EA code provided, with many thanks to DAYAStudio.
Abyss Deck is a roguelike deckbuilder about a fantasy hero group trying to take down monsters. You run through dungeons and take down bosses, elites, stop at campfires, and more to complete your journey.
A True Roguelike
I often hear people mix up the definitions of roguelike and roguelite games, so I was a little skeptical when I saw that Abyss Deck stated it was a roguelike. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was indeed a true roguelike. All progress resets every time you finish a round or die.
You begin each new round by selecting three heroes from a selection of five. There are Defence units, Healers, Tanks, and Support. They all start at level 1, and they top out at level 6. You can gain new heroes along the way by purchasing them, getting them as rewards from fights, and more. You can only have five total heroes in your lineup at a time.
How Abyss Deck Plays
Once you have your heroes, you can equip them with whatever equipment you might have, upgrade their levels, and give them new abilities. There are also potions you can buy to boost your team or debuff your enemies before combat begins.
When you are in battle, you choose between some strategies like “Aggressive,” “Tactical,” or things like that. After you actually begin the battle, however, you can’t do much besides watch. The heroes attack based on the strategies you choose from the positions you put them in, with the abilities they have available to them.
If you die, you can restart the battle using a different layout of heroes, different potions if you have them, and different play styles. Or you can choose to end the run if you feel like your heroes don’t have a chance to win.
Not My Kind of Game
I love deckbuilder roguelites and roguelikes. I have put hundreds of hours into Slay the Spire 1 and 2, and I have covered a ton of similar titles writing for Ladies Gamers like Dear Journey… and Talystro. And the biggest thing that separates these games that I love from Abyss Deck is agency. I feel like a lot of what happens during battles is completely out of my hands.
In a battle, I can get absolutely trounced, then win the next time after choosing almost the exact same strategies, potions, and heroes. I’m not a huge fan of the way that Abyss Deck insists on taking control from you. I feel like there is an audience for this type of thing out there, but it is not for me.
That being said, Abyss Deck does what it does very well. You gain a variety of interesting heroes, cool abilities, helpful buffs and debuffs. The visuals are stunning pixel art that is endearing. There is a huge variety in playing, and there is a Slay the Spire-like ascension system where you can keep making the game harder and harder for your heroes.
The UI is pretty clean, and the items are very well explained as you pick up new things and equip them to your heroes. The sound design and music are also done well, and I enjoyed digging through all the information that Abyss Deck had for me to look at. There is a pretty cool upgrade system where you can equip the same item sometimes on your characters twice, and it will turn into a higher-level version of what it was before. It’s a pretty neat system that I thought was a nice touch.
Overall, it’s well done for what it is, even if I didn’t enjoy the main mechanic.
The Cons of Abyss Deck
I feel like Abyss Deck is still in Early Access. There are some unfinished aspects of it, like some lines that were never translated to English, and a few visual bugs that interrupted my playthrough.
A few times, when I was moving items around in my inventory or on and off of characters, the item would get locked in my inventory or disappear altogether. At first, I thought it was just me; maybe the item had gone into a character’s inventory. Or perhaps the two orbs had combined together to make a more powerful one, but no. It was just broken. The bugs seemed to sort themselves out after I restarted for the most part, however.
Final Thoughts
Abyss Deck is not my type of game, but I think it was very well done. I liked a lot of aspects of the game, even though it feels like a misnomer to call it a “deckbuilder.” The hero building was fun, the visuals were great, and I feel like it did the auto-battling very well.
If this seems like the type of gameplay you would enjoy, Abyss Deck is a good choice.
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