Cardaclysm

Review

Upon starting a new game you’ll find yourself standing outside a fiery portal on a barren-looking land. There’s a pathway leading between broken archways, fallen walls and stone stairs. At the end of the pathway is another portal where you’ll exit. However, to exit the level you must do two things; first you must find a Red Key which can be found somewhere on the level (this will then open a stone wall unblocking your way to the exit portal), and second is to clear the level of the creatures and monsters throughout the level (you must do this before you’re allowed to leave the level).

Along with the creatures strewn along the pathways, you’ll find Golden Runes, Soul Orbs, Artifacts and some Bonuses. The Golden Runes and Soul Orbs that you collect will allow you to summon a creature or to cast a spell from your hand. In your hand you can hold four cards to play, which are randomly drawn at the beginning of your turn from your combat deck of fourteen cards. You can hold a total of 40 cards, 26 of which you can swap in and out with the fourteen in your combat deck. However, you start with only a couple of cards and you’ll be able collect more as you win battles. You can summon up to five creatures to the battlefield to do your bidding if you have enough golden runes and soul orbs.

On each of the cards is information about it: Golden Rune and Soul Orb costs, Card Rarity, Card Allegiance, Card Name, Card Skill, Attack Damage and Health. Should you wish to have more detailed information about the card, you can select the encyclopedia indicated as a question mark in the top right of the screen. Selecting the cards’ attributes will display more details about them.

There are five Card Allegiances: Forest, Ice, Fire, Corrupted and Neutral. Forest focuses on defense, with their main Trait as Regenerate. Ice focuses on slowing opponents, and their Trait is Frostbite. Fire uses aggressive tactics and their Trait is Fire Damage. Neutral comprises exiles of other allegiances with their Traits a mix of the others. There are five different Card Rarity types: Common has a 65% drop chance, Uncommon has a 22% drop chance, Rare has a 9% drop chance, Epic has a 4% drop chance and Mythic cannot be acquired from chests or quests and there is only a handful of Mythic cards if you have what it takes to find them.

If you collect two of the same cards you can then move one onto the other, which will upgrade the card to a new level or creature. However, upgrading cards will cost more golden runes and orbs to summon the monsters. Sometimes though, it might be better to summon two lower level creatures rather than the upgraded one, depending on the enemy creatures you're in combat with.  

As you make your way through an area, you’ll find some Artifacts; these could be Head Gear, Armour, Shoulder Plates, Capes, Boots, Rings and/or Staffs, with which you can equip your character in the inventory. As well as equipping your character, you also have slots for twelve spare items in your inventory. This will allow you to swap items according to the bonuses that they have and the type of area that you’re currently on.

After you have completed an area you go back to the Interdimensional Pub, where you’ll be able to store cards in a chest, trade with the Sneaky Goblin Trader and get quests from the Innkeeper. The Goblin trader will offer to trade some or your cards for his.  Although most of the time the offers favour him more than you, you can still get some decent offers. You can only visit him once every time you visit the pub. The innkeeper will task you with collecting an item on the next area you visit. If you find and return the requested item to the innkeeper, then he’ll reward you for it with a new card.

Leaving the pub will take you to another random area; there are multiple types of areas, and some may be more beneficial to certain types than others. Such as the Poisonous Gardens, which will give all creatures with the Poison ability an extra +2 Attack. Areas like Night Time aren’t so beneficial, as all creatures will take damage at the end of each turn.

Upon reaching the end of an area you have two options: either exit the area by opening the stone wall with the red key (allowing you to exit back to the pub for a nice cool pint) or you can decide to take on the Cursed Being (one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). The Cursed Being enters through the same portal as you did and will make haste towards you. If you decide to take them on, you’d better make sure you’re up to the task. The first Cursed Being, Famine, doesn’t have a strong attack strength, but has more health than most creatures I’ve come across (it’s their abilities that gave me a spanking the one time I tried). Even though I had around ninety golden runes with which to summon and cast spells, I may need to do a bit more grinding (or hope for a better draw on the cards next time).

If you should fall in battle, then you’ll find yourself back at the portal and you’ll have to go through the area again. You will also lose some cards, but you can regain these cards by continuing to play.

In the Options there’s Resolution, V-Sync, Ugly/Fast Mode, Music and Sound Volume Sliders, Isometric Control and Language (English, Simplified Chinese, German, French, Russian, Japanese and Korean) and Restart Game.

The game is in Early Access, and so far I haven’t come across any problems. I like the graphics and sounds and the game runs very well for an early access game. Enjoyable game so far, takes a bit of grinding (not a problem) to start building up to some decent creatures, spells and enough golden runes and soul orbs to make a difference to some of the more challenging creatures. There’s still a lot more to come, so looking forward to what the future and the developers have in store.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!