Note: If Steam would allow neutral reviews, this would be one. Read the full review to understand why.

Kyvir: Rebirth is a roguelike deckbuilder. You will know some mechanics from other games like Slay the Spire and the likes but there are also new ones. It's not just a copycat.

There are three heroes at the moment. Archer, Paladin, and Mage. Each is different enough (Set of cards, mechanics tied to it, and armor). You start with the Archer and have to unlock the others first.

The fights are turn-based. You have two decks in combat: Main hand and off hand. You can play cards from both hands, each card has its AP (Action Points) cost. You're also in control of when to draw new cards. It's manually which means, you can wait to draw new cards for a few turns (whatever suits your tactic the most). This allows for a totally different experience compared to other deckbuilders and makes it strategical demanding.

There is armor and block. Both are relevant. Your armor stays over 'til enemies do enough damage (For example, you had 5 armor, the enemy does 4 damage. You have 1 left which stays over 'til you get hit again). Block is a bit different. Let's say you have 4 blocks and the enemy does 4 damage. This means the enemy won't reduce your HP and not even your armor. If the enemy does 6 damage, your HP or armor will get reduced by 2. Your block still is the same for the next attack and stays like that 'til you play an attack or utility card OR draw a new hand.

There is also a special mechanic tied to each character. The Paladin for example has faith. For each card you play, your faith will raise up by 1. Some cards will damage equal to your faith value, etc. The archer doesn't have faith or cards tied to it, instead, she has bows. You need bows to play several cards with her.

All of this maybe sounds a bit complicated, but you'll get used to it pretty fast. If you grasp the game, you will feel right at home.

can take up to several hours, depending on how fast you are, how far you can take it, and if you search up every field or leave a floor early. What does that mean?
Each run is split into several floors. Every third floor is a boss fight, which you have to do. The others will allow you to decide where to go. After clicking on a field, it will disappear and you'll see what's there. It can be a monster, an event, a shop, etc.

Every run gives you shards. You can spend them immediately after your run to unlock new cards for the hero you've just played with OR collect them to spend them later for new armor. Aside from weapons, the armor you unlock can be used by every hero.

This is where it gets rough. The balance is all over the place, add to that a grindy game and you have a mess.
One example: I played with the Paladin and had 60HP. I got into an event that ended up giving me + 150% max HP. Somehow, I ended up with 960HP. This is crazy (and probably a bug I guess). Still, I reached the sixth floor, which is a boss fight with around 850HP left. He was able to weaken my attacks by 50% every few turns (I wasn't able to remove the debuff and went with that for the whole fight) and made himself stronger and stronger. As I said, it is designed to let him weaken me forever because he summons 4 minions, each with 9HP. My attacks did 5 dmg normally and I can buff them up with faith. Still, thanks to the debuff I did 2-3dmg. This wasn't enough to beat even one minion, because ONE TURN after he summons all of them, he will absorb them to make himself even stronger.

So I changed my tactic. I went with block and added a counterattack to it. Thanks to the special abilities of my armor and gloves, I was able to draw new cards automatically if I have no card left in my off hand. This allowed for my block to stay over. Every few turns I drew a counterattack card. He attacks and takes damage thanks to the counterattack. He had 220HP at the beginning and I had 850HP (I remind you, this was because of a bug!). The game ended with me dying and he had around 20HP left.
This is crazy unbalanced and just one example of several. Many other reviews also talk about how unbalanced the game is right now.

Kyvir: Rebirth isn't a bad game. It's super cheap which is one reason to recommend it and It's also innovative and brings new things to the table. But it has its flaws. Will you have fun with it? Probably. But there are also many other games without these problems out there.

Are you new to the genre? I would recommend starting elsewhere and combing back after early access.
Did you already play every deckbuilder there is and starve to get a new one? Go for it.

While there are a few interesting mechanics here, I'm finding it difficult to recommend in its current state. The localization isn't great and the card descriptions are pretty vague in general. I found myself making mistakes due to having to guess as to what the effect of my choices would be. It also feels unbalanced with regard to card drawing and some bewildering skill effects which I'm not sure are bugs, poor descriptions, or questionable game design.

All that being said, the game clearly has a lot of heart and work put into it. There's definitely a lot of work that needs to be done to make the game something that you'd want to return to but if you're looking for something new to play within the genre of deckbuilding roguelites, this is very reasonably priced and might be worth trying out. I sincerely hope that the developer(s) can fix the issues it currently has and if that happens I would happily change this review to a recommendation.

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EDIT: The game no longer works on the latest macOS update. Due to the fact I play these types of games casually on my macbook, I have to refund the game. The developer has stated that it's unclear when / if a fix will come, but they are being very understanding with helping to issue refunds for the time being, at least in the cases when the game was purchased before this update.

I want to reiterate that I like this project and think that the game is worth your consideration. I'm leaving the recommendation as a "No" more for visibility because of the few likes the review has gotten so far, and because I still think there's a need for improvement in many areas of the game.

