Info about Dungeon Drafters:

Official game description:
As long as you have the cards, the power is in your hands!
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Play as a young adventurer eager to explore ancient ruins in this tile-based dungeon crawler with rogue-lite elements. Choose your character, create your unique spell deck and plunge into the ancient dungeons on a quest to rid the world of evil and forbidden cards.  
Battle it out in tile-based combat with your spell deck to execute incredible combos that devastate the battlefield. Collect rare cards, loot treasure, rescue lost adventurers, then return to town to prepare for your next run. Dive deeper and work your way toward building the ultimate spell deck that will banish evil from the world forever.  
KEY FEATURES
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*   **Hundreds of Magic Cards -** Your cards are your arsenal. Split the ground open with earthquakes, hurl white-hot fireballs, and summon powerful allies to eliminate your foes.  
*   **Six Characters -** Choose an adventurer, getting a signature starting deck that guides your initial play-style. Regardless of your initial decision, you may branch out and create any deck you want in the game.
*   **Dungeon Crawling -** Venture into any of the six unique dungeons in the world. In doing so, learn the tricks of each of the area's monster, make adjustments to your deck and seek specific cards.  
*   **Punishing Death -** As you explore dungeons, you'll have the opportunity to either dive deeper or return to the Town to secure your spoils. Be careful not to dive too deep and lose your loot!
*   **Elaborate Deck Building -** Whether you're a power gamer looking for the strongest and most broken cards, the lab scientist who loves testing out novel, audacious combos, or the completionist, who yearns to 100% their card collection, you'll find something to love with the deck building system.  
*   **Adventurer's Town -** Prepare for your next adventure while exploring the beautiful Adventurers' Town. Acquire more cards and unlock new ones by opening boosters. Talk to NPCs and initiate challenging quests, or simply take your time Fishing!

Release date: 27 Apr, 2023

Categories: Dungeon Crawler, Roguelike, Deckbuilding, Turn-based Combat, Grid-based Combat, Resource Management, Character Progression, Mini-game Collection


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Highly Praised Overall Quality (weight 0.92): Players overwhelmingly praise the game's overall quality, finding it charming, well-crafted, and highly enjoyable. The core gameplay loop, unique combat, and strategic depth are frequently highlighted as major strengths, making it a standout title in its genre.
- Versatile & Deep Deck Building (weight 0.63): The deck-building system is a core strength, offering immense versatility and strategic depth. Players enjoy the process of collecting, combining, and experimenting with a wide variety of cards, leading to satisfying and often 'broken' builds.
- Unique Genre Blend & Mechanics (weight 0.5): The game successfully blends deck-building with roguelite and RPG elements, creating a unique genre experience. Its distinct mechanics, such as grid-based movement and rune systems, contribute to a fresh and engaging gameplay loop.
- Charming Art & Sound Design (weight 0.23): The game's visual and auditory presentation receives high marks. Players appreciate the charming and detailed pixel art, consistent aesthetic, and high-quality music, which collectively enhance the immersive experience.
- Strategic & Rewarding Combat (weight 0.2): Combat is described as a thoughtful and rewarding puzzle, requiring strategic positioning and card play. The tension and feeling of accomplishment from mastering battles are frequently mentioned.
- Satisfying Player Progression (weight 0.08): Players find the progression system very satisfying, offering a clear sense of advancement and rewarding their efforts as they overcome challenges and unlock new possibilities.
- Rich Content & Depth (weight 0.07): The game offers a substantial amount of content and depth for its price, providing players with many hours of gameplay and exploration.
- Highly Addictive Gameplay (weight 0.07): Some players report becoming highly addicted to the game, particularly enjoying the creation and execution of powerful 'god builds' and achieving all in-game accomplishments.
- Developer Dedication Appreciated (weight 0.05): Players acknowledge the significant effort and love put into the game by the developers, noting continuous improvements and a dedication that shines through the experience.
- Engaging Dungeon Mechanics (weight 0.05): The dungeon mechanics, including the risk of losing loot upon defeat and the increasing challenge, add tension and strategic depth to the gameplay, encouraging careful play.
- Improves After Early Game (weight 0.05): Some players suggest that the game's true enjoyment and depth become apparent after overcoming the initial learning curve, implying that early negative reviews might stem from insufficient playtime.

