Crash The Core Reviews

My first run trying the game, I was immortal: my hitpoints were negative multiple times and enemies only knocked me down to 1HP when they should have killed me. The UX is pretty, but really clunky to use. Why is the card selection so bad, when it's the one thing you do over and over? You can't touch the top of the card, you have to hover over the bottom 50% until it's selected.

This game takes alot of everything and while not very consistent in its visuals (some are good, some look more like placeholders), the dev is actively listening to feedback and does changes and bug fixes quickly. As of right now - specialy for the very fair price tag - its not a game you realy need if you got all the big rogue like card games, BUT its still a nice addition or for someone who wants to get into the genre a good starting point! I would like to see this game evolving specialy visuals/progression (map?) because the tiles you can choose are not only lacking in giving actual progression-feedback in the world but also lack alot in visual quality compared to the nice art for cards and bosses. I still thumb it up at this point.

I downloaded this game because I needed something less violent for my kid to watch me play. I didn't expect to enjoy it. It was just because he saw the character on the thumbnail and got excited. Yet, long after he had fallen asleep, I found myself still playing through levels. I don't know why I like this game so much. I don't know why this game is so exciting. I don't know why I'm finding myself thinking about this game while I'm at work. But yet, I do. I recommend it!!

As others have said, it's essentially a home brew clone of Slay the Spire that's easily worth the very low price. Is it as finely balanced and tuned as that game or Griftlands? No. Is it still fun? Yes. Is it worth paying the price of a coffee to encourage the dev? Absolutely! If the dev wants some feedback: 1) The UI is pretty, but could do with some polishing. Specially, hit boxes for mouse overs don't line up with the UI elements themselves. This is specially visible with cards, but also when clicking on the "X" to close menus on the top left. On a related note, why does the text say things like %X? I've always seen it written at X% literally everywhere else my entire life. 2) If you can afford it, get a voice actor. The art is lovely, the music and sound effects atmospheric, but the voices are pretty bad. It's the only part of the aesthetics I'm not a huge fan of. 3) There's a big varieties of cards, which is great! However, the range of events is tiny (I've had the same ones 4 or 5 time in my first 3h of play), the same things always come up to buy in the shop, I always fish the same stuff, and the inn & base are always exactly the same. A little more content here would make things far less repetitive. 4) What does the colour of the card means? Every starter card is red, every galaxy card is blue. Why not just refer to them that way rather than bringing a new attribute of colour into it? 5) Poison doesn't seem to work properly... unless it can be stopped by summons? I would expect it to ignore armor and summons to be honest. 6) "Expose" is too weak IMO. Should last for a whole turn at least, and/or be buffed up to 50% damage. Also weird that it does +25% damage to the player, but +30% damage to monsters. 7) Unless I've missed it, there's no mechanism to remove cards from the deck? Except that sometimes (for no reason I can understand) the minimum deck size listed when viewing the deck outside of battles is low enough that I can remove one. I think, it's hard to see if its ever actually properly removed. 8) I'm don't think the cards are being handled between a _"to draw"_ _"in hand"_ and _"discarded"_ pile properly. Sometimes I have 10+ rounds in a row without drawing a specific card I want. Rather, it seems that each round cards are drawn randomly from the entire deck - that is not how card games are expected to work! 9) Make it harder! Roguelikes have to be difficult, failing and trying against is where the fun is. Making healing much much rarer and more expensive would be a good start. Sorry for the wall of text, genuinely good work so far!

Feels like Early Access, as there's a lot of bugs. I tried this out specifically for its co-op selling point, and while it technically works, it also feels tacked-on. Player 2's cursor (controlled with a keyboard) cannot do a lot of the things Player 1's cursor can, such as highlighting many of the tooltips not specific to P2's deck of cards. Incoming damage for P2 is often calculated incorrectly (I suspect some sources of damage for P1 is being duplicated to P2 incorrectly). Card descriptions are sometimes misleading ("do X damage to yourself" on a Summon refers to the player's HP and pierces Guard, when many card games would refer to this as paying HP instead). And when we cleared the first mission, none of the metacurrency carried over (which I remedied by editing a save file, but cmon...) I also saw on the Steam forum several bug posts that were similar to bugs we had experienced on this one run, without dev replies, that were as much as a month old. And while 4k resolution is supported, it was added manually so there is oddly no 1440p support to go with it, so I spent my time playing in 1080p Windowed. While this game might not be abandoned yet, I don't have high hopes for all of the bugs to be fixed. And that's without going into the clunky things, like needing to highlight roughly the bottom right portion of a card to be able to select it. I do have to say that $5 is about a fair price for what's on offer, which is an unbalanced, underpolished Slay the Spire clone with bugs and co-op play. But I was hoping for better. For those looking for alternative co-op card games like this one, there's not many on the market, but I would still recommend Across the Obelisk over this - it has flaws too, but is a lot more polished despite its Early Access status.

