Negative Space (2025)

It feels different than other deck builders. On the surface of it, it could be a slay-like game. The difference is that you spend each 'fight' balancing finishing objectives with building up your power for the fight. So, your engine needs to be built not just to protect and damage, but to build up power to a level where you can finish the challenge.

good feedback loop with enough new to keep my trying one more time. keep up the good work

This is a very competent roguelike deckbuilder! I had a great time in the window where I was still unlocking new cards and character, and a somewhat less great but still fun time winning on the hardest difficulty with a few of the characters on offer. The music and graphics are totally rad. I find myself humming some variant of the main encounter theme as I go about my day. At first I though it was a bold choice to go with an art style where there would necessarily be so little differentiation between card arts, but I think it mostly works. I never really had difficulty identifying a card at a glance. The version I played (1.0) is really brought down by bugs. Incorrect reminder text, specific relics that don't apply there effects, and an entire difficulty level that is misapplied. These are little things that I imagine (hope?) will be polished out, and I didn't really start to feel their presence til 5 or so hours in. The other big issue here is the limited design space. Crew cards are differentiated by their exploration value, cost, and rules text. Sadly that text usually zeroes in on increasing exploration value or decreasing cost based on the number of another thing in …

Let's see how many more hours I pour into this, but it's already in the good tier, it may become excellent. Very well polished, clean decks and great characters to make the most out of the decks. I'm yet to find a deck that demolishes, I fell like my strategies just get me by, but so far the depth is great, I haven't yet found mastery, and I feel that I'm improving, I just hope the well just keeps getting deeper and that there is more space to build an incredible deck.

Beautiful Deckbuilder with unique objectives and surprisingly deep mechanics! It has a nice flow and you get that "just one more run" itch. Plays nice on the deck with trackpads.

A lot of fun! During each encounter you buff up your deck for that encounter, very satisfying. Cool art too