Overall Impression
Deck of Haunts is a unique take to a tower defense that incorporates deck building and city building elements within a roguelike. The premise is simple. You play as the villain responsible for creating a nightmarish haunted house set to destroy those who enter. You progress by defeating various humans that enter and gain access to more cards/building options. There’s enough creativity in the cards and building elements to allow for combinations that make for a surprisingly fun and addictive experience. The combination of genres gives the gameplay a unique feel allowing for strategic decisions that cater to varying playstyles.
Target Audience
Gamers that enjoy a strategic experience that involves city building elements and deck building with horror vibes and turned based play should check out this title. The mix of genres alongside interesting choices in deck and city building create satisfying combinations that may resonate with those that are looking for something slightly different but also enjoy theory crafting and strategy games.
Gameplay
The core gameplay premise is simple and surprisingly addictive. Your goal is to defeat humans by reducing their life or sanity to zero while also protecting your heart (source of power) from taking critical damage. You accomplish this by constructing rooms and playing cards. Humans will show up and slowly make their way through your house. On each turn you play cards that cost action points. Cards come with various effects that can damage humans life or psyche or manipulate them in other ways, like moving them randomly to another room or preventing them from leaving a room for a turn. It gets interesting when you can combine effects from cards with rooms that also have special effects. As you successfully complete each stage, you are given a choice in obtaining new cards or new effects that can be applied to different rooms. This allows you to customize your deck and house. Altogether, the core foundation is interesting allowing for satisfying combinations between cards and room effects to defeat those that venture into your nightmarish abode.
Art & Design
The overall aesthetic is a classic horror vibe in an isometric perspective. The visual elements, dark atmosphere and tone match the feel of what you would imagine a haunted house would be like. UI element are fairly clear making it easy to understand cards and their effects. Altogether, the visual design is one of the standout features that pulls you into the game and mission at hand.
Challenges
Through the initial stages of the game there are some challenges that come up. Nothing that is game breaking, but more minor challenges. Similar to other games in the roguelike genre, the random nature of which cards you receive can make a difference in your experience. Although it is fun to build around what you are presented with you won’t always get access to certain cards that you desire. Another issue that may not affect everyone is that it can be a bit awkward to apply certain effects when using a controller. If you have multiple rooms, using a control to select the room you want to apply an effect to can be a bit off as it has trouble targeting the desire room if there are many rooms in close proximity. Lastly, the core foundation for deep and interesting gameplay seems to be there, but the demo only allows for the initial stages of the game to be explored.
Closing Thoughts
Deck of Haunts is a unique take on a tower defense game where you play the villain. By incorporating elements of city building and deck building it allows for strategy through how you build rooms and customize your deck. There’s a surprisingly addictive quality in the gameplay for those to do vibe with this unique mix of elements. On initial glance, it’s a promising offering. If this is your thing, check out Deck of Haunts.
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GAME DETAILS
PLATFORMS: PC
RELEASE: 2024
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER: Mantis / DANGEN Entertainment
GENRE/TAGS: Turn-Based Tactics, Strategy, City Builder, Deck Building, Tower Defense, Roguelike
TARGET AUDIENCE: Fans of turn based strategy games that also enjoy the creativity and theory crafting of city builders and deck building.
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