Card Fencer Reviews

This game is very good. i am enjoying it a lot and the Developer is very nice. they took action to address all the issues i was facing rather quickly and am very grateful for that. I definitely recommenced giving this game a try.

[i] My Experience [/i] Although I confess to having no development experience myself, [b]Card Fencer[/b] seems like an absolute monster for a solo developer (Mike Milewski) to put together. There are combat mechanics like first strike (I'm not sure of the technical name for this in the game), blocks, and parries. There are also the cards themselves, their effects, and combinations between them. Some cards temporarily reduce defense, while others temporarily increase attack. Some cards inflict damage over time effects like poison or burning, while others outright paralyze. But, lastly, there are the stickers - and wow, the [b]stickers[/b]. Stickers are essentially passive abilities that you can equip (up to five by the end of the game), and there are like...[i]80[/i] in the game. In my experience, they all work perfectly and in combination, which just seems like a beast to implement. They're also quite creative! When I first started, I was putting every card I found into my deck. I wanted to see what sort of combinations I could make and which were most effective. While I absolutely would've welcomed some sort of in-game database to show me the various card combination effects after I'd created them, I ended up writing down some of the ones I wanted to keep track of the most. I initially lost a battle here and there, going back to the drawing board from time to time to ensure that I had the maximum number of moonstone upgrades (you can turn in collected "moonstones" in the game for additional rewards at in-town fountains), the most effective cards (upgraded ones, if I could afford it), and the most useful stickers. But shortly afterward, I hopped on the damage-over-time train. I found these effects most powerful, so I made my deck as small as possible and only included cards that would combine to provide these effects. In the first and second areas, this ended up being "Piercing Light," coupled with either "Fire Bolt" to create a burn effect on all enemies or a toxin card to create a slightly weaker poison effect on all enemies. Things got quite a bit easier here, especially once I upgraded the three cards mentioned and found two stickers that reduced the casting cost of card combinations and healed me for 10% of my health upon each enemy death, respectively. Things only got easier as I proceeded, as I found a more powerful water card that could be used in place of "Piercing Light" to create the burn effect on all enemies, and a sticker that automatically inflicted poison upon each enemy at the beginning of each battle. As I continued, I added stickers that doubled the damage of my first-strike attack, increased my strength, and interrupted the first attack of each enemy in a given battle and dealt damage to that enemy instead. I received a massively powerful card called "Meteor Storm" upon reaching a certain level, and began using mystic cards that allowed me to cast it for free and cast it twice in a row on the same turn. While it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment this occurred, at some point I just [b]stopped[/b] losing battles. I would play every battle in the exact same way, usually winning in two turns, although I could sometimes do it in one and other times it would take me three. Although it might take a couple more rounds, even the bosses posed no real challenge. For most of the game, I had 9999 gold (the maximum) and the incremental level upgrades to my health, card points (mana, essentially), and sticker points (certain stickers require more points to equip) made no difference whatsoever. Although there are certain levels that disable your items, magic, or mythic cards (although I solely used the aforementioned card types, "support" and "power" are the other card types in the game), I still felt no need to actually change my deck to be successful (and I couldn't, for a reason I'll mention soon). It would be bad enough if it were just the combat that became repetitive, but the level design is dull as well. I never want to push a heavy object onto a pressure plate again! You'll do this at least once each level, and often multiple times in the same one. And it isn't [i]tricky[/i] or anything - there's only one plate and one object for each of these "puzzles." Those aren't the only heavy objects you'll push either, as you'll also have to do this routinely to get to sectioned-off areas in a given level. There are a few other gripes I had as well: [list] [*]The graveyard is a little bit of a mess in terms of design. Not only is it difficult to tell where the "path" is (you're constantly bumping into invisible walls here), but there are bridges that sometimes wouldn't let me cross to the other side. I was able to eventually cross each time this happened, but not without moving backward and forwards tapping the "sprint" button. [*]The castle is also a bit of a mess - once an area gets this complicated, with so many branching paths, it might be beneficial to add in a map for the player. Although I was trying to be comprehensive during my playthrough (I wanted to see all the sticker effects!), the castle cured me of this impulse. [*]The inclusion of a shortcut to sell every single card in your storage is [b]wild[/b]. I accidentally hit the wrong bumper at one point, and just eradicated the entirety of my stash. Therefore, I didn't have any cards to switch to when I encountered some of the levels that disabled certain card types. However, I think the ability to select multiple cards to sell or move at once would be a useful addition to the game. [*]It's also kind of a pain just moving cards either from your deck to your stash or vice versa. Although I can't remember which direction was the issue, I recall that the game either moves me into my deck from my stash when I select a card to be added to my deck, or moves to my stash when I select a card in my deck to be removed. It would improve the experience to leave the player in their deck or their stash until they make the decision to begin manipulating the other. [*]Lastly, why is there even a card limit for the stash? All this meant for me was that I had to periodically dip into my stash to delete a few random cards. [/list] In conclusion, I have to say that I love that games like [b]Card Fencer[/b] are even being made. As someone who's long since exited the "mainstream" of what gamers seem to enjoy these days (souls-likes, rogue-likes, etc.), it's nice to see games that are more "up my alley." At the same time, [b]Card Fencer[/b] was just a bit too easy and repetitive for me to honestly say that I enjoyed my time with it. Even so, it's clear that developer Mike Milewski has talent, and I'm curious what he'll do next.