Common complaints:
- Tedious and Punishing Early Game (weight 0.92): Many players found the early game to be slow, boring, and frustrating, with a high barrier to entry and a lack of clear direction. This initial experience often led to disinterest and a feeling that the game did not respect their time.
- Harsh Death & Save System (weight 0.7): The game's punishing death system, where all progress and items are lost upon dying, was a major source of frustration. This, combined with a lack of mid-dungeon saves and easy accidental misplays, made runs feel unforgiving and time-consuming.
- Prevalent Game-Breaking Bugs & UI Issues (weight 0.65): A significant number of players reported frequent and severe bugs, including game freezes, soft locks, and movement issues, often leading to loss of progress. The user interface also suffered from numerous glitches and inconsistencies.
- Clunky Deck Building & Weak Starters (weight 0.41): Players found the deck-building system cumbersome, unintuitive, and unrewarding, especially with clunky UI and a lack of basic features like deck naming. Starter decks were often perceived as weak and uninteresting, making early progression difficult.
- Slow & Tedious Combat Flow (weight 0.32): Combat often felt slow and tedious due to limited action points, vague enemy attack tells, and excessive time spent on movement or waiting for enemy turns. Some room layouts and enemy types exacerbated these issues, leading to frustrating encounters.
- Card Balance & Clarity Issues (weight 0.29): Players experienced issues with card balance, with many cards feeling useless or overpowered, and a lack of clear synergy between them. Card descriptions were often ambiguous, making it difficult to understand effects and ranges.

Gameplay feedback:
- Deep Pre-Dungeon Deckbuilding (weight 0.99): The game features a unique deckbuilding system where players construct their entire deck from a permanent card collection before entering dungeons. This allows for deep strategic planning and customization, with players able to mix and match cards from various archetypes and factions. The system is compared to traditional TCGs rather than typical roguelike deckbuilders.
- AP & Card Resource Management (weight 0.31): Combat is turn-based and grid-based, with players having 3 Action Points (AP) per turn for movement, basic attacks, or card usage. Cards are a limited resource, with only one drawn per turn unless specific draw cards are used. This resource management, combined with AP limits, emphasizes strategic positioning and action economy.
- Tactical Grid-Based Combat (weight 0.26): Combat is a tactical, turn-based experience on a grid, where players and enemies take turns. Players can preview enemy actions and ranges, allowing for strategic movement and positioning to avoid damage or set up advantageous plays. The system encourages thoughtful engagement with the battlefield.
- Varied & Dynamic Dungeons (weight 0.22): Dungeons are varied and dynamic, featuring different room types like combat, puzzle, and treasure rooms. Each dungeon region has unique mechanics, enemies, and traps, requiring different deck approaches. Players can save progress at the start of each floor.
- Addictive Card Collection Progression (weight 0.2): The game offers a satisfying progression loop centered around collecting cards and expanding the permanent collection. The early game often involves farming initial dungeons to build a strong card base, with difficulty scaling as players progress through more challenging regions. The game provides significant playtime and replayability.
- Punishing Death Mechanics (weight 0.16): The game features a highly punishing death system where players lose all collected loot, including currency and card packs, upon dying in a dungeon. This unforgiving mechanic encourages careful play and strategic retreats, especially in the early game, to secure resources.
- Engaging Town Mini-Games (weight 0.09): The game includes engaging mini-games in the town hub, such as a fishing mini-game and a 'Slime Number Game' puzzle. These activities provide additional content and rewards, adding variety to the core gameplay loop.
- Late Game Power Spikes (weight 0.09): The late game allows for powerful deck combinations, including some that can lead to 'infinite' combos or instant boss kills. While this can make the late game feel easy, it also highlights the depth of the deckbuilding system and the potential for creative, game-breaking strategies.
- Adjustable Game Speed (weight 0.07): The game includes quality-of-life features such as a speed-up toggle and animation speed options, allowing players to control the pace of gameplay. This helps manage the length of runs and makes the experience more fluid.
- Card-Specific Puzzles & Quests (weight 0.07): Some puzzles and quests within the game may require players to use specific cards or deck archetypes to solve them. This encourages players to experiment with their card collection and adapt their decks to different challenges.
- Strategic & Fair Difficulty (weight 0.06): The game is described as highly strategic and difficult but fair, requiring careful thought and planning to succeed. It offers a balanced challenge that allows players to explore different archetypes and make meaningful choices.
- Build-Enhancing Curios (weight 0.06): Curios are collectible relics or accessories that provide passive effects, allowing players to further customize and enhance their builds. These trinkets add another layer of depth to character progression and strategic planning.

