Cards of Heart
GoodMind Games · 2024 · Trading Card Game, Dialogue Heavy, Female Protagonist, Story Rich, Relaxing
PC
Positive92% · 49
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
Screenshots
About Cards of Heart
This is the story of a girl who faced her Shadows… who, in the face of darkness, found her light.
Amalia is a librarian’s assistant living in the small fantasy town of Respite who’s haunted by Shadows- dark beings born from her negative inner thoughts. But when a wisp named Ljos appears and gives her the ability to create cards of light from her everyday life, Amalia must use this power to face her Shadows and learn how to move forward while acknowledging the pain of her past.
Developed in consultation with clinical psychologists and therapists, Amalia's abilities in the game are inspired by real-life therapeutic techniques. Amalia’s journey highlights both the uncomfortable reality of living with mental health challenges like depression and anxiety and the power of finding ways to manage them.
- Explore the town of Respite. Complete errands for townsfolk ranging from baking macarons to story time in the library! As you face more Shadows, you’ll unlock more of the town, giving you more areas to explore.
- Collect cards from Amalia's everyday experiences and build your deck. With each quest Amalia completes, she’ll create a card with stunning hand-drawn art and its own unique effects. What happens if you collect them all?
- Face Amalia’s Shadows in card battles. Learn the patterns of each Shadow, then counter them using techniques and strategies drawn from therapeutic practices. Will you combine cards to create chains of thought and reflect Shadow’s cards back at them? Or will you use Techniques to add extra cards to your hand and remove devastating debuffs from Amalia? How you approach each one is up to you!
- Upgrade your cards after every loss. Take a step back with Amalia and practice self care to make your cards even stronger!
- Uncover Amalia’s memories. Experience a story of love and loss as Amalia processes her past with her light spirit companion, Ljos. Where did the Shadows come from, and what memories are they hiding?
- Pet the dog. Yes, you do get a card for that.
Cards of Heart was developed as a Master’s thesis project at the University of Southern California. Directed by Marielle Brady, the game was made over the course of a year by a team of 30+ students passionate about normalizing stories about mental health challenges and ways to manage them.
Content note: Cards of Heart deals with themes of anxiety, depression, loss, and mental health challenges. Please consider whether these topics are right for you. If you need to seek help, there are a number of resources available online.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
This game is adorable, and it's free! But... if a friend genuinely asked me if it's worth playing, I'd probably say no. For a few reasons: [list][*] It's a bit too heavyhanded for me - your stats are "empowerment" and "connectedness". Your magical critter companion talks to you kinda clinically like a therapist would, not like a mysterious fantasy creature. It's not very immersive. [*] Most of the game consists of Amalia being too anxious/depressed to complete a task, the therapist companion saying "Why don't you just give it a try?", Amalia instantly agreeing with no pushback whatsoever, completing the task and being happy. What's the lesson here? Do they think depressed people don't know that completing the tasks they are putting off will make themselves feel better? The question is how to build the resilience and motivation to do it. The ease with which Amelia overcomes every hurdle results in a lack of depth and realism. [*] While the card game is a great metaphor for mental health coping mechanisms, it's not particularly fun. You just play whatever card lights up on each turn and slowly whittle the enemy down. You can easily win by just taking most of the cards out of your d…1 found this helpful
This was a fun game to play! The story is endearing, the combat is strategic and thoughtful, and overall it was very enjoyable. It's a nice angle on tackling mental health challenges as well. The music and sound design were also very well done. Definitely recommend for a fun short game!
Really touching, but soooo buggy :(
[code] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36948155-Card-Game-KING/] FOR MORE CARD AND BOARD GAMES FOLLOW US [b]CARD GAME KING [/b][/url] [/code] The game explores the feeling of sadness and helplessness and how to beat them. In this case with cards. To break the review apart - there is the narrative and then there is the card play. The narrative follows Amalia, a girl from a simple village, and her struggles with negative feelings. With the help of a little shiny friend, the main character battles these emotions through self-understanding and self-acceptance. The dialogue is well written without ever sounding too condescending or snobby. It's uplifting but not excessively so and does the sensitive topic justice. The card play is cleverly woven into the narrative (writing thoughts and experiences as cards that serve as a reminder that not all is doom and gloom). But is the card play good? No. It's simplistic gameplay is a great vehicle to move the story forward as it's easy to learn, but it makes the combat tedious. Not only is the deckbuilding unsatisfying due to cards having simple and repeated effects, but the UI is also very slow. Playing one card per turn certain…
Liked this game, especially the card mechanics and the art. Good concept too. Did have a crash at one point where I lost some progress, but was able to catch up again and finish the game.
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