Dawncaster: Deckbuilding RPG 9+

Excellent!

I’m loving this deck builder so much, I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase expansions or maybe a variant on the gameplay formula such as a Sci-Fi Fantasy or possibly a Cyberpunk theme, if the Developer considers it. From playing various other card games, this game mostly reminds me of Ascension, MTG, and Fate Hunters. What works for me here is that I can play at it at my own leisure, solo without any human competition. The game has high replay value as you get to level up and unlock various items among the 7 classes you can choose from. Dying on your first few runs is not a penalty but rather a means of learning what your facing up against when it comes to the enemies you’ll encounter and the various card types you can choose from or whether or not you should accept certain cards as you’re building your deck. NO IAP IN ORDER TO PROGRESS IN THE GAME. It’s a pure premium game that screams the quality most mobile gamers are searching for. The atmosphere, music, sound effects, and artwork stand out and are very well done. I highly recommend it if you’re a fan of deck building games. It didn’t take me long to pick up the game’s first expansion, after doing a few runs. Trust that you will lose track of time playing it. Pure fun!

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for the support @CorpseEater81!

Excellent game, active community

No microtransactions or ads!

This game is challenging, highly engaging, and can be played one-handed. It strikes an intriguing balance between randomness and player control.

Progression is linear from low to high numbered areas. Each combat area includes an encounter deck that consists of Enemies, Shops, Rests, and fleeting Opportunities. The player is presented with 3 cards from the encounter deck (similar to Night of the Full Moon) and must choose 1 to proceed. Each combat area has a boss at the end.

Combat consists of playing cards. Each card had an energy color and cost. The player can generate energy in different colors based on stats (Dex, Int, Str). Pay the energy costs to play the cards. The enemy also has energy and a small deck of cards. Enemy actions are telegraphed by the cardback icons. Beware of black cardbacks! Upon victory, the player is presented with gold, XP, and 3 cards. Choose 1 card to add to your deck or skip.

After the player XP bar fills, the player gains a Talent. Talents are ongoing passive effects. Talents may increase a stat, upgrade card damage, add or remove combat status effects, etc.

I have played this game from early iterations and have now come to expect the developers to recognize, respond to, and incorporate good suggestions into future updates. The Discord (linked in the app) is an active and helpful place. Though the game is single-player, the Discord community adds a social element.

Excellent design

Fantastic card design and class unlock design. Kept me playing all the way through full class unlocks because each one made new card synergies possible.

A couple of tweaks I would like to see: Quests auto refresh once completed and one run in which completed is over. With so many cards, shop size should be larger. Maybe each level the selection increases. Single color runs are much more 1 dimensional than dual color runs—this is because of the transmuting mechanic. There are limited epics and legendaries to transmute into for single-color. There are 3x as many for dual color. Since the most powerful cards shape the deck, that means 3x the variety in dual color runs. Perhaps fix this by allowing me to pick the color to transmute into before showing the three cards. That way if I’m blue but am looking for a blue-green card to complement my deck, I can get a shot at it when transmuting.