Encounter: The Lost Cards
Salvatore Grosso · 2026 · Turn-Based Tactics, Roguelike, Resource Management, Deckbuilding, Crafting
PC
Mixed69% · 35
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About Encounter: The Lost Cards
As fate would have it, you’ve stumbled upon this game. Might as well give it a try. Who knows what you might encounter… ayyy. Get it? Encounter is the name of the game. When I said, “who knows what you might encounter,” it was a play on words.Encounter: The Lost Cards is a solo, turn-based roguelike where Tarot cards drive the journey. Each card represents an event—an enemy, a stranger, a blessing, a curse—and your run becomes a chain of choices that shape how far you make it.There’s no traditional world map. Instead, you travel through a deck of encounters, learning how to read risks, build momentum, and survive whatever fate deals next.Your adventure starts with a single crate. What’s inside? Something useful… or something that forces a painful tradeoff. Either way, you’ll meet oddballs, outlaws, and outright disasters—sometimes in the worst possible order.A run is a sequence of cards. Every draw is a situation to solve: fight, bargain, gamble, retreat, or take a hit now to avoid something worse later.Turn-based combat with action economy. Every move consumes energy or other resources. Winning isn’t about spamming attacks—it’s about timing, sequencing, and using your gear intelligently.Adapt or die. The same card can be helpful early and lethal later on. Build your stats, equipment, and deck so you can turn bad draws into survivable outcomes.Resource management is the real boss. Everything is limited: rare items break, inventory space is tight, and food runs out. Each pickup is a commitment—taking one thing usually means giving up another.Managing resources is only the beginning; chaining actions together for strong combos is where the deeper strategy shows up.If you like roguelikes, inventory management, a touch of deck-building, turn-based RPG combat, and nostalgic pixel graphics, you’ll feel right at home in Encounter.✔ 250+ unique and powerful items✔ 100+ adaptive encounters✔ Inventory management✔ Deck manipulation✔ Action sequencing✔ Deep, flexible buildsEncounter rewards patience, experimentation, and flexible planning. Fate will sometimes hit you with the worst possible timing—but if you learn the systems and make smart tradeoffs, you’ll start to feel the moment where “random” turns into something you can actually control.It’s big-brain if you want it to be, but easy to pick up and play. Either way, your fate is in your hands… mostly.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
I think you will like this game if you like battler style turn-based combat in a fantasy setting. There was a decent amount of replay value for me to try to collect all of the easter eggs, characters, and all their special items. The game does have some bugs. One of the things that really appealed to me was having my butt handed to me for the first many runs, but eventually once you figure out the mechanics it gets more interesting. But, overall, this game kept my attention and was fun to figure out. One adjustment to the game I'd make is to be able to use abilities like crafting materials or using items that are upgrading a stat while at the inns.... it's tedious to load up your rather tight inventory with items that you just want to be able to immediately use in a combat only to then get waylaid by non-combat scenes and their rewards before you get to the after-the-inn combat.5 found this helpful
Most of my playtime is on mobile, due to the nature of the UI being much easier to use on mobile, and using the steam deck for this have been more or less annoying, and with a lot of small control annoyances you have to fix with bindings. I have played and gave the game quite a bit more time than the Steam listed amount, and the review encapsulates both my experience on trying to play it on the Deck and my phone. The game is fine, just fine though. It has mobile game currency systems and play limits, a weird steam market tie-in for certain unlocks, pretty unfair when it comes to luck and resetting from time to time, but I've played worse. If you judge it like a mobile game you pay a quick buck for, yeah, the game is a good time waster for a while if you have nothing to do and on the road. In the category of this kind of games, the mechanics are pretty flushed out and you can keep certain things going mindlessly from time to time when you don't want to think, and an alright learning curve if you want to pay attention and remember where and when to commit to certain actions for optimizing runs. But yeah, the price tag for this game should be the main issue against a recommendation …4 found this helpful
The R in Encounter stands for RNG... This game relies A LOT on RNG. EVERYTHING is at the mercy of RNGsus! I gave this a go for 3 hours and, I wanted to like it, but the randomized mechanics just straight up killed the experience for me. I definitely do not recommend this game as is. I might revisit this in the future if the items ever get a brief description on their effects and the protagonists didn't have to roll a dice at every corner.3 found this helpful
(FIRST OFF! THE TRAILER SONG ROCKS!!!) however even tho the game is really charming at first and fun once you get the mechanics down, but it delivers very little in the way of replayability for a title that promises so much content. The game's main selling point is "infinite encounters," but within a couple of hours, you will have experienced everything it has to offer. On top of that, the game is abselutely balanced with a slegdehammer. I won on my second playthrough, and shortly after, I found an item that allowed me to gain infinite EXP and unlock pretty much everything instantly. It isn't skill-based really... it is purely luck many times tbh. Once you understand the basics after two hours or so, it becomes repetitive AF. From there, it is just a grind through the same gameplay loop to unlock a currency, that can also be bought directly on the marketplace, for "mythical" loot. I wouldn't buy this unless it is on a deep sale simply due to the scope of the game is so small unless you like repeated looping games.1 found this helpful
"I really thought if an enemy defeated me I was going to get an animated sex scene" Encounter: The Lost Cards has some genuinely interesting roguelike mechanics, but be prepared for a steep learning curve. Early runs can feel brutal, and the game definitely doesn’t hold your hand, but maybe your ♥♥♥♥? It’s the kind of game that will probably really click with players who enjoy experimenting and slowly mastering complicated mechanics. I recommend this if you want a challenge and maybe at some point to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by an enemy, you never know it could happen. [url=https://youtube.com/live/5szjBXQiyVw?t=1h40m29s]Gameplay[/url]1 found this helpful
Addictingly fun! All the scenarios are fun, with fresh and new situations appearing regularly. However be careful clicking with the mouse to advance as it can accidently click on UI actions that are hidden by the dialogue. I.E skip scenarios by clicking near the bottom right of the game window (where the skip button normally is).
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