Cupiclaw

Mechanically brilliant, but severely held back by its narrative choices. Mechanically, this game is a total blast. The core loop of building up your claw machine, leveling up prizes for bigger cash payouts, and managing curses is fast-paced, breezy, and gives you that perfect endorphin rush you want from a good roguelite deckbuilder. It's balanced slightly on the easier side, making for great, satisfying runs. However, I cannot recommend the game in its current state because the narrative actively sours the experience. The protagonist is written as a textbook stalking, harassing archetype, and the 'romance' plotline feels genuinely uncomfortable rather than endearing. I’ve completed 5 or 6 runs hoping for a satirical twist, a subversion, or a redemption arc, but it just continues to lean into behaviors that feel terminally gross. If I had fully realized how uncomfortable the story would make me within the first two hours, I would have refunded the game. A call to action for the developers: You have built a genuinely fantastic, engaging gameplay engine here. You clearly understand mechanics and game loops. But to make this game truly worthwhile, please consider going back t…

My fiancé put me onto this, months before it was even released, and I have waited eagerly for the day that it would finally be out. Not only is this an addictive and lovable game for so many reasons, and was an absolute joy to play/beat, but the timing of it's release also gave me so much more than just a good game... I bought it immediately upon release, coincidentially while I was visiting my fiancé (long distance), and played it on his steam deck every night, and he would watch me play and cheer me on. It became our cozy night-time routine. So not only is it a great game that I would absolutely recommend, but it also created extremely fond memories of chill gaming and love shared with my other half. So on the off-chance that the dev sees this, keep developing! Cupiclaw is so fun, so addictive, well-balanced, AND actually has a fun/cute story that I actually ended up being more invested in than I would have expected. - 10/10!

Such a fantastically fun game, I'm not usually into grinding in video games but I kept coming back for more and more runs! I really hope that the developer continues to add content! I like the weird parts of the storyline and wish that those were leaned into a little more. But mainly I want more prizes to win! I enjoyed it a lot and I think its priced reasonably well for the content that is in the game right now.

Overall a really solid game. I didn't expect all the lore & how grindy the achievements can be. If you like to 100% games and you need something cozy , turn brain off, achievement hunt with, this is a go for you. It runs amazingly on steam deck too. The synergy with items is a vibe, & it can get pretty challenging fast based on which enemy items RNG rolls for you.

This is a decent casual game but feels slightly overpriced. The story mode and all achievements takes about 10 hours, but if you want to unlock all the skins it'll take maybe 30. I appreciate there was a story mode, but I found it more awkward than humorous. Once you finish that, you'll just be playing for a high score. The prize pool seems like there would be a variety of viable play styles but that's not the case. There's a huge imbalance between prize categories and items. I would guess most players avoid half of the prize categories and only use 12-18 items. I did enjoy the game but it could use a few tweaks to make it more interesting to play beyond the story mode.

the claaaaaw