After a fair amount of thought I decided not to recommend this game. At least not right now.

I think this game has great potential, but it needs to have some lines re-coded, or a lot of rewording.

Good things I have to say about the game.

1: I like the art style of the game. It's pixel graphics, and I do have a crippling weakness for some good pixel graphics.
2: I thought the soundtrack was good. It never felt overbearing and sometimes I would forget that it was there. Idk if that's a good thing or not, but I personally dislike it when I can tell that the track is looping.
3: I feel like the game was fun for the most part. There are things that took away from my enjoyment in both small and large ways, but I'll get into that in a sec. Baseline I did enjoy this game.

Areas that need some improvement.

1: Probably my biggest problem with this game was the difference between what the game told me it was going to do and what actually happened. Example: I had an item that said "heal 1 when you gain block." I also had an item that said "gain 2 block whenever you use a dice." Now, common sense would dictate that these two items would work together. A little something we like to call, synergy, but that is not the case. I would gain block from using my dice, but I would not gain hp. I used a different buff that said "gain block when you deal damage to an enemy." You might think that this would trigger the hp gain, another thing that says I gain block, and, as we know, I'm supposed to, "heal 1 when you gain block." But once again this is not the case. So, either fix the wording on the item, or fix the way it interacts with your game. Because as of right now, it is the most frustrating thing for me.

2: I'm not sure if it was a bug or what, but there were times where my attacks would not deal the damage they were supposed to. Example: I attacked a guy that I had put a bunch of mark on (a debuff that increases the damage an enemy takes equal to the number of mark they have), and the damage number that showed up said I was gonna deal 95 damage. They had something like 80 hp left I think. I swung, and, they had 120 hp left. What the ♥♥♥♥ is that? I healed the enemy with my attack instead of damaging them? If that had cost me my run I would be a pissed right now. This was not the only time it happened. There were a few times I would attack and their hp would go down, but not by the number shown to me. Then they would take a crap-load of damage (seemingly the damage they were supposed to take) after they attacked me. I had a counter attack sure, but it was only supposed to do one damage. That reminds me. The mark only applies to active attacks. It does not work with poison( which honestly fair enough), it does not work with reflecting their attacks back at them, and it does not work with counter attack. Once again, please either fix the wording of the debuff, or fix how it interacts with your game.

3: there are times where the UI is bugged. It would tell me my potions would do one thing but then show me information for something else on the description. Sometimes in card rewards it wouldn't let you see what the keywords on a card meant before you picked them, even though in the last combat you could. I got around this by quitting the game and reloading it.

4: I very much dislike that the shop prices do not reset during the run. Like, I get making the prices scale up while you're in that shop, but once I leave and go to a different shop in a later act the prices should reset. Maybe you could keep the card remove scaling but remove the other ones? idk but it feels bad to run into a shop with 450 gold and only be able to buy two things.

Again I think this could be a great game if it is given the proper love and care it needs. Please listen to what the people who have played your game have to say about it, and, after considering their words, choose how to proceed. As I said before, you can change the wording to match what those things do or change what the game does to match the wording. But, there is always secret door number three. Scrap the things, build them from the ground up again, literally anything else you can think of to fix the problems.

TLDR: Game is low key ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in a bunch of ways, but also still mildly entertaining. Give it a shot if you'd like, but I'd advise that you wait till they have some time to fix the game.

Also, ♥♥♥♥ that one person who said "GoOd If YoU lIkE sLaY tHe SpIrE." Don't you ever disrespect the name of Slay The Spire like that again. This game has promise, maybe one day you could get away with saying that, but not right now. From the bottom of my heart. ♥♥♥♥ You. ^_^

There is no balance in this game.... also buggy some items don't activate.


Edit 1* : Thanks for replying. Giving items at the start might help in the beginning but some classes like the lizard assassin is simply too weak. I have never gone past Map 2 with her... unlike Lion or Crow ( and btw Crow is super strong ).

Lastly for some reason in the last Map end boss straight up deletes me if I don't kill him in time? Despite me having full health and being unable to damage him because he has "DEBUFF SHIELD" which completely destroyed my build.

Needless to say I haven't managed to beat the game EVEN ONCE. The game is still unbalanced, many cards are simply bad ( especially healing ones ), can't sell unwanted Items and some cards do not work ( such as one that gives 1 DICE / Summon yellow imp and burn. ).

EDIT 2* No cloud Saving. There goes my progress.

I liked what I played, and I think the idea of adding dices on a Slay the Spire game is a good idea (edit: And I just realized this isn't even their idea, SpellRogue did it first, all this game did is to have characters with different dices than D6) BUT the game suffers from too many problems right now to really justify its price which is a shame, and I'm more than willing to give that game a second go after they adressed these issues, and ready to turn that review green if they suceed, but for now, there is other games more deserving of your time of money.

