A combination of roguelike deckbuilding (ala Slay the Spire) and turn-based tactical combat. I'm starting to see many other indie titles with similar concept but this one still manages to feel fresh and different.

You control a party of 3 units, each with their own unique set of cards that only they can use. However, unlike other similar games where you'll control 3 separate decks (Trails of Fire for instance), here all cards go into a single deck. That means the key to crafting a coherent deck is to make sure your units' cards have some synergy and work well together. Or you can also go all in on 1 unit if you so desire.

There's also a mechanic called the "Card-rack" where you can spend mana to store your cards and preserve them for future turns. This makes pulling off combos way easier than you'd expect despite having to manage cards across 3 units. This also means there are less dead turns even if you draw badly since you can always spend mana to store cards instead of doing nothing and wasting a turn.

Your units also have their own special passive abilities (so do certain enemies). For instance the Knight gains 2 armor at the end of turn for each adjacent square that's occupied. That makes him a good unit to act as a tank and soak up damage. So tactically this game has something quite interesting going on too beyond just deckbuilding.
Speaking of passive abilities, I hope there can be more visual feedback when certain enemies' abilities get activated (relics too) because sometimes it can get a little difficult to keep track of what's happening.

All in all I enjoyed Sigil of the Magi very much and hope to see more content developed in the future.

Note: I was sponsored to stream and make a YouTube video on this game so take that into consideration with my review. I was not paid to post a review, however, that's of my own volition. I decided to post one because this game is very promising and doesn't have many reviews yet.

Fans of slay the spire and other similar deckbuilders will immediately feel at home with the meta aspects of the game. How you progress through the maps, concepts such as cutting cards and keeping a deck lean to focus in on a core strategy and how relics can alter your strategy. Risk reward plays out well with plenty of events to make sacrifice for the chance to obtain new relics or upgrade or cut cards and there's always that strong temptation to upgrade a card at the campsite instead of resting to heal. Card upgrading is always a question I have when I see these cards, there's a solid mix here. Some cards just get a little stronger with their core effect, making them more efficient, but there is also my favourite, cards that get new effects. The wizard for example has a group armor ability that also gains a thorns effect to damage enemies when it's upgraded.

The combat is suprisingly fluid at times, playing defensively can be the right choice but even then it's often a good idea to reposition and move around the battlefield each turn. Being able to move one champ a little, do something and then move another champ and then return to the first really makes things much more dynamic than if there was a strict turn order for champs. The rack system is also a brilliant touch, allowing you to store cards (and mana effectively) for use on later turns.

I do have one caveat about the combat for players though, if you feel compelled to play perfectly you're either going to be in heaven or hell here. On one hand you have perfect information, so with good attention to detail you can play perfectly in response, there's not much RNG here in the actual combat. On the other hand checking who each enemy is prioritizing, how far they can move AND which ability they are using is a lot of information to go through. If you're comfortable just playing well you can get enough info at a glance, but if you must play perfectly it'll take some time to plan each turn - you may love that or you may not.

The deckbuilding in particular is interesting as you can focus on one champion and even completely cut all of the cards of another hero out of your combined deck. Or you can carefully arrange a deck with some synergistic combinations between champions. And then when you consider that you can create custom parties with different champ combinations you get a ton of options for deck and strategy building. Something about the combination of moving around a party and playing three decks together transforms the game from just being about deckbuilding to also being about strategy, there's more strategy building here than some other deckbuilders I've played.

Overall the game is gorgeous, and the gameplay manages to be unique and compelling in a genre that's got a lot of competition. It's in early access with the developer saying they are keen to start getting player feedback, but it already feels it's earning it's pricetag of $15 US.

It's kind of a hybrid between Slay the Spire and Into the Breach. I've played it for a few hours and really enjoyed it! It's well made and seems balanced.

Slay the spire clone with Wargroove-like map. Does not succeed in the Turn based aspect of game.

My biggest complaint is this game borrowed multiple elements from Slay the Spire- cards, relics, and map node. They even have a dog unit that looks familiar from Wargroove. No improvement in terms of game play from either of these games and the graphics are much worse.

