Cardaire Reviews

For anyone growing up with story-driven, single-player videogame adaptations of TCGs (or original card games) - such as Digimon Digital Card Battle, Pokemon TCG for the Gameboy, or dozens of Yugioh titles - this is a really well put-together inclusion to a (fairly niche/dead) genre for a bargain price. The story is simple, but serviceable, with the occasionally surprisingly insightful or entertaining comment or joke. The music is, surprisingly, quite good (the first boss music is particularly good, and I appreciate the added instrumentation layer when it moves from the conversation into the battle itself). The card pool allows for some diversity of strategies, and the pacing of giving new cards that slowly unfold new synergies and options is well-implemented and enjoyable. For certain, this game deserves a bit more attention than what it's gotten, if only for how rare it is to see a card game in this style nowadays. The [i]weaknesses[/i] of the game are almost entirely down to the length and mechanical complexity. I finished the game in as little as 4 hours, including collecting one copy of every card (except for the few 'secret rare' cards that you have to grind for). Shockingly, there's no post-game content whatsoever (yet), even though it seems to be hinted at. And the opponents of the game are so easy (in part due to relatively poor AI) that there really is no point in grinding or finding these secret rares - there's nothing like the Digimon Digital Card Battle post-game with the opponents playing special hyper-powered cards against you. There's only 118 or so reasonably acquirable cards, which feels a fairly small amount, with maybe only about 7 or so real archetypes viable: I'd categorise them (using Magic the Gathering terminology) as something like "Go-Wide," "Voltron," "Aggro," "Burn," "Control," "Dredge" and a special named/tribal archetype. Further, there's no ability to save and load decks, which somewhat discourages you from switching away from whichever deck you've tended towards when it's already beating all of the opponents anyway. Finally, the animations/gameplay feel fairly slow in-battle; I feel spoiled by animation/battle speed settings in most roguelite deckbuilders (or speed-up buttons on emulated older card games). And yet, despite two paragraphs of me pointing out the weakest elements of the game... I still need to leave with stating unequivocably that this was a wonderful trip down memory lane for me, a satisfying four hours, a rare type of video game, and it's a game I deeply hope receives more content or a much larger and more ambitious sequel.

What a joy of a game! A short and very obvious love letter to the early era handheld TCG games, Cardaire is a simple game with a very well designed progression and fun quirks that keep its card combats fresh all the way to the finish line and even past into the postgame. The story is cute and well told, the characters are simple yet memorable, the OST is quite a banger (shoutout to the Max Luxiato theme!!) and the art is great and evokes the exact feeling of watching a late 90s early 2000s cardgame on its first few boosters. Amazing game!! Hope to see more from this dev!!

A compelling and very competent variation of the CCG genre. For comparison, it's the closest to EARLY Hearthstone, as in, before the meta got ridiculous. This one also has a generous splash of both Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon CCG. I feared it would be mediocre, but it's actually a ton of fun. At worst, it can feel slightly grindy at times, but other than few minor roadblocks, I'm not sure whether I enjoyed exploring the map more, or slinging cards, because both are really fun. Please, please, please! Let this game thrive and get an update! I want it to succeed so bad! This is the sh*t! And the story is fun! Like, imagine the first arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Duelist Kingdom, but if it was actually attempted irl. The organisational errors, the miscommunication, the hardware breaking... All the shabang, which actualy makes the game feel all the more organic and naturally funny. And all the characters are likeable! Except Raine. Also, Stellar rules, Spell Burn drools. Also also! YOU CAN PET THE DOGGO!!!

I love cards and I love deck builders and this one is an absolute heart-filled gem that made me miss the old YGO GBA days. I actually read the dialogue instead of skipping everything because the NPCs are fun?? The music is also incredibly charming. 10/10, aeiou did good.

Very fun, short little indie game. Makes me remember why I liked playing TCGs. Unlike said TCGs, which remind me why I don't anymore.