The real thing that made me not recommand the game in the end is after I finally beat the last boss...
Nothing happened. I just got send back to the main screen and... that's it.

No new meta progression unlocked.
No new character, no new card, no new prestige system, no cinematic, no date with the busty bunygirl teacher. Alright... so I guess there is literally no point continuing playing now?
ESPECIALLY when the game suffers from a very repetitive content (more on that later).
Honestly having the bunny girl as 4th character unlocked at the end would have been cool.


So Here is a list of problems the game suffer right now, this list is more there for the devs (that I know read these reviews) than anything:

As mentionned the game just don't deliver anything that really makes you feel like you are progressing in any way. After 15 hours, I still have no idea how dices are earned. I ... guess you gain 1 per fight? Maybe?
But the game just don't have any (noticeable) effect that tell you it happen.

Having dice be used to reroll rewards during run, and stay as permanent currency between run is a bad idea. Having that same currency be used to buy skins is an even worse idea.

Portraits are a great idea, but the way you unlock them is tedious and force you to play suboptimally just to unlock them. Nobody like to have to play badly to progress.

Just simplify your system, take note of what megabonk did.
Kkeep the dice as a inrun currency that you don't carry between runs.

Create a new currency that you get for the metra progression, repurpose all your item and portrait unlock quest to give you some currency.
Then make all the portraits, items and skin just bought with that currency.
Just lock the portrait purchase behind a "beat X boss with that character".

Also honestly, you could add some cards in that metaprogression. Put some new cards to unlock with that currency. Let the player deck build a bit with its starter deck.
The idea of character portrait is nice, lean harder on it by having them start with different stats and cards.
Give each portrait a unique card variant that will make them a little more unique compared to the others variants of the same character.

Every runs feel the same and one factor here is how every itmes are the same.
I've literally seen and screenshoted chest containing two different items... with the EXACT same effect.
I've seen many items with the same effects.
I always feel like I'm using the same thing because I everything do the same thing, and in most case what they do is just bad.

You should start adding stats to these items (Str, Agi, Int).
You need to have items with use effect.
You need to have set items with set bonus when used together.
You need to have items that add special cards to you deck.
There is many things you could do to make itemisation more interesting.

I also think the idea of item slot hugely limite the ammount of build possible. Instead of just stacking cool effects and have a nice roguelike experience ala Slay the Spire, you quickly end up being limited by items slots. Got a new helmet? Welp too bad you already had one and can't wear two!
Also, if you really want to keep that system, PLEASE update the main UI when you are on the map to put the icon of the item tap on the item tracker on the top of the screan it would help a LOT to make the gearing feel comprehensible.

The game suffers from massive game logic problems.
Effects that should synergize don't do.
If you have a damage increase and a ripost that does damage when you take damage, the ripost damage isn't increased. Ripost damage is also not affected by weakness, etc etc.
There is many, MANY effects like that make you feel like you are never rewarded for making a build, and you are never sure to know what the result of your actions will be.

Another factor that makes the game feel repetitive is how the maps have only 2 layouts and always look the same. Merchant and skillcheck points feel too rare too.

The game is buggy. Yes, I know it's a pretty basic criticism, but trough my time with the game I've encountered many bugs that completely destroyed my enjoyement of the game.

One time at a rest point, selecting a training would give me a point, but not close the rest, so I could just go back to the main rest screen, back to training, get another point and repeat for as long as I cared for. In the end I had to close down the game and restart to fix the problem (I kept my inflated stats).

One time when upgrading an Item it just disapeared.

In my last run, when gave the game a last go before uninstalling it and my Red is Back (sun) doesn't do any damage. ZERO. I was about to uninstal anyway as I feel like I've seen everything the game as to offer, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some things that would be revealed if I did another run after beating the last boss, and that major card that I just spent an upgrade on doesn't work...

Some time when I start a run I get the Lion despite having selecting another character, and no cards are drawn at all, forcing me to restart.

EVERY items that have an effect based on a value (like you get a bonus per stack of stat or gold) never update their effects. You have to unequipe and reequipe them back to have them update their effect.
Example: If I have the boots that give me 1 power per 50 gold I have, and I equipe them when I have 150 gold, the boots will give me 3 power until I unequipe them, even if my gold go up or down.
EVERY items with that effect have that problem.

I really didn't hate my time with this game, but it sadly didn't deliver on its potential and felt a bit too sloppy on the execution. I which good luck to the devs and hope they'll be able to adress some if not all of my points.