What a weird experience

[WarMage]

Hello all,

Yes, oh yes, what a weird game ! Early on, I decided to see this more as an "experience" instead of a game per say. I mean, there's a few small games embedded in the package for sure but the whole is more an experience than anything else. A psychological / philosophical adventure bundled with a very very cringe batch of short real-life videos.... oh boy those videos.... I forced myself to watch them all as part of the experience but I shouldn't have. In all the wasted time there was maybe, mayyyybeeee 2 minutes worth watching.

Still, it's deceptive to market it as a card battler. The card game is about 50% of the product but it's not the main goal. It's just a tool to deliver the story and advance the plot. Weird as it is. So I was definitively disappointed when I realized it wasn't as much a card game with added story lore and background but a story with lore and background and an added card game on the side.

All in all, I concluded with a positive outlook on the product. I'm a bit sad that the card game which wasn't bad at all isn't more fleshed out. I feel that there's a solid base on which they could've done so much more but I also completely understand that as a mere tool it's fleshed out enough as it is. A weird adventure with a lot of twists, turns and surprises, moving the player along some weak story tread until we reach somewhat of a conclusion. All of it steeped deep in varied psychological & philosophical undertones.

Can't say I would go back to it for anything other than maybe playing a bit more with the card game itself.

Ain't really sure that I enjoyed the adventure itself but I now that I thoroughly appreciated the twists. I laughed quite a bit when I started act 2 and it all switched to 2D snes graphics. I didn't like the switch at all. Hated it in fact. But I laughed at the situation. The twist itself was funny but unfortunately the gameplay was quite lacking. The bizarre of it all was also quite interesting. Those strange creatures that interacted with us along the way.... that wasn't boring.

At the end of the day, I can't fault the devs fecund imagination that's for sure.

Can't say I enjoyed the adventure proper but I did enjoy the intrigue and twists. I wouldn't give this product a good review from a game perspective but as an experience meant to give the viewer a taste of weirdness I would give it a passing grade. I can't give it more than that because I'm seriously unfit to evaluate such a product other than the basic good / bad binary choices.

For those who read up to this point congratulation and thank you. Let's talk a bit. Let's see where this thread will go. I'm looking forward to it as I'm sure I'll enjoy your replies.

Have a great day.

[RequiemsRose]

Have you checked out Kaycee's Mod yet? Should be unlocked if you beat the game. It's basically a "challenge mode" of the act 1 mechanics/atmosphere. Since it is a challenge mode, they did tighten up the mechanics a bit and do some rebalancing, as well as expanding on what was initially there. Still has little tidbits of lore you can unlock, but you aren't the first nor only with your complaints and Kaycee's Mod was seemingly in response to some of those complaints, so maybe you can enjoy that aspect as more of an actual game/card battler.

[Thax]

Originally posted by RequiemsRose:

Have you checked out Kaycee's Mod yet? Should be unlocked if you beat the game. It's basically a "challenge mode" of the act 1 mechanics/atmosphere. Since it is a challenge mode, they did tighten up the mechanics a bit and do some rebalancing, as well as expanding on what was initially there. Still has little tidbits of lore you can unlock, but you aren't the first nor only with your complaints and Kaycee's Mod was seemingly in response to some of those complaints, so maybe you can enjoy that aspect as more of an actual game/card battler.

I was really looking forward to that mod when it was still to be implemented, as I had the same uh... disappointments as OP. The fact that it turned out to be a challenge mode ruined it for me though, especially considering how extremely RNG-based this game is, making planning and strategy too pointless for my liking.

I know some people like games like that (after all, some people even speedrun Minecraft), but I personally like act 1 and 3 because the gameplay is really satisfying and fun to me. Turning it into an endless hardcore mode completely went against my reasons for wanting an endless mode, as well as my reasons for even playing video games in the first place :/

Hopefully OP is a challenge-gamer and will enjoy it, though. I just play act 1 and die to the final boss on purpose to make death cards over and over until I need a change, then skip straight to act 3 and play through that a few times. Rinse and repeat.

[WarMage]

Well, I wasn't complaining as much as I tried to give my honest opinion after finishing the game. As mentioned above : "I concluded with a positive outlook on the product"

As for Kaycee's mod, I've seen it but haven't touched it yet. I will, eventually, maybe it'll add a bit more play time to my count. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Thax on the challenge mode kinda ruining the idea because too much RNG isn't exactly fun.

I fear there's no perfect solution for me here but that doesn't matter. The adventure was the point from the very start I simply got fooled thinking it would be based around a card game.