Deck of Haunts

Deck of Haunts is a roguelike deck-building game with a unique twist: players inhabit and build a haunted house to fend off invading humans. The gameplay combines deck-building mechanics with strategic house construction, creating a labyrinth that slows down and harms intruders. Players use cards to damage or drive visitors insane, earning essence to upgrade their house and cards. The game offers multiple difficulty levels and modes, including an endless mode and a challenging nightmare mode, enhancing replayability.

While the core concept and theme are praised for originality and atmosphere, the game currently feels somewhat bare-bones, with limited card variety, room types, and enemy diversity. The developers are active and responsive, regularly updating the game with new content and fixes. However, some bugs and crashes persist, and the UI and presentation have a basic, sometimes mobile-like feel. Despite these issues, players find the game engaging, especially for newcomers to roguelike deckbuilders, appreciating its strategic depth and spooky aesthetic.

Highlights

Players highly praise the game's innovative combination of deck-building and haunted house construction mechanics, creating a fresh and engaging gameplay loop. The thematic art style and eerie atmosphere effectively immerse players in the spooky setting. The variety of cards with unique mechanics and synergies adds strategic depth. The game’s difficulty scaling and multiple modes, including a satisfying endless mode, offer replayability. Devs’ active involvement and regular content updates boost player confidence in the game's future development. The soundtrack and flavor elements like newspaper articles contribute positively to the overall experience.

Criticisms

Common criticisms include a lack of content depth, with limited room types, cards, and enemy variety reducing long-term replay value. Some players find the house-building mechanic underdeveloped and the game somewhat easy or unbalanced due to exploitable strategies. Bugs, occasional crashes, and UI issues, such as difficulty selecting units and a simplistic main menu, detract from the experience. The game sometimes feels unfinished or too bare-bones for its price. Additionally, some card effects are unclear or inconsistent, and the lack of visual feedback for card interactions limits player understanding.