I read through the reviews before I got this game and it turns out someone had the same bug as me in which my health goes into the minus rather than killing me. It's such a shame because I was really enjoying the game but a rogue-like deckbuilder where you can't die, it totally defeats the purpose of the game. I'll look into it again if this bug gets fixed but I can't recommend this game because of that bug.

This feels very Early Access - unpolished and with several things missing. There's no variety - every enemy has one (sometimes two) out of only three abilities, events repeat a lot within one run, the 'fishing' node grants the same few consumables, many Shop items do more or less the same thing with different percentages. There's no StS-style map, but if there was one, every second node would be non-combat. I often get the choice between Campfire - Fishing - Shop several times in a row instead of back to back fights. I like the Summons (creatures you use to attack or defend with) - and Gadgets (X times use summons with different abilities like buffs, block, draw). You can have a total of 5 on the field at once, and they can be 'salvaged' (removed) at any time during your turn. There's a (very limited, from what I've seen) skill tree that grants Salvage-related abilities - very underwhelming abilities, that is. There was a good idea here, but it wasn't thought to the end. The balance is another point that needs serious work. One enemy type is a lot stronger than the others and it quickly becomes clear which you should just avoid. That further limits the already low variety of fights, but frankly balancing this enemy type wouldn't do much in the grand scheme of things. There just aren't enough enemy types in general whether you avoid one or not. If you want a card battler on a budget, get Monster Slayers. Same price range, but much better.

A wonderful little rogue lite and deck building game. The UI is fairly basic but the mechanics are great which is bigger deal to me than shiny UI. I like the monster art and it in just the few days I've been playing the publisher has updated it, and fixed some things/issues. I believe it is a tiny or even one person maker of the game. So given the great mechanics and publisher seems to be wanting to make improvements, IMO it is by far worth the price! I always want to support small/indie developers, and this game so far been great fun!

It's nothing revolutionary, but it definitely has its heart in the right place. I had a good time playing, and especially enjoyed it considering the price. If you're a fan of roguelike deckbuilders, this'll familiar but fun. The Summon and Item system makes for some interesting synergies. Just be wary of some annoying bugs and balance issues, which may or may not get patched out by the time writing this. Again, nothing phenomenal but pretty alright considering it's their first game.

It's a long, long time since £3.00 brought me such joy. I do like rogue-like card-battlers obviously, but have found myself growing increasingly bored with them and, amazing as some of the added layers and complexity of so many games that have turned up since Monster Slayers and Slay The Spire can be, the genre has become a bit stale. That simple addictive loop that made those games great is, for me, perhaps becoming too buried under a pile of clever and creative stuff that in the end sometimes detracts from the purity of the experience. It's a trade off, of course and I think Griftlands, Tainted Grail et al are fabulous. But this bargain-priced unashamed STS clone is actually surprisingly engaging, addictive, highly playable and a wonderfully serene experience that put a smile on my face. I expected, given the low price point, to tire of it quickly, maybe even refund it in disgust, boredom or apathy after 20 minutes of what i assumed would probably be at best a mediocre game. 3 hours later of non-stop play, I stand corrected. It's great, it really is. It has this lovely home-brewed charm, doesn't over-complicate things and never forgets what it is. The mechanics have so much focus and coherence and there has obviously been so much love, careful consideration and dedication put into it by it's creator, who is, I believe, a one-man band. And much as it's strength lies in the distillation of the purest essence of that classic deck-building rogue-like, it does bring some new stuff to the table and effectively steals other elements from some of it's more expensive peers, whilst still managing to keep the mechanics graceful, simple yet with room for complex strategy and different builds etc. there's a ton of meta-prog unlockables, a surprising amount of enemies and bosses and lots of little twists on classic genre game-play that just make the whole thing a delight for anyone who enjoys this type of game. The graphics and music reflect the game perfectly: Rustic, warm, cute and weird by turns, conjuring up a rose tinted atmosphere of a period in gaming where share-ware was king, whilst having enough modernity to come across like a game crafted in an alternate future where the solo bedroom game programmer cottage-industry was never marginalised by market forces and predatory business models and instead continued on in all it's low-budget, high-obsession glory. Another reviewer here said that it was nothing ground-breaking and that is probably true. However, it's just a really good, really fun, charming and coherent little card-battler with some excellent synergies and a lot of heart. I love the minion system, the gadget system and the way it does so much whilst appearing so simple. It isn't perfect and i wouldnt wan't it to be, but it has reminded me exactly why i play computer games and for that I can't praise the dev enough. Criminally under-priced and so much really chilled-out fun, it's worth £3 of anybodies money and what's more , I get the weird feeling that this guy is one to watch.