Ok, first of all, this is NOT a Deckbuilder
the core loop of the game isn`t about "building" a deck
(looking at the tags it`s obvious, but there are some misleading reviews)

it`s a card battler tactical RPG
(a.k.a. a somewhat standard tactical RPG, but the combat is handled with a deck)
the customization is done by pieces of equipment that modify your stats/gives you random abilities
and most of the cards are unlockable and can be added/removed at will

The variety is good
the character plays quite differently
and there`s a decent number of monsters/loot/random events

It`s moderately grindy
a succesful run is enough to unlock most cards for a character
then there are some items/skills that, once unlocked, can be found during a run
and past "level 3" higher difficulties must be unlocked for each character

the difficulty is average
the game is winnable on the first run
and since there isn`t a real meta-progression past the characters` cards (unlockable in a couple of runs at most) victory or defeat is mostly a matter of player` skill

Abandoned

Abandoned?

Lot of fun, although using the Paladin was a little bit difficult until I unlocked some cards. Some typo errors on cards, but the look and feel of the game is pretty good. Can't wait to see the third character! Would also be nice for the ability to sell equipment at shops as well as re-roll in shops to try and get armor sets (closet I have come is 4 of a set...)

This is a very good deck-building game -- a less stressful, shorter version of Slay the Spire, if that makes sense. If it's less creative than Dicey Dungeons, well most things are. One of the better non-Spire roguelike deckbattlers out there.

It's very functional for Early Access and I've only encountered one bug; since the creators want some feedback, here goes:
• The bug: there is no way to un-select a card after you've selected it. This seems unintentional and is a very poor UI flaw.

• In several luck-based events, certain things cost "coins," but the amount of coins it costs is cut off because the text box is too small, or the amount just hasn't been typed in. This is basic beta-testing stuff -- reduce the font size or make the box bigger.

• EDITED TO ADD: Getting even 2 pieces of a matching outfit is rare, so the construction of "here are the bonuses for 5 pieces of the same outfit! 7 pieces of the same outfit!) are ridiculous. It's a short-ish game. And the bonuses themselves are often not good enough to warrant wearing two of the same type. AND if one is going to do this, a bonus should kick in at 2 pieces, not 3. There's too much randomness around that specific area; it feels less well designed than the rest of the game.

• The level 4 final boss has more hitpoints than the Heart in the Spire -- there's no way to beat it on the first go-round and given that this game is clearly intended to be significantly less difficult than Spire, that's a massive error.

• The writing desperately needs a copy editor whose first language is English. There are grammar errors all over the place (cards you "drawed," "deals damage "equals" to current armor," the use of the word "stacks" instead of, say, "points" is quite confusing. I will happily revise the English-language text for a very reasonable rate.

• The inclusion of random items you find ("Dirt") is fun, but there's no way to view the items, and not enough indication of what they might be for. LIkewise, the statue in level 4

• There is no reason for "Strength" and "Magical Strength" to be separate. If "Strength" does not affect Wizards' weapons, then "Bear Potion" should not be for sale, because it's a useless card.

• It's great that "Aim" stacks with Jagged Arrow or poison, but there's no reason that Jagged and Poison shouldn't stack on top of each other. Otherwise, it renders certain abilities (your first three arrows are Jagged! Until you make your first 2 arrows poison) useless.

• Randomness is okay, but the Forge event does not have nearly enough clarity. In Slay the Spire, when you encounter the Spirits and get rid of a card, you know that the gain will clearly match the rarity of the card...but even then, there's always a benefit to getting rid of a card on its own. There is no benefit to randomly getting rid of equipment; there is no indication of whether getting rid of two items of equipment at the same time will help you. This needs a lot more signposting, and there should always be a benefit to getting rid of the equipment.

• The minor enemies regenerating is not game-breaking, but it's definitely annoying and slows the game down in an unhelpful way. Enemies should not be able to regenerate HP *and* give themselves buffs, especially when it's rare for the player to be able to generate HP.

And some programming things: "Swift" is great -- getting free actions -- but using a card that already costs 0 should not reduce your Swift. That's poor design, and hopefully easy to fix? The game should do a better job of signposting certain things -- there's a devilish enemy who looks impossible to beat... unless you know that killing his minions inflicts damage, but there's only a tiny, mouse-over text that tells you that.

So, hopefully the developers read this; the game's already quite good… *and* there are straightforward steps that can polish it and make it even better.

I love the innovation this game brings to the deck-building genre. You have 2 active decks in combat, main hand & off hand. You can customise both decks from the start, which I haven't seen in this genre as much. It's an awesome mechanic which may hinder you early but opens up as soon as you get a general grasp of the game. In addition, you can collect equipment sets which, once combined, will activate immense powerful buffs. Overall, for that tiny price, this little game shines with innovation and customizability.

This is my first time playing a deck-building roguelike game, and so far it has been an absolute blast of an experience!
The game has some minor bugs in its current state, but the developers are extremely responsive and proactive in fixing them, so I would still highly recommend anybody to get this game, especially if you are a fan of this genre :)

Good game, Guard will stay until it depleted to 0, debuff -50% damage, gears, weapons....you can put cards in and out of your deck freely. The game will not draw cards after clicking end turn, you need to do this manually, you can only redraw cards 1 time each turn, meaning that you can hold and combo the cards more easier. The price is reasonable. I think i will stick with this one longer than StS.