Card Crawl Adventure

I originally had a fairly critical review. After finding out that the developer is one guy with a passion for card games, I’m changing this review from a 4 to a 5. It was only a 4 because there are several parts of the game that I would prefer are faster and snappier. Here’s my original review: First: the name of the app doesn’t fit on the iPhone springboard. Big no-no. Have it appear as “Crawl” under the icon, not “CardCrawlAd…”. Second: everything is so slow. After finishing a turn, it took 15 seconds before I was able to do anything. During this time, I couldn’t look at quests, pause the game, inspect a card, or do anything else. Then after winning an adventure, you have to sit through the same goofy scene you’ve seen a dozen times, unable to skip it. Why? All in all, it’s a well-made game. It has a few bugs, particularly when selecting and deselecting cards. You can get into states that you shouldn’t be able to by selecting a card, deselecting it, and selecting another. But the production value was pretty good, and the cost for content was great. $3.99 for all characters is pretty reasonable in today’s mobile market. Good job.

Yes, the tutorial tries to cram a lot into a bite-sized space. Just go in knowing it’ll take a couple games for one aspect to click, then another, then you’ll progress to a mastery before too long. Another complaint arises…the difficulty curve doesn’t scale properly. Once you’ve got the basics, you can mindlessly conquer the first 3, maybe even 4 levels, before the final dungeon provides a real challenge. That’s 20 minutes to kill every time until actual user tactics start to be required. Cursed mode helps alleviate this, but I’m not really a big fan of having to add my own difficulty modifiers. My other major hangup is the clunky UI. Card selection and tap and hold is unreliable, and the between turns animation and shuffling feels like a slog compared to Krumit’s Tale, which is the pinnacle of iOS card games. The animations and pace and sound design of Krumit make for a more satisfying, visceral experience. Overall though, very good, and the variety of extra characters is worth the cost. 2 tips: 1) hope you get the level 1 Bat boss early (or not at all) and 2) always, always save the Slime boss for last, even if you’ve already discovered its dungeon. Dunno why the level 3 Slime is no nerfed, but def take advantage of it. Most of the other level 3 bosses are brutal.

This is one of the few games that I have come across that keeps me coming back for more. There is a learning curve and the more you play the more you understand. You come across combos that work and other that don’t. Every game is different, part is because of how you play and part is what cards and upgrades you choose. The longer you play the more you discover. It’s like a game of chess, once you learn the basics you have only begun to play the game. There is a huge number of combinations and the game makes you think to play well.