Cons:
- Map strategy- stand in a bush to get armor, otherwise little impact.
- Debuffs are not favorable to the player. Poison damage takes effect at end of their turn, not the beginning.
- 3 units for later unlockable faction - no obvious color and you have to hover over card to confirm what card can be used by which unit. This feature should be obvious but they made the characters all gray.
- Lacking in content and unlockable cards. After playing 3-5 hours, you have seen what game has to offer.
- No originality and borrows too many elements from Slay the spire.
- Blocking is useless in harder fights. Bosses have more than double your health and out scale you. Your main strategy is to use your mana to damage them or lose.
- After losing a character, you get a wound card that takes up a draw and does nothing. HP for characters need to be higher since you are often overwhelmed in elite and boss fights.
- Getting new cards is hit or miss. If your deck does not get stronger or has little synergy, you will most likely lose to a boss.
- No ability to take Steam screenshots.
- Art is pixel and looks bland.

Conclusion: Not a fun game to play. You are better off playing Slay the Spire or Wargroove for a better experience. Art is below average and unappealing. Each run is too heavily affected by cards added to the deck and losing one character will most likely end your run. Compared to the other multiple card and turn based Steam games, this one fails to meld these elements into a cohesive game. Rating: 2/5

Despite being a bit rough around the edges, Sigil of the Magi is a fun, charming game with a lot of potential. Whether you like this game depends on your willingness to overlook the near copy-paste of many aspects of Slay the Spire, including card effects, UI, and core game mechanics. In spite of this, the innovation with respect to the battle system provides enough of a difference to create a fresh experience for the player, leading to me saying "one more battle" until the game was over.

The pros of the game are mostly in line with what you would expect from any entry of the genre. The core gameplay loop revolves around improving your deck as you move through the levels, with the goal of defeating a boss encounter at the end of each zone. Changing from the static combat system employed by StS to party-centric grid-based combat allows an extra level of tactical thinking, as well as opening up the design space for card mechanics.

In theory, this should feel wonderful - as if you're playing StS with three characters simultaneously. However, even at the end of the run, my characters still felt rather watered-down. Since you're only rewarded one card after each encounter, only one character gets stronger. This is exacerbated by the fact that almost all of the cards I encountered feel pretty meh. From what I can tell, cards don't have rarities, and I didn't really find cards that made me want to reconsider how I built my deck. I think increasing the power level of the cards, even if it means making encounters a bit harder, would really help with making that part of the loop more engaging.

Further, the fun of the grid-based combat system lessened, somewhat, when I realized how many enemies have the ability to summon minions to the field. This mechanic forces you to aggressively pursue and kill the spawning creature, or else it will repeatedly spawn mobs forever. I assume the developer's intention was to prevent the player from just waiting for the enemy to come to you, but in reality it just feels like it's forcing the player to position recklessly.

In summary, this is a really fun game that's pretty rough around the edges. I would say it's worth the price. If you liked StS and wanted more, this game may be for you. Looking forward to seeing where the dev takes this.

This game has surprisingly deep combat mechanics. The random card draws meshes with the tactics-like gameplay surprisingly well - there is an incredible amount of flexibility with what you can do within a single turn because there are so many ways different cards can "synergise" with each other. This gives a ton of variety from turn-to-turn, and a lot of space for creative gameplay, because there is almost always a way to get out of a sticky situation, if you think hard enough about it.

I think it's easy to understate how well the game balances out the options given to you, because even if the RNG gods don't give you what you want, there's are always equally strong alternative solutions and synergies available to you. This more than mitigates one of the usual issues with an RNG-based game.

The main selling point of this game is its combat mechanic. It doesn't have that much content at this point, but it has a ton of replay value and the combat is incredibly fun.

I reluctantly have to give this a thumbs down. I like the system, the problem is once you learn how it works it's just not challenging at all, even at the highest difficulty the game offers.

Very fun slay the spire with some into the breach and cute art style!!!

Really fun turn-bases strategy with deckbuilding elements, both genres that I enjoy.

It can be hard to master, but being able to stockpile your moves for the next turn really adds a lot of strategic depth and each run I was getting better and playing around my enemies' skils and getting further ahead in the game.

Definitely a title I'll be coming back to a few times to check the recent updates!

Fun almost brilliant RogueLite. But after the 8th run you are done.
So if you are looking for a GREAT 5 hour game, this comes as a HIGHLY recommended.