In an attempt to emulate recent roguelike deck building games, The Gwent team at CDPR have re-engineered their unique multiplayer game into an hour long singleplayer bouts. Notable changes between the Online Gwent and Rogue mage seems to be the card selection; as in you no longer craft your original deck. Cards are offered and taken away from you a you progress along the adventure map. You'll be offered pre-set cards from a pool that is dependant on the deck you chose to start with. I want to believe this is a failure, as I know certain combos of cards can be incredibly game breaking. However, in my heart I understand it is set up this way so that balancing decks fairly is much easier, and in practice after playing a few hours of the game, much more fun and challenging. Having a broken combo right out the gate would be fun... for about 1 or 2 runs. Having to work with what you're given is so much more compelling and forces you to sacrifice good cards in hopes of streamlining the deck that you're 'editing'. Unlocking cards is done through a levelling system, where each level can either give you: New cards for a decks card pool, new spells for you to use in your matches and even new deck archetypes. The levelling appears slow at first, but after a run you will zip past 3 levels. This means you'll have access to at least a few new options whenever you boot up a new run. I have not reached the end game portion yet, so I cannot attest to how Rogue Mage solves replayability. The price is it's key selling point. For the price of real life booster pack you can be playing a fun, beautiful and challenging game. Negatives are that cards have different effects than its online counterpart for balancing reasons. Also, offer rewards for Online Gwent please. Overall, Rogue Mage is brilliant. This is a huge recommend for anyone who appreciates great art, card games or roguelikes. I'd still recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and singleplayer games.
