Breach Wanderers: Deckbuilder 9+

So far the gameplay has been very fun. The core mechanics are executed great and while similar in some aspects with games like slay the Spire, has good orginal ideas. One idea i really like is that basically all the enemies buff themselves with increased damage over time which stacks up and forces you to balance attack and defense cards. One early game boss dumpstered me when I had only one attack in my deck. There are some balanced issues in the game and some complexity with buffs that just seems more for the sake of complexity than gameplay, such as the energy system; you have a energy regen per turn, max energy, increase energy regen buff, increased max energy buff, temporary increased max energy buff, and a few more. This energy part is where there might be some better solution with cutting down the card price and also energy buff. In the end, the game is fantastic and the devs really seem to care for the game. The ads are short and far between and there are no monetisation except for ad removal(for those who know the ads can just be circumvented but I’m not gonna say how) 10/10

There are a lot of free-to-play mobile games out there from big name developers, and two things almost all of them have in common are very little actual game in the game, and really toxic income models based around paid limited-time event items that are meant to induce FOMO (buy it now or miss out forever!). This ftp indie game, on the other hand, has a much healthier payment model that also gives you far more for your money--if you choose to spend it--making it clear that the developers actually want to make games rather than exploitative money traps (with admittedly very nice art, generally).

On its own merits, I'm really enjoying this game so far. It's a lot like Slay the Spire and other deckbuilding roguelikes, but it has enough differences that it still feels fresh to me. There are very few ads, and so far none have been longer than the couple seconds it takes to skip, but I'll still probably buy the $5 offer to remove them because there's way more than $5 worth of game here, especially judging by ftp mobile game standards.

This game costs good money on Steam, and was frankly worth its price tag there.

This mobile adaptation is free, with virtually no downside other than some ads (which you can banish for a pittance if you can’t handle that). So right off the bat: rock solid value at the price tag of free or that small IAP.

On the game itself, it’s a deck crawler ala Slay the Spire et al, but has a lot of interesting little flourishes to make it unique. There are persistent progress elements on both single character and blanket levels, unlockable cards and characters, multiple difficult levels, quests, and the ability to edit starting decks, which is a fair spread of replay value features. Meanwhile, the combat involves some novelty in the form of elemental damage, which forms stacks that trigger past a certain threshold to unique effects, then reset with the enemy gaining some resistance. It makes for an interesting tactical challenge, since you can streamline a deck to stack up a single element (say, Frost) really quickly, but then a boss might become to resistant to lock down readily after you’ve triggered it four or five times. What’s your balance between focus/efficiency and diversifying your attack types?

At a price of free, any card game fan owes it to themselves to try it. You can uninstall after if you aren’t impressed, right?