Tl;dr: I have unlocked a considerable portion of the unlockables in the game during my first run in 30 minutes. The game is nowhere near being endlessly replayable and rather an early-access product.

The game page of Pairs & Perils has a roadmap that says they will do their best to keep the update promises, but players should not make purchasing decisions on those. The game's current phase wouldn't even be appropriate for an early access game that is marketed as "endlessly replayable." After an hour of gameplay and almost two runs, I think this game does not have much to offer in terms of content and endless replayability. When you attempt to exit the game, the game asks you to review the product without mentioning that these promised updates may never even exist.

Additionally, I want to let the developers know that it is against Steam's Developer Usage Rules to request a review of the product within itself. It was the same problem with the publisher's previous game, Dice & Fold, and I believe it is unfair to other games since this practice manipulates the reviews to a degree that is unfair to players regarding reaching the correct information about the game.

When it comes to the main gameplay mechanic of the game, which is memorizing cards and pairing them, I must say that it is quite a nice approach to the genre. Its implementation is appropriate, but its magic faded too fast for me due to some card effects and balance factors. I think the game could reach a much better state at its release with further testing and player feedback.

The deckbuilding part of the game takes only a little part of the runs. You start each run with a particularly random deck and reroll the cards you want to reroll. After that, you don't get frequent encounters presented to you that enable enhancing your deck, such as removing cards, upgrading them, or getting new ones. These mechanics exist, but they are rare during runs to the degree that you get only a few chances to use them during each run. If you are okay with infrequent adjustment opportunities for your deck in a roguelike deckbuilding game, it might be fine for you, but I expected more deck manipulation options from Pairs & Perils.

Finally, the game's difficulty was too bouncy in between the encounters in hard mode and was a total piece of cake in normal mode that I can't even imagine how easy or hard it would be in other modes. Certain monster abilities become too dangerous when paired, and although I could easily defeat many monster packs without even paying attention to the game, some other packs were just unfair.

Overall, although I like the little gimmick behind Pairs & Perils, as an enthusiast of the roguelike deckbuilder genre, I can't suggest buying the game at its current state. I suggest you follow the updates and then consider buying it if the promised features arrive.

In the best roguelikes, no two runs feel the same. In this game, no two runs feel different.

It's not a lack of content - I've had multiple runs with completely different characters, items, and cards. The issue is that none of this changes how the game plays in any meaningful way.

Just scroll through these reviews and look at the playtime - even the people recommending this game aren't finding a reason to play it for more than a few hours. This game has potential, but there would need to be major gameplay reworks to reach that, not just the post-release content updates promised.

attempting to memorize cards is a beta move
i just pick a random card and choose the next card according to my gut feeling, that's the alpha way to play the game

Pairs & Perils is a roguelite deckbuilder where the player must defeat monsters by matching pairs of cards which are shown face down. Successfully matching a pair will activate the card, but picking two different cards will cause the monsters’ turn counter to reduce. Enemies will attack the player when their counter reaches zero.

Combat tactics are fairly simple, because as long as the player keeps successfully matching cards, enemies are effectively stun locked, which means that their special abilities (many of which apply status effects to themselves or the player) are mostly irrelevant.

There’s some basic strategy in deckbuilding. Player cards which apply status effects to enemies, such as increasing turn counter or reducing damage, aren’t that useful if the enemies never get a chance to attack, so I focus on using attack cards to win fights quickly. You can also buy items from shops which give passive bonuses. For example, items which identify trap cards or remove them from the board can reduce your chances of making a mistake.

Normal difficulty is very easy. At the start of each fight, cards are shown face up briefly, so you just have to memorise the location of a couple of matching cards to get started. After matching three pairs, those cards will be redrawn, and they’re briefly shown face up again which makes it easy to keep getting matches.

Hard is more challenging because redrawn cards are not shown face up, so it might take a few attempts to find matching pairs, which allows enemies a chance to attack. However, redrawn cards are always placed into empty spaces on the board, so things get much simpler when you realise that even though there might be 14 cards in play, you only have to look at the same 6 cards over and over again.

On Dungeon Master difficulty, its much harder to get started because cards are always drawn face down, so it mostly feels like you’re relying on RNG, especially relating to placement of trap cards, and you need multiple healing and shield cards/items to stay alive.

