Menace from the Deep

There really isn't a reason to play this game in this golden age of rogue-likes and deck builders. The game is technically fine, but it is just so insanely (pun intended) boring. The game pace is slow and just wholly uninteresting. Too much small text, too many different effects, too hard to parse what is happening at a glance. There is no atmosphere. There are just some monsters but that doesn't make a game lovecraftian. The art is fine but since there are almost no animations, the game looks like a flash game from the past. The music is just bad and repetitive, and takes you right out of the creepy mood the art tries to convey. Writing and voice acting is just uninspiring. There are just dozens of better similar games than this one, and most of them are even cheaper than this.

I admire the work put into it, but it just doesn't work for me. The mechanics are confusing from the start -- way too many cards and interactions before you even hit the ground; the voice acting is weak; the script seems to be translated into English, with words like "Gosh!" being the expletive of a chosen character (which of course native English speakers will find amusing at best); and there's WAY too much story / cutscenes for a deckbuilder, IMO. Some nice effort, just poorly executed and...janky is the word I would use overall.

A Lovecraftian Slay The Spire. It's not nearly as good as STS and a bit easier, but it holds it's own pretty well.

Its got lot less meat on the bone compared to games like Slay the Spire but its a fun ride.

Had a great time playing the game, the detective tommy gun build never got boring! The game is easier than Slay the Spire, but it doesn't mean it's not as fun, especially with the lovecraftian lore and the mechanics built around it. Solid 60 hours of gameplay for me! BUT, It really is a shame the game doesn't really challenge us much! I ended up not exploring many builds, partly because the tommy/rage build is the most fun, partly because other builds didn't really feel strong and worth learning. Add that to the fact that the challenge modifiers are in custom mode, the game doesn't really scale it's challenge and you simply have no reason to continue playing.

Pros: Theming, combos of attacks/defends, relic combo sets, some meta progression with materials for creating buildings, many cards can upgrade at end of battle and cards earn XP based on how often you use them which is cool Cons: Forced to take a card for most battles, most card upgrades are disinteresting. Too many symbols/statuses & systems combined with weak base decks make it difficult to progress && it is difficult to estimate how much damage you're going to do or take so threat calculus is difficult Several times I won or lost fights when expecting the opposite result but could not tell you why it happened. The theme is good and there's a lot to enjoy here for someone who can parse the systems at-play but there is just too much going on here for me