SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

This is the first Steamworld game that I played. In terms of a deck building game, it's pretty average. You're limited to 8 cards per character and vulnerabilities and resistances are common, so you really have to pay attention to what you're carrying into a fight. The game world is somewhat elementary, the humor a bit too on the nose, and the characters very cliche, but it all comes together in an entertaining way. I've been enjoying my playthrough for the most part, but there are some glaring flaws in the UI design and game mechanics that make me wonder whether or not the dev team playtested it at all. The UI itself is horrendous. It's like they didn't know whether to make the game touchscreen friendly, all mouse-only, or all keyboard-only. The result is a horrible experience where a lot of the interactions don't make sense. One example is in the menu, right clicking takes you to back a screen, which is annoying when you're deck building and right click a card to remove it only to exit the deck screen. There are also inconsistencies like switching between heroes in the game world is Q/E but Page Up/Down (?!?) in the deck building screen. Who uses Page Up/Down when playing a M&KB game? And then there's the gameplay itself. By default, you can only have 6 cards max with 2 redraw cards per round. Each turn, you draw back up to 6 cards. It you didn't play any last turn, you draw nothing. Some cards require energy, which is generated by playing basic cards. Without basic cards or energy, you can only redraw 2 cards or end the turn. The problem arises when two of the three members of your party go down and their cards are stuck in your hand. You can't play them and trying to redraw basic cards for the live character is unlikely, which means certain TPK in a big fight. A simple discard system or free energy when you don't play any cards would have been an obvious solution. I could say so much more but I hit the review character limit. Only buy this on a deep discount.

I love card-based games and I really enjoyed this one too. I think the redraw mechanic which allows you to switch two to three cards at the beginning of each turn convinced me instantly - if there is one thing that is irritating about card-based strategy, it's the fact that luck can truely make or break your game. Here it's mitigated a bit. And sure, there are cards that are inferior to other, clearly better choices (status effects are often superior to damage and more often than not cards that cost 4+ mana aren't worth it compared to cheaper options - I would have loved the possibility to downgrade the mana cost of at least some cards), you often are not prepared for the boss fights (all the more reason to try again) and the game is not all that long, but I didn't care. I love the characters and their banter often made me smile a bit ... if there were fanfictions about them, I'd read them. I really, really hope, there'll be a sequel or story dlc or whatever - I'll buy it.

I really like the game and the mechanics seem to have many aspects to explore. I dont like the fact that you don't know the % of the map untill you have finished. It adds some sort of artificial replayability, which in my opinion is not needed

its a very good casual game, with an interesting gameplay.

I am not a diehard fan of deck builders or roguelite. This game is easy enough for me so I don't get frustrated, but without being too easy (I am playing in the recommended difficulty). This game is a little on the simpler side, which is good in my opinion. Also, I do enjoy the SteamWorld art, characters and vibrant world, so this is a plus. I am having a good time and relaxing with this one, so I recommend it.