Dawncaster | The RPG Cardventure

(Note: I play Dawncaster mainly on my mobile device, my Steam play hours do not accurately reflect my play time) Dawncaster is my new obsession. I have played games such as Hearthstone and MTG in the past, and those are great games. And then came Slay the Spire, which opened up a new style of battler games for me. And then I found Dawncaster and I can't seem to stop playing it. The game is incredibly well balanced while also remaining broad-based. There is no "one OP build", you can make any build work, and the approaches to this feel endless, from character choices to card synergy and beyond. You can choose a freeze/burn build, or learn to bury cards, or trim your deck, or raise massive stats, or gain souls, pickup companions, trade-up for ultra powerful cards, gain experience, choose difference paths, use buffs/debuffs, and so on. The sheer number of builds, approaches and some luck is overwhelming and offers endless gameplay. Once you think you have a build that works for you, up the difficulty and find your flaws! This games comes with all the cards already so you won't be nagged endlessly for DLC's, and you can easily earn gold in game for assets that you want. I've never spent a dime past my initial purchase price which was already very reasonable. As mentioned, Dawncaster is also available on Android, (although the cloud saves don't align with PC). This is just nice as it doesn't matter which platform I'm on, I can always play Dawncaster. If you play and like the game, I encourage you to learn more about it. There is a lot of stuff to learn that isn't obvious at first, such as how to choose which energy to use when playing a card, how to choose which paths to follow, all the extra asset packs that aren't normally in play, and the endless combinations of new builds those assets packs include. Try different approaches, learn new ways to take the enemy down. I went from failing to reach the end of the game the first few times to making my first run where I didn't need a single rest to heal, and it felt great! The more you try, the more fun it is!

I'm a veteran in these kinds of games and this one feels like I'm playing a slot machine with little player agency. Because of the huge card set with almost no synergy between the expansions, getting a combo or cards that work well together is rare. So the consequence is in combat, especially the first biomes, you repetitively play the exact same combo about 1000 times, and only the visual representation of the enemy image changes... (you never fight more than 1 enemy). Doesn't matter what the enemy does, you have no choice but to play your 1 combo, or closest thing you have to a combo, 1000s of times. Furthermore, you repetitively prioritize the same events, of deleting your same useless cards for the same combo which is decided by your starting set. I feel like I should get an AI to go through the motions for me until later game. Therefore, I am basically prompted to think only when and if the slot machine proposes a card that is synergetic for deckbuilding, which is a very rare event, and otherwise I find myself mindlessly clicking like a machine 1000 times, prioritizing the starting set. I'm quite surprised that if the game has been out for this long, and if card diversity is the selling point of this game, that the devs haven't done the minimal work to get sets of expansions for a character to have synergy, instead of being mostly antagonistic. I'll think about it, but I'm probably going to refund. Also with newer deckbuilders, or autobattlers, they are increasing strategical planning with other elements like city building, economy etc., but this game feels like it's taking steps back... and especially the important ones. So I'll probably look to the future of this genre. EDIT/Update: So I decided I'll finish the game. I beat it on challenging difficulty after about 12 hours of play time, I'll work on the last levels of difficulty. I confirm that I basically just spammed 1 combo (didn't have much choice to create others), except on about 2 monsters that had ridiculously cheesy mechanics. Mostly felt like slot machine luck in order to obtain the necessary talents/cards to beat the game. Since this game has been around a long time, there is a decent amount of content, but it feels more like quantity than quality, especially because it was confined to mobile all these prior years. Verdict: I prefer the PC game big hit alternatives, like Knock on the Coffin Lid, STS I/II, Vault of the Void, and Monster Train I/II, they offer better feel, more strategical dimensions, snappier reactivity (here in Dawncaster, god awful bell sound every round starts without possibility of muting or replacing it, and slower playing cards waiting for turns to finish). Dawncaster seems like a good choice if you plan playing on mobile/tablet, where you only want to think halfway while doing something else, if you want simpler, or if you're obsessed with deckbuilders and you've already completed the major ones.

Too much RNG. 9/10 deaths I have blazed through the game, quite repetively doing the same thing on all enemies and then suddenly die to some random attack I had no realistic way to know about beforehand. The enemy cards being obscured takes away meaningful decisions. Runic Dome is widely considered to be the most unfun boss relic in Slay the Spire for a reason. This game has Runic Dome turned on at all time. There is also too many random mechanics. The game is too cluttered. It's a shame because it seems like a really enjoyable game under all the RNG and clutter.

Decent for a while. But the cards have no synergy with other archetypes (of which there are too many). This makes savescumming a must to get the right card rewards, which starts to get annoying. If savescumming is so necessary, then it should just be much easier to get the cards that you want.

Doesn't quite scratch the same itch as Slay The Spire to be honest. The "RPG story" aspect of it is interesting at first but then since you're still playing a roguelike, you end up optimizing away the intrigue to focus on what the outcomes of decisions instead. Upgrading your cards is so incremental that it's really uninteresting unless you have talents that allow you to upgrade repeatedly. Cards don't really seem to synergize with each other across different sets so having more cards in the pool doesn't really help with build variety and usually does the opposite in which you use your bonus re-rolls to funnel yourself into very set-isolated decks. Aside from this I am not a fan of the responsiveness of the UI, weird little quirks that don't seem as polished as other games. Interesting ideas, but the execution doesn't quite hit right.

[b]Mobile RPG cardventure upgraded for PC but still missing features for example Vsync.[/b]

There's just too much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mechanics that completely shut down your run. Like having an enemy that becomes immune to your damage the first time you hit it. And you're doing chains. Or an enemy that cleanses itself making it immune to burn damage.

I'm really enjoying this game. I bought it on a whim, a few days after purchasing Slay the Spire 2, and have devoted most of my time to playing this game instead of STS 2. I usually turn off music or lower to almost inaudible when playing games but I just love the way the music in each zone matches the mood so well that I've decided to keep it on. I also love the events and art. The game play is very fun! There is an insane amount of diversity via the ability to add different malignancies when creating a run and enabling/disabling different card packs. If you enjoy challenging deckbuilding games, definitely give this one a try.