replayability. It’s a bit rough to get into but well worth the effort. I bounced off the first couple times then got hooked, took a break and had trouble getting back in because of stat overload but am glad I pushed through. Streamed this the last few days for 8 and 10 hours at a time and forgot to eat. doing it again today (hopefully going to eat)
Single dev working on it so I expect the sequel to be a ways off and likely to be much more limited in scope at least at launch/early access
edit: also the roleplay possibilities exist in a way I have not seen in any other deckbuilder. For example in my current open world sandbox run, I’m a Sylph Minotaur (electric/air fae) with a blind demon witch as a soulmate who I channel my power through. If she dies, I die. Sylph/Dreamshaper combo
enemy variant option can make loads harder or longer. short answer is it apparently is loading literally thousands of variants of enemy stats/levels, not sure though.
The art and overall presentation is definitely my number 1 complaint but I mostly just deal with it. Have a bunch of portrait mods from the workshop but have not tried a complete overhaul yet. (I guess repetitive music also becomes an issue in a 10 hour stream. lol
Hadean Tactics is an odd one. This is an auto-battler, but also a deckbuilder with obvious StS and Monster Train influences. You draw cards periodically, which automatically pauses combat, so you can play cards, but I think, from the description, you can also play cards in real-time if you wish.
Strangely, in the video I was just watching, it will let you retry a battle if you fail, but I wonder if that isn’t a form of training wheels until you get your first win or something.
Anyway, this is entering EA tomorrow. One class of four available and three out of six circles of hell, initially
Yeah… I’m a bit surprised at the price, tbh. It’s quite cool and stylish, but that seems a bit rich compared to other offerings, given there’s only one class (another in the works), though there are multiple starting decks. OTOH, I’m not clear on what systems they have to promote replayability (like an ascension mechanic), so they may be plenty there to justify that.
I bought it on xbox and while it feels good I dont see anything yet that makes it worth so much more than other cheaper offerings. I find it worth the money in a bubble though because it feels like the genre on steam has been diluted in price trying to compete with each other. (Win for us though right?)
Erannorth has hooks in me hard though. Almost 50 hours in a week now. Been streaming it a ton and playing off stream too. The flexibility is just great for me. Some things get and feel a but tedious at times though
It’s really good. In this game, your deck is your life points. So if you have a deck of 20 cards, and the enemy hits you for 5 damage. They steal 5 cards and attached it to them selves. Once you run out of cards, you lose. The numbers of cards in your deck can be crazy with temporary cards and curse cards. I had over 100 once (you start with 15). Enemies are varied and forces you to not to stick to one deck building method.
There are 6 classes, that all play extremely different. For instance one even have a special graveyard. While another relies on summoning beasts on your deck pile. The runs are short and straightforward.
One caveat is that this game doesn’t have a story and any aesthetics. It’s barebones and not much to look at. There 2 modes; a normal mode and a daily mode which involves drafting.
If Tainted Grail/StS/Monster Train is the picture of a well made deckbuilder in a suit. This game is their younger plainer looking sibling hooked on acid and mushrooms.
For Misguided: there’s only left clicked involved ion this and the interface is big and bright. Perfect for Steam Link :)
There’s the prequel with the same mechanic. Blood Card. I’m going to check it out later year. I like Dark Mist enough to try out anything the Devs make.
I don’t think Life = your deck of cards is a new idea but the constant tug of war between the enemies and your deck is quite fun and interesting, especially on the higher difficulties.
It’s a meh game imo. Not much variety in the battle or the characters.
The game balance also isn’t right. For instance in this game, you summon minions to help you fight. There isn’t any retaliation (outside of keywords) so initiative is really important. Most minions won’t survive more than a few rounds and even more less in the higher difficulties. The optimal strategy is usually to focus on your hero unit which defeats half of the deckbuilding aspects. If you don’t the game drags out quite a bit and most battle become attrition based.
There are most instances where the balance is off but mostly there are lots of systems in play and none of them really stick the landing.
I know Lykurgos played this too, curious what you think.
