Deck of Ashes has a lot of potential, but since it hasn't been updated since November 2020 I have to assume it never will be again and give my thoughts as this is the absolute final version.

PROS:
+ Interesting Characters
+ Interesting World/Lore
+ Interesting Mechanic with the Deck of Ashes

CONS:
- Bug where if you play the tutorial you have to reboot the game otherwise upgrades stay locked on your run
- Inability to use mouse while a controller is plugged in
- Bad controller controls
- Inability to simply turn off controller in settings, controller must be fully unplugged
- Some mechanics don't seem fully implemented (I.E. Card upgrades.)

Given to me as a random gift by my brother because I enjoyed Slay the Spire, the artwork looked cool so I immediately installed and launched the game. Fifteen minutes later after I figured out why I couldn't use my mouse, found out I couldn't disable the controller and managed to get my controller unplugged I got in and launched the tutorial.

Going through the tutorial was fine, no glaring issues while playing it. Mechanics seemed good and again the art was so great for the setting they were going for. After getting through the tutorial I launched an actual game and ran into, imo, more problems. The first being finding out that you can't upgrade crafted cards. You can only upgrade what you start with... Which almost makes it more worth it to just stick with your starting deck and upgrade it rather than crafting new cards. Then after I collected the camp materials I tried to upgrade the game to find everything locked except the one upgrade you're allowed to purchase in the tutorial.

So after finishing that run at a disadvantage since I couldn't upgrade the town, I closed the game for the night and browsed the community for a bit learning that the controller problem was mentioned within the first month of the game launching and the developer said it would be "fixed in the first patch." Three years later and it's obviously still not fixed. Then I found people talking about the locked upgrades and so far everyone had found rebooting or reinstalling the game fixed the issue. Continuing to read I saw the developer simply stop responding to people less than half a year later and the last patch for the game was also released 5 months after the game launched, again making it 3 years ago.

The following day after turning my computer and steam back on and launching into the game I found the locked upgrades bug was indeed no longer there, leading me to agree with everyone that it's some kind of bug going from tutorial to campaign. However the controller issue was still there.

Final Score: 1.5/5 (If the developer miraculously came back and patched the two major bugs and added more to the card upgrade system I would have no problem giving the game 3.5/5 or maybe even 4/5)