Bardcard

This game is an RPG - the kind where you equip items to yourself and such, and battle enemies in turn-based encounters. However, it's not 2D or 3D world traversal like a pokémon or zelda game, nor is it strictly text-based traversal like old retro RPG games from the late 70's and early 80's. You traverse by flipping and matching cards or tiles. Some of the cards have actions that may trigger a text-based interaction with an NPC character, other pairs might trigger a text-based battle, others will be for collecting pickup items, etc. The game has a menu for equipping items that you have already collected. It comes with a well done retro aesthetic that complements the gameplay.

Didn’t expect to enjoy this but it’s fun, I like the elements that you retain across play throughs, and it’s really well written…plus it helps exercise my aging memory. One more: was just fighting a whelk, had almost zero health, it poisoned me just as my weapon broke completely. I tapped my hand to see if I could equip something mid combat, and it said basically I could only do that outside of combat. The background flashed for a sec (s as I assume I died) but then the button to return from the equipment note wouldn’t work…and the only way to get out of that screen was to force quit completely. Fortunately it loaded back up just fine (with the immediate note that I’d died as expected) so no big problem… just a single bug in what otherwise an extremely clean game! :)

As a voiceover user, I’ve often found it a bit difficult to find good RPG‘s to play. This one seemed to come out of nowhere, and it absolutely blew me away. The exploration mechanics are super creative, it runs sort of like a memory card game, but every time you match two cards, it triggers some kind of event. combat is turn based and requires no vision or reflexes whatsoever, just strategy and a bit of luck. I like that the overall gameplay has a sort of survival theme. Not only do you have to keep your health up, but you also have to keep your energy up otherwise you will start losing health, and if you’re over burdened, you start losing energy. The fact that I have to constantly keep all of this in mind, while always trying to ration enough food to get me just one floor further, really immerses me in the game world, making me feel as though I’m truly braving the depths of a vast and mysterious underground land. Another really cool mechanic I love about this game is every time you kill a monster, you learn a bit more about it. It’s like you’re studying the Monsters in real time. As for story, I find the storyline of this game incredibly intriguing. I never know what’s around the next corner, or what secret zone I have yet to discover. I feel like there’s always new surprises here, even on floors I’ve visited 1000 times. overall, I would say that I love this new addition to the ever growing collection of voiceover accessible rpgs on iOS, as it is engaging, challenging, completely accessible, and hits you with interesting surprises at every turn.