This is a really cool game with a ton of strategic depth! I've only beaten the first boss so far, but I wanted to make sure I leave a review before the jam judging window ends!

I wish it was a little clearer which moves the enemies were using, but I still felt like I was able to strategize around the enemies' moves, which was really fun.

I'm going to go play some more now!

I loved this one. The music and art are very polished. I played on normal difficulty first and did a second run on hard beat the game both times

Review

. Overall I liked how the game was difficult enough to make me think about my builds and how to actually accomplish my goals however there is one fatal flaw. Even on a hard mode I was able to stall indefinitely and build up actions up to the final boss. 

I actually felt that I was thinking harder on normal mode before I figured this out. once I got to hard mode the challenges felt more like a test of my patients at the start to just a grind extra actions and energy to kill everything in one turn. still the concept and everything else is solid whether it's a hard cap on your turns / energy or just making it mathematically impossible to go infinite on stall. if the stall problem was fixed I would probably buy this game on Steam. 

Also adding damage numbers when you get hit would be a nice addition 

Builds 

Demon lord  Curse of the Damned + Eclipsed moon 

Kale Undead Retaliation + Death guard 

Gallius  Death cry + Cursed Frenzy 

My strategy was to stall Curse of the damned 

To build up turns on the two Undead as well as enough energy to spam cursed frenzy to buff undead retaliation's damage so Kale could one shot everything.  Undead retaliation's description seems to imply that it only includes damage taken during the enemy's turn but it actually counts self damage from cursed frenzy as well

I love how the two Undead characters have this synergy. I wonder if it was intentional or just a coincidence?

Out of all the jam entries I've seen this is the one I would want to see an expansion of the most you all did a great job!

This game is WONDERFUL. The music is PEAK, the art is BEAUTIFUL, and the combat is so fun. If this game doesn't win #1 overall im gonna genuinely be sad its SO. GOOD.

Wow this has so much going on and content 🤯
The art direction is insane, the music goes hand in hand in creating this grim-dark fantasy vibe, really love the presentation 5/5 immediately no questions ask haha, mechanics are so in-depth and a lot of content in such a short time span is impressive, I would definitely come back and play more! Please keep it up and polish this game, great work team! Also I love using "Unholy Aura" LMAO it's so funny.

love the art of this game :) 

Wow, I'm genuinely shocked at how in depth this game is! For starters, the art is amazing, I really love the drawn style of all the cards. Then, the music is insanely good, it really gets me into the game. Finally, the game itself, I love card battlers and this game scratches that exact itch. There is a lot of content for a game jam game, and it's also very fun to learn what all the attacks do and strategize the best plan of attack. Very well done!

EXTREMELY good art style, really stunning! It stands out with a unique vibe amongst all the other games in the jam. And the concept here is great, but the unclear interface made it really difficult to get very far. I loved the effect of the final boss bursting out of the card but I couldn't beat her even on easy.
It was impossible to tell what move the enemy was using at any time, it was really unintuitive to have to heal by clicking on an enemy instead of the party members, and the stats at the bottom would keep showing whoever I last moused over but with the name of who's currently attacking. HP also never went down on the display unless I moused off and back on again, making it hard to tell who'd just been hit and how hard. 
I think it's awesome what you've done here, its very well fleshed out and really has promise. Keep up the great work! - Bonnford

Well, finally I could play this game, I wanted to play it since I saw the art in the week where people were sharing their progress on the server :)

It was a longer experience than I expected, 2 hours to finish the whole game, or after I beat the awakened hero, nothing else unlocked or happened, so I think I beat it. Which isn’t a bad thing but I didn’t expect to take this time haha

Let’s start saying, I liked the game, there are things I didn’t like but the overall experience was fun! 

