Abalon: Roguelike Tactics CCG

The combination of cards and roguelike elements makes this one of those games you keep coming back to for a round or two. It’s fun, challenging, and—thanks to the wide variety of cards and characters—extremely diverse. Definitely worth the money!

Way more addictive than it should be. You look up, and an hour or two has vanished.

Abalon: Roguelike Tactics CCG combines tactical turn-based combat, deckbuilding, roguelike progression, and tabletop-inspired exploration into a surprisingly cohesive strategy experience. Developed by D20Studios and published by D20Studios and WhisperGames, it distinguishes itself from conventional collectible card games by turning cards into pieces of a larger tactical system. Instead of simply playing attacks and abilities from a hand, players summon creatures, position characters, manipulate terrain, and take advantage of environmental objects across compact battlefields. Each adventure begins with choosing a Summoner before heading into a fantasy world filled with encounters, quests, merchants, characters, treasures, dangerous enemies, and unpredictable events. Exploration happens at a comfortable pace before encounters transition into turn-based battles. This structure gives the experience the feeling of a digital tabletop campaign, especially when random events and dice-driven situations enter the equation. There is a playful quality to the world as well, with strange creatures and unusual encounters keeping the journey from becoming a predictable sequence of battles. Combat is where the game's different systems work together most effectively. Positioning matters because characters and summoned creatures occupy actual spaces on the battlefield. Terrain, hazards, obstacles, and interactive objects can influence how an encounter develops. Knocking an opponent into danger can sometimes be more effective than attacking directly, while objects scattered around an arena can create unexpected opportunities. These environmental interactions make battles feel like tactical puzzles rather than straightforward exchanges of damage. Deck construction adds considerable depth to these encounters. With hundreds of cards available but only 20 slots in a deck, players have to decide what their strategy is supposed to accomplish rather than simply collecting every powerful option. Cards cover summons, spells, abilities, equipment, and other tactical possibilities, while different magical classes encourage distinctive playstyles. Combining the right Summoner with compatible cards and companions can produce highly specialized strategies, but the roguelike structure means players must also remain flexible when ideal options fail to appear during an adventure. Replayability is one of the strongest aspects of the overall package. Numerous Summoners, recruitable characters, hundreds of cards, multiple environments, randomized encounters, and changing opportunities ensure that subsequent runs can develop differently. Trying another Summoner can substantially alter how a deck is constructed and how battles are approached. The additional PvE Battle Mode is particularly useful for players who enjoy experimentation because discovered cards can be assembled into constructed decks for more focused tactical challenges outside the regular adventure format. The visual presentation supports the tabletop concept nicely. Abalon uses a colorful top-down perspective that prioritizes battlefield readability while still giving environments and creatures plenty of personality. Characters resemble pieces participating in an elaborate fantasy board game, making movement and positioning easy to follow. The fantasy setting can become wonderfully strange, and the willingness to mix conventional heroes and monsters with humorous creatures and unexpected interactions gives the game an identity beyond its mechanical complexity. There is a learning curve because several genres are operating simultaneously. Players unfamiliar with collectible card games may initially struggle with deck synergy, while experienced card players must adapt to movement, positioning, line-of-sight considerations, and environmental tactics. Roguelike randomness can occasionally disrupt carefully planned strategies as well. However, the compact deck size keeps management relatively approachable, and the turn-based structure provides enough time to study the battlefield instead of demanding rapid reactions. The game also provides considerable content for players interested in mastering different combinations rather than completing a campaign once and moving on. Experimenting with Summoners, companions, card combinations, and environmental tricks becomes an important part of the appeal. Multiplayer and cooperative features further broaden its potential beyond solo adventures, while achievements and other progression incentives give completion-focused players additional objectives. Its relatively modest PC requirements are another advantage, allowing the strategic systems to take priority over demanding graphical technology. Steam Deck compatibility is a notable advantage. The game is officially Steam Deck Verified, with its core functionality working through the handheld's controls and its interface remaining usable on the smaller display. Controller prompts and general navigation are appropriately supported, while the game can run using settings suitable for the device. Its viewpoint and methodical pacing also translate naturally to portable play, although demanding visual settings can still make sensible performance adjustments worthwhile for players prioritizing battery life or consistent performance. Abalon ultimately works because deckbuilding and tactical combat are genuinely interconnected. A strong deck alone does not guarantee victory if units are positioned poorly, while clever battlefield decisions can extract surprising value from seemingly ordinary cards. The roguelike structure then forces players to improvise rather than rely on exactly the same strategy every time. It may be more mechanically involved than someone seeking a simple card battler expects, but that complexity is also its greatest strength. For players who enjoy tactical RPGs, deckbuilders, tabletop adventures, and experimentation with unusual combinations, it offers a rewarding mixture with substantial replay value. Rating: 9/10

Very good game that is quite unique in what it does. When I first tried it years ago, I didn't like it as much, but since then a new game mode has been added that, at least to me, makes it feel more like a deck building battler. The highlight of the game for me is to use equipment on creatures. Not only can you actually see the equipment, there can be some very interesting synergies. Without spoiling too much, but I had a unit that was fairly ok in melee and could poison. Giving it a bow turns it into a high-damage ranged unit, still with poison. Quite a big upgrade. One thing of note is that the difficulty curve is inverted, at least as far as I have been playing. What I mean is that you can discover cards, and when you do, you may choose them as starting equipment. There are limits, but they get loosened with higher upgraded characters. For example, my necromancer starts out with a staff that can summon up to two skeletons, and my starting hand has a card that summons a unit that buffs all my skeletons +1/+1. Such a setup makes getting started in a new run a lot easier of course and the game gets easier, rather than harder. So yes, finding these exploits is fun, but also means that there is a bit of a legacy element to the game. At the end of the day it depends on the player whether they like it, or whether they find it too spoiled to be a true rogue-like. I am firmly in the former camp.

I was put off by the head's-looking-at-you artstyle at first, I got used to it very quickly. Never really seen a top-down style game take the phrase that way before... Combat works like a tactics game where units on the field can move/attack once per turn, you also get energy per turn that you can use on cards you draw from the deck you build through the run, these can be an attack, or summon more units. The humor in this game is very enjoyable, the combat is entertaining without being too difficult. Most humorous take on Druids I've ever seen, you hurl Squirrels, mutate them in Squirrel Monstrosities, good times. I look forward to yeeting many more squirrels.

ดีย์

This is a highly underplayed and underrated game. I was so impressed by this game that I looked up all the other popular releases around May 11 2023 to see if it was just overlooked by some viral gaming fad that had enthralled the gaming populace, and outside a very popular Switch game, nothing really stood out. So for some reason this masterpiece is sitting on the virtual "back shelf" of Steam collecting dust. Please buy and review this game, it deserves so much more attention, and a sequel.