Command Deck

It's a weird one - this game is one of the most polished, yet too-early access games I've played. So, do note - this review was written at 0.3.1 version and may be not valid in the near future (if developers actually expand and improve the game). And before i begin, i should mention some good things here - the game is polished. I mean, graphics for this type of game is top-notch, everything feels smooth, no bugs, no issues. So, why negative review? Well - there is no content. I've played for good 9 hours and the biggest problem i found - you've seen everything once you've played once. Literally. There is no meta-progression, so no point of winning, except the high score. No variation in starting deck or the ship itself - it is always the same. And no meaningful choices with "Augments" (Perks) - you just take all of them, except very few damaging ones. Deck building is not there. I mean, you simply cannot create "your" deck, since starting one is always the same, cost and the amount of cards you can remove is ridiculous (one card per map, so 5 cards total to be removed, out of starting 15, with half of them being useless), and you do not control which cards are added, except "pick 1 of 4", since it based on glorious RNG... Oh, by the way - RNG. It's yo' boi here. Enemy has 10% evasion chance and you have 20%? Guess who is missing every second shot. Not the enemy! Or which "random" card gets upgraded for free? The worst one, of course! Because of course developers have to add skewed RNG to every turn-based game these days... Which works in perfect synergy with... Balancing! Since the cards you get is RNG, you can imagine how bad it is with increasing difficulty of every map (sector, whatever). It simply doesn't exist. Example - "Monster Train", another deck-building turn-based game, has notorious difficulty spike. However, you can complete pretty much every run on every difficulty, if you know the game. Here, it is the opposite. It is a time sink, since this game usually screws you at the end, on 4th of 5th sector, meaning you just wasted your 30 IRL minutes getting there only to be completely demolished by a god of random. And now the best part. See the description of this game? "Every visit to the Outer Reaches is unique, with different map events, enemies, and rewards" - heh, no. Your "random" encounters are always the same, just in a different order. "Choose cards, recruit officers, and upgrade your ship" - again, where is it? You can select one officer before the run, and that's it. Upgrade a ship? Do you mean almost meaningless perks that change nothing of value, except few that you get at the start of every sector (i mean again, you will see all of them during your first run, and only 4 of them are viable). "Uncover a galactic mystery" - emmm, what? Which one? The one not present in the game? My point is, this is way too early of an access, with even the description pitching an idea, that doesn't exist in the game yet (or ever, depending on the developers). And right now, it is deceiving about how little content there is. If you are okay with what i've described or in desperate need of a time-sink, sure, it is decent. However i would advise to stay off for a while and wait how it goes.

This game isn't even finished yet, and it's already more addictive than crack. Unhand me, Satan!

Command Deck reminds me a lot of another game I really enjoyed, For The Warp. While that was a fun but flawed game at full release, this one (at the time of this review, about halfway through Early Access at version 0.5) is already doing very well fairly early into Early Access, so I expect the 1.0 release to really kick ass. I don't know why but there's something about these space battle card games I really love and this one really scratches the itch. Chill music, awesome destruction animation, and great equipment. I'm enjoying checking back with each update and as it is a roguelike, which are one of the few games I like playing in Early Access, I can highly recommend a purchase right now even before full release.

I live for Indie games like these. I've been playing a large number of roguelite deckbuilders (seriously, I think I'm obsessed), and I realized there are a few elements that make up for a good game in this genre: - complexity and synergies - user friendliness - level of polish (including aesthetics and presentation. Things like audio clues, feedback during combat, animations, etc.) This game has all of the above, even though not in equal parts: I would say it is far from the complexity of Slay The Spire and thousands of miles away from the one of Balatro, but still complex enough to let you try different strategies and to let you feel like it's your fault you fail a run. With that said, the level of polish is high up there, together with a surprising amount of attention to detail in animations, visuals in general and audio. In most roguelite deckuilders you throw a basic attack and it never feels really good until you manage to trigger a chain of events that you strategically planned while building your deck. Take Balatro, for example: scoring a two pair is nothing special until you add a multiplier to it. Here though, try and shoot a missile, just a basic missile whenever the enemy has no shields. The missile's trajectory, the way it impacts the hull, the way the enemy ship tilts, everything feels so satisfying and beautifully thought. If you happen to finish an opponent with a laser ray, you'll see there's a chance to cut through the hull and slice the ship like a pineapple or a loaf of bread, and every visual effect is coherent depending on where you hit and how hard you do so. This is a masterfully crafted game and a work of love, and it sits comfortably in my top three roguelite deckbuilders, together with Slay The Spire and Balatro (Dicealot is also showing up but got his seat stolen by this, sorry). I need to see this game become the success it deserves to be and, as an old nerd and sci-fi lover, thanks devs.

This game is quite a bit of fun. It starts simple but grows in complexity as the game progresses. Graphically, its very good, especially the ship-damage decals and destruction animations. They are excellent, so much so that they seem to be ... underused. Basically, I think the dev could do so much more with gameplay that impacts battle damage. Never-the-less, I have found it addictive and satisfying; a good purchase.

En su concepción me gusta como esta desarrollado, visualmente esta bastante lindo.

I have 500+ hours playing FTL over many years. I think I'll eventually have 500+ hours on this game once it exit early access. The core game right now in early access is already very enjoyable. With a bit more polish and *balance mostly and maybe more story/crew/cards, this will be my new FTL. (*it does need more balance, sometimes this game will feel unfair right now) At each node, you usually fight a ship. You then have to think about the order of cards to play (which decide what weapons, equipments, defenses to deploy each round) to take out the other ship while taking minimal damage (so a bit like in FTL) I like this game because I can pick this up, play a run (a few hours) and enjoy the game but not be stuck in having to play this for hours and hours like other turn base games like Civ and AoW before any action happen. You're blowing ships up in the first 5 minutes. I like that I can just use my mouse only (too lazy for keyboard), and not be stress with all the pause and lining up weapons unlike FTL, so you can relax, listen to music or do other stuff while playing this game. The graphics are pretty good (in battle) but I can use my rubbish laptop to play this (doesn't take much hardware requirements). If you like FTL, looking for a relaxing way to blow ships up, this is the game for you.

an absolute addicting joy of a Roguelike deck builder. every build is fun and viable. difficulty does spike and i feel as if its very short at the moment but hopefully more updates will fix that!!! overall really fun and addicting for its price and very satisfying to get some really strong builds.

great little deck builder game, very addictive