Dawncaster | The RPG Cardventure

An ultimately disappointing adventure. I was initially excited to see it had cross save on the phone, so I purchased it on android and then PC, only to find out that it only saved your meta progression, not your current run... which were way to long and the point of cross saving. Not only are the runs long and boring (because your card pool and strategy rarely change) but the meta progression equates to 10 extra life, or some cosmetic portrait each level. The game bragged about having a massive card pool, which it does, but none of the cards synergize outside of it's own mechanic. Because you aren't forced to take a card each round, your deck ends up being the same as there's no reason to take any card outside your niche. Boss fights CAN be interesting, but most of the time it's just a crap shoot trying to leverage your mechanic against whatever special conditions they have. Also the "RPGadventure" aspect isn't any different than any other game that I could tell. You're presented with the same "choices" with different buff/debuff outcomes that all the other cardgames basically present. The overarching story isn't that spectacular, though I haven't played any of the expansions.…

I'm a veteran in these kinds of games and this one feels like I'm playing a slot machine with little player agency. Because of the huge card set with almost no synergy between the expansions, getting a combo or cards that work well together is rare. So the consequence is in combat, especially the first biomes, you repetitively play the exact same combo about 1000 times, and only the visual representation of the enemy image changes... (you never fight more than 1 enemy). Doesn't matter what the enemy does, you have no choice but to play your 1 combo, or closest thing you have to a combo, 1000s of times. Furthermore, you repetitively prioritize the same events, of deleting your same useless cards for the same combo which is decided by your starting set. I feel like I should get an AI to go through the motions for me until later game. Therefore, I am basically prompted to think only when and if the slot machine proposes a card that is synergetic for deckbuilding, which is a very rare event, and otherwise I find myself mindlessly clicking like a machine 1000 times, prioritizing the starting set. I'm quite surprised that if the game has been out for this long, and if card diversity is …

Really tight fun gameplay.

Great game all around. Art style is nice. Game is fun. Pretty impressed. 10/10

Doesn't quite scratch the same itch as Slay The Spire to be honest. The "RPG story" aspect of it is interesting at first but then since you're still playing a roguelike, you end up optimizing away the intrigue to focus on what the outcomes of decisions instead. Upgrading your cards is so incremental that it's really uninteresting unless you have talents that allow you to upgrade repeatedly. Cards don't really seem to synergize with each other across different sets so having more cards in the pool doesn't really help with build variety and usually does the opposite in which you use your bonus re-rolls to funnel yourself into very set-isolated decks. Aside from this I am not a fan of the responsiveness of the UI, weird little quirks that don't seem as polished as other games. Interesting ideas, but the execution doesn't quite hit right.

Absolutely phenomenal! If you like deckbuilders at all this is the one you want.