Heck Deck

What I like from Heck Deck: Projectile System: taking damage from a projectile to get that card makes for a really engaging game where you put yourself at risk to grab a good card. You’re always on your toes when you play it. It becomes especially fun it becomes a mess with a bunch of projectiles. Some cards cost more damage than others making it a bigger risk to grab these kinds of cards, but a big reward by doing big damage to boss fights. Time Stopping mechanic: The time stopping lets you time to think and let’s you make a route to avoid the projectiles. The time stopping also gives time for choosing the cards and add more variety from the type of cards that are harder to place. Also, it’s great for speedrunning since it put you more at a risk since you would be moving a lot. The art: The art is very pleasing. The background is dark and has parallax scrolling making the foreground readable. The characters in the foreground are mostly made from outlines so we could differentiate it from the cards. Also, the cards have multiple types which are all differentiated with colors. Everything in the game is readable so you can get in the action. The music: It has retro sounds but mixes it with really instruments to give that oomph and really fits with the ambience of the game where it’s mostly gameplay. My head was bopping during most of the game. The movement: It feels really good, but also moves in a way where it isn’t extremely easy to move between projectiles because of the time stopping. It has some very curvy movement where when you turn it makes some wide turns. It doesn’t feel bad though it’s just perfectly balanced where you can avoid most things, but you can’t go around. The choice of a ghost was a really good choice for this kind of movement. It feels like you are floating in the air with this turning radius. What I dislike about Heck Deck: Pacing: The pacing in the game is kind of slow at the beginning making the game somewhat boring at the start. The slow down mechanic makes it somewhat slower than if it wasn’t there. You need to always move to really have the time go by. While moving to get the game go faster you can die from the wide turns and need to restart from the beginning making you even more annoyed. Unbalanced card selection: There is one card that was too powerful, where you discard your whole hand and gives you yellow armor and health that stays forever on the map it would give way more than enough health around the map and the yellow armor would stack up a ton. Red Cards are basically useless because you need to get damaged to be able to avoid getting damaged, which is less powerful than health which heals you without taking any damage. Not enough card strategies: The game doesn’t play enough with strategies, not enough card variety and the cards that tries to change things up a bit are mostly useless. For example, making your character smaller, it helps a lot to avoid stuff, but there isn’t any strategy to it. There are also cards that have very similar roles, you can carry the bag with and put your cards in and carry them, there is also the well where you can place your cards in it and grab it by getting another well card or in the shop. There are also damage cards it’s always the same. Go near an enemy and shoot it. The well: In the game you have a well that is basically useless. The reason is that the cards you put in the well are worst than the cards you have in later stages. The shop gives you better cards with the cards you would put in the well. Also, you can just keep the cards with you and don’t care about the well. I was able to finish the game without ever using the well. Menus: There are some stuffs that you can miss by not taking your time watching the game surrounding, for example when you have a hand that is full an icon of a trash appears. My issue with it is that I never used it because I though the icon was to say that the cards that would be discarded if I were to get more cards. Also, I missed the well during most of the game, because the arrow on the left isn’t noticeable enough. Playing different cards: What I mean by that is that when you see new cards with new types it’s harder for the player to really want to play them. There are too many walls for the player to really want to get new cards. Firstly, there is the damage required to get a new card, players would prefer to keep using the same cards that they started with than using new cards that they get more late game. Secondly, there is the fact that certain cards are useless makes it less enticing to take damage to get different cards. In conclusion: Would I recommend Heck Deck after all the criticism I did about the game? Yes, I would. The game is very innovative with its gameplay, the risk and reward system by getting new cards is really fun and makes for some intense moments, the music is extremely good and the art as a lot of charm. Even if the game still has a lot of balancing issues, doesn’t lead to a lot of experimentation from the player and some information can be dismissed, the moment-to-moment gameplay is really fun and doesn’t lead to a bad experience. The issue would be if you were expecting an extremely complex card system from the game, if it were the case your expectations need to be shifted. The pacing can also be a potential issue depending on how much you struggle with bullet hell games. If you’re a fan of games with really engaging gameplay this game is made for you.