Card fencer is a fun and challenging RPG. From the amount of card combinations to the variety of foes you face it was a great experience. I really do believe that this is a great buy for anyone trying to jump into the RPG world or people looking for something different and more unique than what the current gaming market has to offer. To keep it short and sweet overall my experience was great. I really had a great time playing and it took me 40 HOURS to beat the game. I definitely got my moneys worth and a great gaming experience. I am really looking forward to future games from this publisher.

[h1] Card Fencer: A Steam Deck Addict's Review [/h1] [h2] General Impression [/h2] I'm absolutely loving this game! Don't let the relatively simple aesthetic turn you off, the gameplay's where the meat and potatoes are at. It has really solid deck-building where you have to experiment with cards to find out how they tick, and you can parry and counter enemies when they attack you making for a cool interactive twist on the simple tit-for-tat of turn-based RPGs. Most of your attacks and abilities are represented by cards that you collect off of defeated foes or from chests scattered around each level, and each region of the world seems to come with it's own card themes. As a big Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon player this game plays like a merging of the two where you're collecting cards instead of little monsters. Definitely a hidden gem for me. [h2] The Details [/h2] [h3] Interesting Choices [/h3] There's a number common card-game mechanics that are essentially optional in the form of "stickers". For example you might need to choose between having a mulligan at the start of each battle or starting each battle with poison immunity. The card-play starts out fairly simple, but as you level up you start to realize that things you didn't even think of are likely to be upgraded [spoiler] hand size not big enough for you? just wait till you get to silver rank [/spoiler]. Picking your stickers feels like meta-gaming. [h3] Battles [/h3] Those parries and counters actually matter! They are definitely not optional, as later in the game missing too many and getting stunned will spell your doom. Which leads me to the very generous way the game lets you restart at the beginning of the current battle when you die. It really makes figuring out the mechanics of your cards and getting down the rhythm of new enemies feel more like a puzzle. [h3] The Game World [/h3] The game's art style right off the bat made me think of the likes of Toon Town or Wizard 101, definitely a more nostalgic feel. But as I got further I found the desert region to actually be really pretty, and the townsfolk are all cute animal people that absolutely love to remind you how dangerous everything is. And also how their houses are actually made of self-cooling material and [i]that's[/i] why they don't have to worry about the desert heat. Thank you sir, very helpful. [h3] Controller Compatibility [/h3] I primarily play on Steam Deck, and it's been really reliable. I did need to set up a custom layout to finesse the controls a bit (which you can download on the community layouts tab btw), but after that everything just kinda clicked. So a little bit of DIY, but otherwise can't complain. [h3] Stability [/h3] The game has the occasional crashes, soft locks and small bugs, but since so much of your time spent with the game is learning about card interactions and getting down a rhythm, it's fairly re-playable. That means losing progress to such issues meant catching back up twice as fast. That brings me to saving-- the game doesn't auto-save, so be aware that you'll need to save from the menu while you're in the world map. [h3] User Interface [/h3] On PC mouse and keyboard everything's pretty straightforward seeing as you just point and click on on what you want. On Steam Deck some of the UI interactions can be a bit awkward to decipher and some of the menus don't scale down well on-screen (such as card text being a bit small in the deck building menu). The former goes for controllers in general, but neither of these were really roadblocks for me personally. [h3] Playtime [/h3] The first region of the game took me about 3 hours to complete, so with several of those regions in the game and the second one taking me a bit longer than that even, I'm guessing my full play through will come out to around the 15 hour range. [h3] Price Tag [/h3] For the length and quality of the game its $ 12 price tag is pretty decent, I think I would easily round my purchase up to $ 15 if I could. I mean I've payed $ 30+ for far worse and buggier, that's for sure. [h3] Conclusions [/h3] All in all this is really solid and pretty impressive for being made by a single developer. Some extra polish around the edges will definitely elevate its already unique and even innovative game design, and I'll be sure to update my review as that happens. [h2] Final Score: 9/10 [/h2]