If you put Space Invaders and Slay The Spire in a blender, the aftermath would look a whole lot like StarVaders. The thing is, I love deckbuilding games, but so many Slay the Spire clones land in my inbox every week that they have to really put a unique spin on the formula to impress me.
These Doomed Isles identifies as a roguelike city-building deck builder, but I don’t quite agree with it. These Doomed Isles isn’t much of a city builder at all. The buildings you place and the lives of your little citizens mostly boil down to boosting or altering numbers that bear very little resemblance to running any kind of city or village. There’s no simulation going on under the hood.
Knights of the Cross is a deck-building game loosely based on a historical novel written in the 1900s called Krzyżacy. I say loosely based because the game does follow the events portrayed in the books regarding Medieval Poland. However, It also features magic and busty elven women in string bikinis.
It’s distressingly easy to disregard any game with simplistic visuals. Steam has poisoned the well, so to speak. Take a gander at the new release page at any given time and your eyes will be assaulted by low-effort asset flips and a disturbing amount of hentai. The thing is, there are some gems buried in that rubbish, but few people are willing to shove their hands into that sewage to fish them out.