Deck of Ashes
"The Outcasts brought Ash Curse upon us all, and they are the only ones who can lift it." – Ash Master. Deck of Ashes is an adventure game with tactical card combat. One character at a time, lead the cast of antiheroes on a quest for redemption. Explore the cursed fantasy world and hunt down powerful cards. Put your survival and resource management skills to the test when upgrading your Camp of allies. The choices that drive your journey – where to go, which resource to collect, which risk to take, and which card to craft – are the difference between success and untimely demise. Features Creative deck-building – collect combat cards that fit your unique playstyle and crush the enemy! Unique hand-drawn eerie art style. Dynamic dark fantasy world – travel through a procedurally generated, changing world in search for cards, supplies and glory! Various biomes that harbour different monster classes – each biome affects the gameplay and offers a unique set of opponents! Survival and resource management – you have limited opportunities to restore health or spent cards, so use them wisely! Camp – strategically improve your base depending on your style of play. Permadeath – unless you use the help of dark magic, then when you die, you die for good.
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
6/10
Odd game design decisions drag down the fantastic art, but it's still decent overall. It's like a smaller, lighter version of Gordian Quest. Though I probably won't play it more than 10 hours or so because the design choices make combat feel awkward.
Pros:
- Characters are quite likeable. Just blows my mind that this inexpensive indie game can have far more interesting characters vs $70-100 Outer Worlds 2 that I recently tried. Shame on you, Obsidian/Microsoft
- Voice acting, music, and sound design are surprisingly good for being an indie
- *Love* the art. It's got a very original vibe to it, and it's great at communicating emotions & abstract ideas. Probably the best thing about the game for me
- Card art is pretty good too. Many of these games have very same-y looking cards that aren't instantly recognizable, but that's not the case here
- Boss fights are pretty epic feeling
Mehs:
- In the campaign, you don't really go anywhere. You just move around your camp over and over gathering stuff... and eventually the boss attacks you
- Though turns can go quickly in combat, trash fights take way too many turns even on easiest difficulty
- Characters are good, but there could be more than 4
Cons:
- You temporarily consume cards when using them in battle, and have to constantly renew them to use again. Terrible system that makes more work for the player for no reason, and leads to counterintuitive play (ie deliberately avoiding renewing weaker cards)
- Starting summon for Jester is weird. It loses 33% of its health every time it attacks
- Card text & backgrounds are inconsistent in color and size. Often it becomes very difficult to read due to size and/or lack of contrast from background
- Not enough contrast between characters and backgrounds in combat. Backgrounds are a little too busy, which distracts from the fantastic character art