I've played plenty of multiplayer Gwent over the past few years, but I also introduced the game to a couple of my friends who had never played Gwent, and they are loving it too - this definitely has appeal to those outside the "Gwent is life" fraternity. I love Rogue Mage. People aren't wrong to compare it to Slay The Spire crossed with Gwent, but I definitely prefer it to Slay The Spire. That said I never got super into STS, like I know lots of people did. Personally I prefer the story to that of Thronebreaker. This focuses on Alzur's experiments to create the first Witchers, and is told through cinematics and narratives in boss fights. The devs said they weren't so focused on story in this game, but I think it's a really interesting story, nicely told, and the way it is reflected in the card battles is really clever and nice. The art is amazing, as is the voice acting, and the music is good, as you'd expect from a Gwent game. As for the gameplay loop, I've played around 15 hours so far, and it's very compelling. Lots of fun and interesting mechanics you can build combos around, a whole spell system that's completely new from the multiplayer game, which is the main way you balance how much you commit into a battle versus save for the next battle. The main difference between multiplayer Gwent is that each battle is just one round, rather than three, which at first feels like a big step back in depth, but actually works well for the format - the spell system is used instead for the "how much do I need to commit here" side, I'm sure it's part of how they got the AI so good, and battles are nice and short. Each run takes around 30-60 minutes, in my experience - I'm quite a leisurely player, though :) All in all, I love the game, one of my new favourites, and I think it's great. If you've read this far, I say give it a go, it's well worth the price!