Performance notes:
- Frequent freezing and stuttering (weight 0.18): Several players experienced various freezing and stuttering issues, particularly during longer play sessions, specific enemy actions, or in certain game areas. These issues suggest potential memory leaks or performance bottlenecks that impact gameplay fluidity.
- Overall game stability improved (weight 0.13): Many players report that the game is generally stable and runs well, especially after initial patches. While some minor visual bugs or early crashes were noted, these were often quickly resolved by developers.
- Minor visual and interaction bugs (weight 0.04): Minor issues like screen flickering, odd interactions with curios, and inconsistent card effect previews were reported. These are generally less impactful but can affect the overall polish of the game.

Recommendations:
- Highly Recommended Game (weight 0.54): Many players highly recommend the game, often suggesting it's worth playing despite some rough edges. They believe the core gameplay loop is strong and that the game offers a rewarding experience, especially if certain issues are addressed or if players are willing to push through initial challenges.
- Requires Player Dedication (weight 0.46): Players suggest that the game requires dedication and perseverance, especially during the initial hours. They advise pushing through the early learning curve and avoiding over-grinding, as the game becomes more rewarding once mastered.
- Needs Further Development (weight 0.44): Several players mention that the game needs further development, specifically bug fixes, polish, and content updates like DLC or mid-dungeon saves. Some recommend waiting for sales or future patches before purchasing.
- Utilize Speed-Up Toggle (weight 0.37): A specific quality-of-life recommendation is to utilize the in-game speed-up toggle to improve the pace of play, suggesting that the default speed might be too slow for some.
- Ideal for Genre Fans (weight 0.26): The game is strongly recommended for fans of specific genres, particularly roguelike deckbuilders, CCGs, and turn-based tactical games. Players who enjoy strategic thinking, theory crafting, and unique card-based combat systems will likely find the game appealing.
- Difficulty with Strategy (weight 0.01): One player mentioned giving up due to perceived impossibility with their current strategy, indicating potential difficulty spikes or a need for more strategic flexibility.

