Cards & Crystals

Fun, charming little indie project combining CCG and Match-3 mechanics. There's a lot to absorb, but it's got a lot of personality to ease you in.
It's grindy at times, but with all cylinders firing and RNG going your way, it's incredibly satisfying. But boy oh boy are you going to experience some rough patches. It's worth it.
If you like this, also check out: Ironcast, PuzzleQuest: Challenge of the Warlords, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, and Card Quest.

It's a good, fun game.
A pleasant combination of a card game with match 3.
If you play match 3 for exciting visuals where the screen shakes and gems begin glowing hard when you link a huge chain, you might not get that here.
But if you enjoy strategy and deck-building, this would totally be for you.
If you enjoy MTG, Yugioh, Chess, anything like that. You might find this very fun.
Later you'll unlock passive abilities which let you spend resources, which are gained from linking gems, to affect the board. (Clear lines, etc.) But a lot of the cards can also perform this function.
The dev also seems like a really nice person and is still working on the game and has made good changes over the period I've played the game.
Some may be thinking "10 bucks? That's a bit much for a match 3 game." but the card game and RPG stuff in it make it worth 10 bucks easily, I think.

Interesting combination of match3 and card games. While you match gems you collect some resource which can be used to activate cards but certain cards require spending a turn matching required gems to use them. Most of the time you will be matching gems just to damage the enemy but occasionally instead of damaging you may want to summon an ally which can protect you against enemy damage or use some abilities or boost some stats allowing you to get more gems of certain color or to deal more damage.
Each level you gain a skillpoint and a new skill which can be activated using those skillpoints and at global map at any time (after you complete tutorials) you can activate and deactivate them to customize your character or prepare your deck for certain encounters.
Initially you unlock new areas on the map (which generate random location themed battles) by fighting some of their characters, then you fight characters to unlock more characters that you can switch to in the same save file. So there is some freedom - you can farm those extra unlocked encounters, you can spend you cash on training in the tavern or you can continue unlocking things in the main location - Castle. You can use the character you have started with or you can switch to any other that you unlocked and create a new deck for them.
Overall the game is interesting.

Cheerful card game with a rather brutal streak ( Heck, the AI admits it's cheating in one conversation... >.> ) a few bugs, but some of them are pretty fun. For example, re-drawing the same card from your deck. Which is absolutely hilarious when it's a damage buff.
Plenty of cards to unlock, heroes with different skills, and plenty of interesting challenges. ( What happens when your opponent is using your deck? Why, fill it with garbage or cards to help you, and laugh. )
However, it's not for the easily frustrated, as the AI will shamelessly bust out a row of huge chains on a whim and squash you like a bug.

Just what i was looking for. If you like card deck building, and matching puzzle games or either of those two then this maybe just for you to. To top it all off, it has some basic RPG elements to, with skill pts that help you customize your character. I just started and had already lost track of time. The graphics aren't great, but I'm more interested in the gameplay, and the rules are very basic and easy to learn. You also have a choose of starting characters which might offer some replay value. For about ten bucks on sell this is well worth it. Gives you something to do during Covid-19 lock down that is for sure.

This is a very fun game so far. The gameplay is a mix of match 3 puzzle games and a card game. I like a lot of the little details unique to this game. For example: In other match 3 games that have you squaring off against an opponent you have to share the board with them, but in this one, each hero is playing on their own board. (It's always been a pet peeve of mine in these kinds of games where you take a turn that randomly sets up an even better turn for the opponent because of how the random pieces drop back onto the board. I'm looking at you, Puzzle Quest!)
Another unique detail are the cards, of course. Clearing pieces off of the grid not only hurt the enemy but give you the energy to play or draw cards. In addition to cards that can mess around with the pieces on the boards or temporarily boost your stats there are also cards that summon units to block damage for you and often have other abilities as well.
The pixel art is simple, but very well done, and everything is easy to read and understand once you get through the (amusing) tutorial.

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TL:DR
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A charming game with a good sense of humor that combines match 3 mechanics with deckbuilding and creates a fairly unique combination that offers certain depth while keeping the gameplay simple and straightforward. Matching crystals will do damage to the opponent while also being a resource to fuel your cards that can summon minions, provide passive bonuses, do damage or manipulate the board in some way. Despite the relative simplicity of match 3 mechanics and the potential complexity of deckbuilding this game manages to combine the two quite well, without alienating fans of either genre.
The positive
+ Simple but engaging gameplay. I'm not a fan of match 3 games, but this one managed to hold my focus.
+ Good sense of humor (at least for the most part) that has a certain charm to it
+ Lot of card variety (although some do have minor and almost needless variations)
+ Great deckbuilding opportunities and tools.You have your filters, searches, sorting. Even some multiplayer deckbuilders lack these. Some good UI design overall.
The neutral
* Small text on cards. It's not too much of an issue but I wished the text was more readable without having to zoom on the card.
* Some animations could be a bit faster.
* Some enemies introduce new rules that you need to adjust your deck to. I liked this mechanic, but I wished it was used more.
The negative
- Not enough of card play. While the deckbuilding aspect is fairly strong, the rate at which you draw cards in hand is rather slow. You don't draw cards automatically, but have to use a resource that is also used to play some cards. Because of this, your starting hand can determine the difficulty of the battle, more than it should. This also impacts the next few negative points.
- Slow turns (sometimes). On some occasions you will not have resources to play cards or connect more than 3 crystals (which give resources) and you might have these multiple of these slow turns in succession which was not very satisfactory.
- RNG.Because the way you draw cards and the randomized nature of the board, you might be at the mercy of lady luck more often than ideal. Your choices and deckbuilding still have the highest impact on whether you will win, but RNG influences this outcome more than it should.
Gameplay summary
During the game you will fight opponent after opponent, all coming from different parts of the world, each with their own mini backstory.
The game is played around boards of crystals (you and the enemy have a separate one). When you match at least 3 crystals of the same color and in any direction you will do damage to the opponent with longer chains or stronger crystals doing more of it.
However, this is where the cards come into play (literally). Instead of doing damage you can match/use crystals to play cards. There are several types of cards: minions, that block damage and provide passive bonuses (e.g increased damage with a certain color crystals, or increase the probability of certain crystals showing up), cards that provide passive bonuses or deal direct damage, or cards that mess with the board in some way (e.g. destroying, replacing crystals)
Cards are paid by using crystals of the same color which leaves an interesting choice between chaining crystals for damage or investing them into playing cards.
There is also a generic resource that is gained each time you make a connection, and some cards use this instead. Unfortunately this is also used for drawing cards and the cost is quite high for it, so often you will only see a very minor part of your deck and bad starting hand (e.g. no minions) could make the game much more difficult to win.
After each battle you will get experience and once you level up you can gain additional bonuses for your hero. As far as I saw, other heroes do not gain exp passively, which might be grindy if you feel like swapping heroes and playing the game with a different color focus from time to time.
Overall, it feels that the experimental combination of match 3 and deck building did exactly what it set out to do, leaving an enjoyable experience that might appeal to fans of either genre.
Recommended.