I liked it, left it on in the middle of the night last night to auto grind fishing. There are common things like ai being mentioned, but one thing I would like to see is for the game not to lag when I have every card possible in my deck. It's a stretch I know but that's my minor criticism. I honestly like this game and would love to see what this creator does with it in the near future.

All the nostalgia of Duelist Kingdom with a fun collectible card game. There's something really charming about the game that makes me want to keep playing.

Short, but not a bad time. The basic mechanics of the card game are decent, even though I think there's some problems with the way the cards are designed fundamentally. As of the 2.0 update, the AI has had a noticeable improvement, so that's great. However, I still think the game is crying out for a mouse only control scheme. It's so annoying having to switch from using the arrow keys to move (while holding shift to sprint) and then using the mouse to play the actual card game. Still, even without that quality of life feature, it's a decent way to spend an afternoon if you enjoy card games, like I do. Recommended for that.

Given that most single player card games on Steam are roguelites, an RPG style card game like the old Pokemon and Yugioh games was enough to pique my interest. Thankfully, the game is actually good. I'll say upfront that the overworld is probably the game's weakest aspect. I don't love the sprites and the game world simultaneously feels small because of its lack of variety (There's a forest area, a snow area, and a desert. That's about it) and too big because of how long it can take to travel between points of interest. The performance is also somewhat lacking at times with random framerate drops but I never encountered any bugs, crashes, or other dramatic technical problems. While I don't think it's a problem, I'll also bring up the game's length. I beat the main story in like 6 hours and I was playing very slowly to take in everything I could find. There is postgame content, but a lot of your time is going to be spent grinding currency in the fishing "minigame" which is actually just sitting next to a pool of water doing literally nothing. I will add, however, that I liked the game so much that even the grinding was enjoyable just to get at more main content, like the true final boss. While this may seem like a lot of complaints, the game succeeds where it really matters. The dialogue is fun, frequently reminding me of the fun parts of Yugioh where the entire world somehow revolves around cards. The soundtrack is pretty good. No songs that I remember now that the game is over, and nothing that got stuck in my head, but definitely enjoyable while the game is running. And there's a good variety of tracks over the course of the game too. The card art is way better than the overworld sprites, which is great because the cards are the main draw anyway, and much of your time will be spent dueling with them. Finally, the actual card battle system is a great take on a Hearthstone-like system. The card pool isn't huge but, surprisingly, there's a good amount of variety in the number of strategies you can build towards (swarming with low cost cards, buffs, burn damage just to name a few) and the card pool is well balanced. Most cards have a home in some deck, if you're willing to build the right way. There are quite a few reviews bringing up the ai. I only played after the release of 2.0, but I didn't think it was terrible. The game was pretty easy, and the ai does make some bafflingly poor plays every now and then, but it was mostly acceptable. If you can ignore the few flaws and focus on what the game does well, it's very enjoyable. Highly recommended to anybody that liked the single player Yugioh RPGs in particular. Cardaire scratches a similar itch but is way better than any of those games ever were. Finally, a brief summary of the card battle system for those that are interested. •You can gain 1 max energy per turn by discarding a card at the start of your turn. •You regain all expended energy at the start of each turns. •There are 2 kinds of cards. Souls, which have attack and health values and stick around on the field to fight for you, and spells, which have a 1 time immediate effect when you play them. •You choose attack targets for your souls between either the enemy's health pool or any soul they control. But, if you place a soul in the centre card slot, you can't be attacked directly until that soul is killed. •Souls can't attack the turn they are played. •Players start with 1500 life (soul attack and health values are all multiples of 100, typically between 100 and 500) •Decks have a minimum of 30 cards and no more than 3 copies of any 1 card.

Good core mechanics, but they are not expanded upon enough with card abilities, leading most games to be boring and predictable "Get the biggest guy out there" plays. The difficulty is non-existant, due to the AI not understanding the core rules of the game, and they will frequently allow you to kill them with their total lack of game knowledge. Don't let my playtime fool you, the game is winnable in 5 hours, the rest of my time was a mind-numbing grind to get to 100% completion. This is a good proof of concept for a full fledged game, as it stands, don't waste your money on it.