Its possible to win a run in around 15 minutes (I actually find its easier to remember card locations if I play fast), and with 8 playable characters, there’s not much potential for long term replayability. However, I’ve given a positive review because the purchase price is cheap, so even if you only play for 5-10 hours, its still decent value for money.

Soooo... it might be me... but I couldn't find a reason to keep more than 5 cards in a deck. When they get re-dealed, all you have to memorize is 3 matches. it's 2am... I played my 2 games and won them both.

The concept is new, but it's not that fun or interesting. It doesn't matter what cards you choose, as long as they match. Keep matching, and insta-win every battle.

Fun game, love the art, music, and simplistic style that lets you just focus on the game and forget the daily stress of other stuff going on. Runs are quick enough to be bite size but harder difficulties hard enough to feel rewarding for good play.

Conseillé par un ami, j'ai adoré le jeu !

I love memo and I love when somebody takes a game with simple rules and builds something bigger on top of it without destroying the base premise. Pairs & Perils is a perfect example of things I love. It's simple, elegant and quick. Because of that don't expect to create some big combos like in other deck builders. Still there's plenty of room for making synergies and doing builds. On lower difficulties you can just match cards and reach the end but on higher difficulties you need to be smart about which cards you want to use, when you want to do it and on which enemies. Game is deeper than some people may think after a quick glance. After 2h I went through one successful run on Normal and 3 or 4 on High with only one victory. I would say I’m pretty decent in memo and mediocre in deck builders. It’s not Slay the Spire slayer but it’s not another clone either. I’m impressed how much they were able to squeeze out of this. Devs said new content will be coming but for me current state is a nice package I’m happy with.

Good to know (no spoilers):
- Runs are really quick (20-30min)
- I didn’t encounter any bugs affecting gameplay
- Multiple difficulty levels with real differences (Easy might be even for kids)
- Runs can be continued if you need to take a break in the middle

Full playthrough past dungeon master here: https://youtu.be/Oe1C3kVKMfE

It's a really enjoyable game it's a bit easy when you figure out the tricks to it and a bit short as well to beat all the difficulties, but for $7.99 I think I got my moneys worth there is a good bit of replayability if you want to get all the achievements as well since there's a decent amount of characters at the moment and the creators seem to be planning to add more. Something for the creators to consider to add difficulty would possibly be new mechanics for Dungeon Master i.e. Certain monsters shuffling the pairs after they attack or even just after so many turns with a separate cool down. Or Possibly Interrupting the player after so many pairings or a debuff that a monster can apply so your effect/spell cards don't tell you which one they're buffing etc. Difficulty for dungeon master really should be upped though through some means.

This game is easier than the children's game it's based on.

There is basically no point in this being a roguelike, since you can just ignore the enemies entirely and win every time (maybe there's a specific enemy encounter that messes with this, but that is definitely not enough.)
Maybe the higher difficulties above normal fix this problem, but idk. I don't want to have to redownload it to check, and I can't find the info online, yet.

For "normal" difficulty, though (which is supposed to be the difficulty that developers intend for players to play), the game has multiple problems that make the entire "roguelike deckbuilder" mechanics pointless.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that Memory/concentration doesn't show you all the cards before you pick pairs. That makes it way easier.
Second of all, you can ignore half of the cards on the table and just pick the same cards over and over again with no problem, since after you play 4 or 6 or so, they come back onto the field and show you where each pair is.
Third of all, there's no reason why cards with effects that buff other cards should show you which pair they buffed. A small deck size is very strong, but these buffing cards functionally act like they help partially reduce your deck size (as long as you can find a pair of these, or something like the Hunter which reveals a pair, you don't really need to keep track of more than 1 other pair)

My main sticking point is this: for roguelikes like this one, based on a simple abstract game, you shouldn't be able to completely ignore the roguelike elements, which is what this game allows by making enemies almost entirely incapable of interacting with you in any way until you fail multiple times at picking a matching pair. There are some enemies which break this rule, but they are few and far between.
For these kinds of roguelikes, the "toy" part of the game should serve as a medium for you to interact with the enemies and other rpg/roguelike mechanics, not be the entire focus of the game. Otherwise, I would rather just go play Memory. It's a more interesting experience.