Zoominoes

I try most rougelikes when they come out and this is the first one since balatro that I have really enjoyed and lost track of time playing. Highly recommend it if you enjoy deckbuilding break the game style games.

Okay, so real talk here, I thought How Many Dudes would be the big thing I was looking forward to today. Then I saw this cute little game, decided to take the demo for a spin... ...don't let the cuteness fool you. The tile-building gameplay is both fun and surprisingly addictive and, at the higher difficulties, the game is HARD despite the absolutely insane combos you can pull off. The balancing might be a little bit off in that sense, but overall the gameplay is fun and satisfying and generally synergistic. The price is right, and I would 100% recommend trying it out.

The game is good but hard to recommend in its current state. Bugs on bugs on bugs. Just coming off an easy win on the hardest difficulty that died with 3 plays remaining because of how buggy it is. The game also suffers from some pretty intense balance issues; lower difficulties are so easy you practically cannot lose, and the hardest difficulties have such steep quota scaling that the vast majority of animals are unplayable. The dev seems committed so I'm sure this will be an easy thumbs up in time.

I think there's a good core idea with the tiles, types, souveniers etc, but in the end, I don't find the game very well designed. While every good roguelite needs luck to make runs feel different, there are ways in which I think this game misuses it. First, the game is certainly a winmore style game. That means early success means late success, and early failure means late failure a lot of the time. Each day you get to add things to your deck, but the next day you generally have less than a 50% chance of seeing what you just picked, and new creatures relative power to old ones are very drastic. Mythic creatures are overwhelmingly better than than starter ones. It's like if you played Slay the Spire and on the third floor you're offered 1 energy cards that do 600 damage. They downright invalidate the rest of your deck. And ofc drawing them as early as possible is a huge difference that swings whether you do well or not. The game is just too swingy like that. The good RNG is: Animal selection per day, relic selection The bad RNG is: What you draw There are just games that do it way better like Balatro and Slay the Spire.

Underneath the quirky art and polished presentation, is an insanely deep and addictive gameplay that scratches your NUMBER GO UP itch, probably since Balatro. At such a cheap price, this game is an absolute steal. Its so simple that you can practically play it on a potato PC but it is has so much depth and nuance in its gameplay and strategies. You have over a dozen Trainers and starting cards to choose from as well, each with their own core gameplay and strategies.

Incredibly challenging on the highest difficulty, which I’m all about. The game is so snappy and thoroughly pleasing to play that I’m not too torn up that I’ve lost 25 games in a row. It’s tough, but I can always look back on my run and see where I went wrong. A big recommend for both casual players who’ll enjoy the base difficulties, as well as the sickos who enjoy some healthy difficulty in their deckbuilders.

skip it, really not special

Even before this game came out I had 30 hours in the demo, it is very fun, very replayable and the roster of zookeeopers in the full game add a lot of nice variety.