Other player notes:
- Initial Hesitation, Post-Patch Recommendation (weight 0.08): Players were initially hesitant to purchase the game due to negative reviews and reports of game-breaking bugs. However, post-patch, the game is recommended, especially when on sale, with a demo available for trial.
- High Replayability and Content (weight 0.05): A dedicated player completed multiple runs, achieving all endings and 100% content, spending over 30 hours. This indicates significant replayability and content depth for completionists.
- Strong Community and Dev Support (weight 0.04): The game benefits from an active and supportive community and an 'incredible' development team on Discord. This suggests a positive environment for player engagement and support.
- Fair Monetization Model (weight 0.02): The game's monetization model, which charges a single, static price for collectible aspects instead of using predatory services, is appreciated by players. This highlights a positive and fair business practice.
- Unique Genre Blend (weight 0.02): The game's core mechanics are described as a blend of 'Magic the Gathering' and 'Mystery Dungeon'. This provides a clear, concise comparison for potential players to understand its genre and gameplay style.
- Streamline Navigation Suggestion (weight 0.02): The game's room-by-room navigation could be simplified to a 'Slay the Spire' style progress path without altering its core approach. This suggests a potential quality-of-life improvement for pacing.
- Shift Key Speeds Game (weight 0.02): A useful tip for players is that pressing the Shift key speeds up the game. This is a practical quality-of-life feature that enhances gameplay flow.
- Strategic Boss Progression Tip (weight 0.02): A specific gameplay strategy is recommended: avoid killing any boss until reaching the end of 3F for each dungeon at least once. This provides a helpful tip for new players.
- Charity Bundle Review Concern (weight 0.01): A player questioned why charity bundle keys do not contribute to overall review counts. This is a meta-point about Steam's review system rather than the game itself, indicating a minor frustration with platform policies.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.25): Players frequently experience frustration due to game-breaking bugs, soft locks, and crashes that lead to significant loss of progress. The punishing death mechanic, which often results in losing all accumulated rewards and items from long dungeon runs, is a major source of irritation. Additionally, poor UI/UX design, clunky controls, and a lack of quality-of-life features like mid-dungeon saves or an undo button contribute to a tedious and unrewarding gameplay experience.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.22): Satisfaction stems from the game's deep and varied deck-building mechanics, allowing players to discover powerful card combinations and create unique builds. Overcoming initial difficulties and achieving a sense of power through strategic gameplay is highly rewarding. The overall quality of the game, including its combat system, art style, and the feeling of progression, contributes to a positive and enjoyable experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.12): Disappointment arises from the game's perceived lack of meta-progression and the feeling that time is wasted due to punishing death mechanics and lost runs. Players are also let down by the absence of certain quality-of-life features, unclear card synergies, and a general sense that the game fails to merge its ideas into a cohesive and satisfying experience. Some feel the early game is boring or that the game doesn't live up to initial expectations.
- Excitement (weight 0.11): Excitement is generated by the game's unique combination of positioning and card mechanics, offering a fresh take on the genre. Players are thrilled by the potential for powerful late-game deck-building, the ability to achieve infinite combos, and the engaging risk-reward system. The overall depth of strategy, the joy of discovering new loot, and the game's potential for future development also contribute to this emotion.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.08): Players enjoy the core gameplay loop, which combines RPG elements with deck-building in a unique way. The tactical depth of combat, the synergy between cards, and the appealing art style contribute to a fun and engaging experience. Discovering new card combinations and mastering the game's mechanics provide a satisfying challenge.
- Admiration (weight 0.05): Admiration is directed towards the game's high level of craftsmanship, particularly its gorgeous pixel art, charming aesthetic, and impressive soundtrack. Players appreciate the detailed presentation, the abundance of content, and the unique hybrid gameplay that makes the game feel like an absolute gem.
- Anger (weight 0.03): Anger is primarily caused by the harsh death penalty, which results in the complete loss of progress and items, especially when combined with game-breaking bugs that freeze the game or delete cards. Players feel that deaths are often due to RNG or bugs rather than skill, leading to intense frustration and a sense of unfairness.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion stems from a lack of clear guidance regarding game mechanics, progression, and city navigation. New players often find the initial learning curve steep, with ambiguous keywords and an overwhelming deck-building screen, making it difficult to understand how to play effectively.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is experienced through the game's overall brilliance, fun mechanics, and the rewarding process of collecting cards. The freedom and unique challenges presented within the dungeons also contribute to a positive and enjoyable experience.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance is caused by various technical issues, including poor controller inputs, clunky deck-building UI, and frequent freezing bugs. Excessive enemy toughness leading to long, drawn-out battles also contributes to player irritation.
- Appreciation (weight 0.01): Players express appreciation for the developers' dedication to the game's quality and their quick response in fixing bugs. This responsiveness fosters a positive relationship with the community and enhances the overall player experience.
- Analytical (weight 0.01): This emotion arises from observations about game balance, specifically concerning overpowered green cards and general card color imbalances. Players analyze these issues, suggesting areas for potential improvement in game design.
- Fatigue (weight 0.01): Fatigue is reported due to the game's perceived tiring nature, particularly when gameplay mechanics feel poorly combined or lead to a monotonous experience. This can make extended play sessions feel draining.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom sets in after many hours of gameplay, primarily due to a repetitive and uninteresting deck-building process. The gameplay loop can become stale, leading to a lack of engagement for some players.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game is expressed through its compelling progression systems and deep strategic elements. Players are drawn to the overall quality and thoughtful design of the game, fostering a strong positive attachment.
- Concern (weight 0.01): Concern is raised regarding the default game speed and the potential for certain game elements to cause frustration for some players. This indicates a thoughtful consideration of the game's accessibility and player experience.
- Addiction (weight 0.01): Players describe feeling addicted to the game due to its high quality, depth, and engaging content. The progression systems and overall gameplay loop are compelling enough to keep players consistently engaged and wanting more.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia is evoked by the game's elements that remind players of childhood card games. This connection to past experiences adds an emotional layer to their enjoyment of the game.
- Desire (weight 0): Players express a desire for a multiplayer mode, indicating an interest in expanding the game's social features and competitive aspects. This suggests a wish for new ways to engage with the game's mechanics.
- Informative (weight 0): This emotion is associated with feedback that identifies the game's specific appeal within its genre. Players provide insights into what makes the game unique and who its target audience might be.}