It starts simple and the 1st level was easy, I thought that from the start it would be hard because I picked the Hard difficulty since the game says it is the original and recommended one and the warning that you can lower the difficulty. I read the recommended path you put in the description, in some way I picked those in a natural way, but if you want that the player follows that, make the levels unlockable after beating the current one available, just to ensure that the player has the resources to beat the rest.

The levels are interesting, each one had their unique trick which I really liked, except one and the only level that “sour” my experience haha…

This little square… Oh god, save me from the shields hahaha, it was a bit frustrating level to say something, I would like to know where the extra shields come from, because the abilities from enemies don’t mention something about it or if they do, not to the level of 200 of shield, that’s my only complaint, that it don’t say in any part or I’m blind

It was fun until I played this level, I realized about it when my attacks didn’t do damage and I saw that each turn the enemies had a lot of shield. Which maybe wouldn’t be a problem if I picked a more aggressive comp, but I was already committed and well, like I said, if I would know that their trick is to do damage after killing them and gain shield beforehand, would be nicer. This level was a slug one, feels a bit punishing and I wouldn’t play it again...

Outside that, the other ones are good, I find them fun and the last 1 feels epic. I like the zombie level, but since I played after shield city, when I saw the enemy doing shield, I got flashbacks lol. The slime one is fun and interesting, devolving until nothing, I think the harpy one is simple but it makes a great level to start the game after the tutorial, so it’s nice to have

About the gameplay, I find it entertaining but I think it depends on your comp, I did a slow one that stalls and works almost all the time, in the last level is like gambling so there can be fun hahaha

My comp was just spam “Unholy Aura” -> “Toxic Armor” -> “Light attack”, with some mix of heavy attack or another damage skill when I had full HP, it helps to recover the HP that you lose slowly, don’t lose energy, very rarely get hit unless get “bad” RNG and can do as much as you want because you don’t lose or win energy, as long you have 4 energy, can do the loop. Before the last level I did toxic armor 1st and that made me heal 25 hp less, in the last boss I learned that should be the other way xD

I stick to this build because once I feel comfortable with one, I don’t change it until needed, but Gallius seems very useful and Esther seems fun to play, so maybe I'll try those 2 later

That cycle is valid except in the last boss, where if you stall the boss can fully heal in a few turns and in the second phase, with bad rng, your front line can get destroyed, which made it fun since it made me go out of my comfort zone and try to play more risky, at the end the rng started to attack everyone and not just 1 character and I won thanks to good rng

About the fights, I would like that:

• The heals or buffs could be done by select your party to reinforce that is a buff.
• To see clearly what the enemy attack was, I saw that there is a quick blink when they attack over the ability that was picked.
• To see the enemy hp when I hover them and I’m about to attack. Only to confirm what I’m going to do or have more present the enemy info and be sure that I’m going to do the next action.

Other than that, I felt it was good, I liked I could see the ability names in the bottom part and what the skills do, I end up learning what those do for how much I stall at times xD

The fights are fun, the music is also very, very good, I felt a bit of goosebumps the 1st combat, more in the boss stage, very amazing, also the here is where the art shines more, like the art complements the music and the music complements the art, this whole part is fantastic and the main reason I kept playing. It didn’t feel repetitive and since I love this style, it was good, even at that level I didn’t like :)

The map also looks good, I think the only suggestion here is the Back button, when I’m at the submenus, I see Back and I think is to return to the map but is to return to the main menu hahaha, I guess it’s the only feedback in the overworld/UI. I like the armory because you can see with time the characters, my favorite visually is Esther

My favorite normal enemy was this rabbit?/harpy, big health and it was the 1st threat I felt in the 1st level, the elite enemies can be fun but I would like to know who they were because since I didn’t play the other difficulties, for me they feel like another enemy and not something stronger? Maybe those are the ones with 3 abilities?

And to close this because I felt I already typed a lot so if you read until this point, thanks for read my yapping hahaha

The last battle is great, I like that it is just 1 enemy and it helps to set the mood, 1v3, and the second phase was surprising, I really liked the art of this one. Epic boss!

