Cards of Heart Review

Game: Cards of Heart
Genre: Deckbuilder, Indie
System: Steam (Windows) (also available for macOS)
Developers | Publishers: GoodMind Games
Controller Support: None
Price: US $ Free | UK £ Free | € Free
Release Date: September 6th, 2024

A review code was used, and many thanks to GoodMind Games.

As someone who is deeply in love with deckbuilding games, I was super interested in seeing what Cards of Heart had to offer. It was another in a long line of this type of game, but it had a twist that I found really intriguing.

Cards of Heart’s Gameplay and Themes

Cards of Heart took the deckbuilding genre and added something completely unique: adding mental health components to the idea of battling against monsters with your deck of cards. The plot of this game follows a young woman who is swamped by bad emotions, and those emotions have physically manifested. In order to fight them off, you need to collect cards about taking care of your mental health and pull your town and yourself back from the brink of self-destruction.

Amalia and a shadow are battling, and the shadow has put out a card to attack. — The shadows battle with bad inner thoughts, and Amalia has to chase them out with positive thoughts.

While the subject matter is both real and kind of heavy, Cards of Heart gives you a peek into some of the things that you can do in the real world to make yourself feel better when your thoughts are negative and in chaos. You collect cards to make a deck with things like making friends, telling the kids stories, completing errands, and more. The story is a very sweet battle between someone and their dark inner thoughts and depression.

A groups of villagers stand around the center of town as the words "the people around her became part of her strength as well," scrolls across the screen. — Awww.

At the same time, Cards of Heart manages to be a fairly solid deckbuilder. It’s short and doesn’t have a whole lot of cards to choose from, but the battles are challenging, and each shadow has a unique set of cards and powers that target the three stats you have in battle. These are Empowerment, Hope, and Connectedness. As you raise each of these Self Beliefs (and the shadows damage them), you end up with access to cards with higher costs.

A card is over the screen, and it is a new card. It is glowing. — A new card for my deck!

When you play a card, it doesn’t take away from the Self Belief’s total; you just need that number to cast that card. Occasionally, you can also summon other characters and chain cards together to make better combos of cards, taking down the shadow and healing your own Beliefs.

A Gorgeous Game With Excellent Messages

All the art is hand-made, and the whole of Cards of Heart is beautiful and hopeful. There are some dark moments of self-doubt, but Amalia always overcomes all her obstacles to become a healthier and happier person on the other side of the battle.

The deck-building menu has the ability to make more than one deck. — Gotta build a good deck for the next fight.

Not only is Cards of Heart beautiful, but it’s also a fun deckbuilder. The cards are interesting and powerful, and it’s fun to put together a deck. You basically can’t win any of the later battles with the base deck; you have actually to build up your own in order to win.

One of the few issues I had with Cards of Heart was that it didn’t make it super clear how to get new cards. For example, immediately after the first fight, you are given a quest to go to the second fight. You will get obliterated if you immediately go to that second fight, though. You need to first interact with everyone in town to get errands and complete them so you can gather up some new cards and make a better deck.

Amalia is in the library, telling tales to the children of the town. — Telling stories to all the little kids at the library is a good way to get some new cards.

The first time through, I kept trying to go to the second fight immediately, and I kept getting absolutely wrecked. This could have easily been solved by having a quest to go talk to everyone in town before getting the quest to go to the garden where the second fight takes place.

My Thoughts and Feelings About Cards of Heart

Cards of Heart is a wonderful, thoughtful game with a whole lot of heart in it. It has some excellent messages, good ideas, wonderful artwork, and a good story. Not to mention, it’s a free game; it’s hard to believe the rather large team put so much effort into considering the price point.

Amalia is in front of the library, surrounded by shadows. — Poor Amalia….

In my opinion, the concepts and card ideas were not completely explored and filled out. I think this could easily become a much bigger game with other heroes as the light spirit goes from person to person. I would love more chapters of this beautiful game. But other than the little bit of a lack of direction and it being too short, Cards of Heart was almost perfect. There weren’t very many battles, but all the ones that were there felt important and had a little bit of a challenge to them.

A menu appears in the form of a book, showing all the current quests in the game. — So many quests!

I am absolutely in love with this little game; I completed a playthrough, but I think I will be going back someday to 100% it with all the achievements, cards, and errands. I’m not sure when I’ll have time, but I do hope it’s very, very soon.

Conclusion

There is so much to love in Cards of Heart and little to dislike. It’s free; it has great art, good sound design, and a great message. My number one critique is that therapy was never once mentioned. Although it is expensive and not accessible to everyone, therapy is good to mention to help tear down the weird stigmas we have about such things (in the USA, especially).

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up: