Neurodeck : Psychological Deckbuilder

I wanted to like this game, I love deckbuilders and I'm a psychology lecturer. I didn't have any illusions that these topics could be covered very effectively in this form, but figured that there would be space to put across one or two interesting ideas. The game isn't really properly finished. There are only two characters and the second character's story is copy-pasted from the first character even in places that makes no sense at all. The gameplay is alright but overall lackluster. I wish they'd done better with this one.

Well I would rate this game higher. I was going to recommend it. But the Plague Doctor final boss is so unfair. I was sitting there with -50 stamina and no cards left to draw while he healed himself to full HP. What balance is in this game? And the "mental health" aspect is just a gimmick. I thought it was cute that all the cards are named after coping skills, and the art tracks with the phobias but, that's it. Gimmicky and unbalanced.

It's an okay Deckbuilder with limited replay potential. I recommend it because it triggered my PTSD and games rarely do that for me.

As roguelike deckbuilders go, this is fine. It might be a good introduction to the genre, even, given that the gameplay is so shallow. My main complaint is that the mechanics have no connection to the theme. Instead of HP, you have Sanity. Instead of inflicting poison, you induce Anxiety. The art and animations are fantastic, but the game itself is just a reskinned version of the most generic roguelike possible. This all would be well and good, except it also has a tendency to just lock up for no reason, and that's really irritating! That flips my recommendation to negative.

Too many features from the start. Even though it seems to target experienced StS players, there are new rules, plus you get a Trait (equivalent to a relic in StS) before the first battle, and your starting deck even contains an Item (equivalent to a Power in StS). I feel like the creators don’t fully understand what made StS enjoyable on a deeper level. If they did, they wouldn’t have designed the game like this. The dual cost system of stamina and actions doesn’t seem to add anything meaningful to the gameplay either. I love roguelikes, especially card-based ones, but I just couldn’t bring myself to keep playing this. The parameter for HP is inconsistently referred to as Health, HP, Sanity, ♡, or even a brain icon. This creates unnecessary confusion and makes the game harder to enjoy. 最初から要素が多すぎる。 StS経験者を対象にしているのだろうとはいえ、新しいルールがあるのに加えてさらに最初の戦闘前にTrait（レリックに相当）の取得があり、初期デッキにアイテム（パワーに相当）まである。おそらく制作者は、StSの何が面白いかを深いレベルで理解していないと思う。理解していたらこういうレベルデザインにはならない。 スタミナとアクションのダブルコスト制もゲーム性に活かせているようには思えない。 私はローグ、中でもカードローグが好きだが、これは続ける気が起きなかった。 パラメータ名もヘルスなのかHPなのかSanityなのか♡なのかよくわからず、無駄にプレイ負荷がかかる。

I don't think the game feels unfinished, it literally is. Still good tho. I recommend it but don't expect much.