Sorry if this can feel a complaint feedback, but I really like the game, if I wouldn’t like, I wouldn’t spend the 2 hours and typing all this comment hahaha, I love the art and the music, the sfx is good and subtle, the gameplay has potential to be very fun and more entertaining, maybe that’s why I want to give all what I found

Also, it’s really great that you can actually continue your game time later, it’s magic that you can save the state of the game! If this will be continued, let me know to see where it goes :D 

Good game and grats on submitting this game in this time limit, it’s nice to see what can be done in a short time ^_^

this is one of my favourites!!!

outstanding art and music <3

saw it from Aila's stream and had to try the difficult difficulty myself!

Amazing game, music and art go hand in hand, and the latter is outstanding in its own right. Scailing difficulty is a nice option, accomodating tactics veterans and newbies alike. There is a minute feeling of dissonance with purely defensive abilities having to be played on one of the opponent's cards, but that is a small smuge on an unreasonable quality of the game for a 10 day project. 

The pencil drawings and the grim-dark artstyle, the epic orchesta music, the monsters design that look so extremelly good, the gameplay loop that is fun and actually can makes you think on what would be the best action to do next. This game goes HARD is so damn good. Only improvements suggestions I could provide is that it would be good to be able to see the status of all the entities in battle in real time not only hovering over the cards so you can keep track of the status of everyone each turn. Also some more feedback on how much damage you've dealt and how much healing or shield has been given with numbers that appear on top of the cards to make it more clear. This are just small suggestions but in the end this is an extremelly well put together, polished game!

Not sure how I felt so invested in moving rectangles with pencil art, but this was pretty great. Did I miss a level up mechanic? Combat felt right but my usual style for these things is to overlevel and stomp. If that is NOT the game you guys were making, that's cool, you have succeeded.

Few quibbles. I wish you had clearer indication of how to Deselect than a button in the corner. Even better would be a right click to deselect, or picking a new person. Also, buffs/heals have to be cast on enemy to activate?

If my feedback is my misconception, please forgive me. It was a great experience and I basically fell asleep playing it, so this review is from the morning after.

The art is awesome, the music is good, the concept hits hard, and the game is fun

I love how the art is static but still has variety and detail to the point where it just doesn't matter if it's moving or not, it still looks awesome.

I love love looove Darkest Dungeon, and by extension the vibes this game is serving. Playing as the demon lord? Pretty good. Kael? My GOAT. There are some pretty sizeable flaws with the game balancing, but that's a pretty much inevitable consequence of the amount of content packed in this game outpacing the time and effort it would take to playtest everything. I'm sure other people have mentioned, but accumulating turns was, in my opinion, a bad choice for the health of the gameplay. It was also often difficult to glean important details about the gamestate from the ui. All that said, this game really grabbed onto me while I was playing it. Some excellent work went into this, and everybody involved should be proud of the result.

Great vibes and art.

The music is awesome and the characters art is also sooooo cool. It gives gives great vibes! I had a bit of a hard time getting the mechanics as much, I think it would help to add a bit of color to the letters like green for healing-like actions and red for attack ones. Overral pretty good game!

I might be terrible at card games, so I had to play it on easy (I did tried hard, but got wrecked). but I still enjoy the genre.  I cant get over how amazing it looks... the music added a lot to the ambiance and it all played very smooth

Love the vibes. I love these kinds of strategy games. It’s very hard, but also SO satisfying once you manage to defeat everyone. I could spend hours in this game.

The visual style (and music) is awesome although it could use a splash of color. I am thinking of blood red portrait frames and damage numbers. The combat was interesting but felt really slow. You basically have to turn stack if you want to be able to defeat the most powerful enemies so it mostly felt like a waiting game. Also the turn switching should be faster; don't make the player wait so long to start selecting moves and it would be nice to unselect characters / moves as well. That being said it shows real promise and if polished more could turn out into a really good game!