Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles

I roll a die which allows me to roll another die which draws me a third die which grants me the ability to draw all my dice into my hand and become a god (gambling addict). Jokes aside really fun game and well worth the price.

Really fun game. I wasn't into dice based roguelikes much before this, but I love them now. This one has an interesting take on health, too. It's more like a game of tug of war as you try to purify your enemies instead of 'defeating' them. This makes it so any of your attacks also heal you, who the enemies are trying to corrupt, and vice versa. It adds more to the game than as every die can hurt one side and heal the other.

Key notes: Accessible, beautiful, offers a challenge if you want it but doesn't force it, highly replayable, lots of variety, rewards synergized strategies & calculated risks This is one of the best deck-builders I've ever played, including among board games, and I think it's a great option for anyone new to this type of game but also has plenty for veterans to sink their teeth into. The aesthetic design is impeccable. The art & music are beautiful. When you roll your dice, they actually roll realistically across the screen! The symbols on the dice look a bit like gibberish at first but quickly start to make sense to the point you can partly figure out what a new dice action does on the first time seeing it (for example, you'll start to recognize when a dice action applies only to an enemy or only to yourself because of the arrow pointing). Not that you need to memorize them though, because the UI seamlessly allows you to quickly see explanations of what every action, blessing, etc. does, just by hovering over it. Which means there's no need to open a menu to check a dictionary for what that status effect means - you can stay in the battle and just hover over stuff for an explanation! You can check what's in your dice bag or discard at any time and you can right click to see what's on the other dice faces of the dice you rolled, so you know if it's worth rerolling them. You openly see (without even hovering) how many times until you trigger a blessing/buff/debuff that has a count (such as "after every 3 times that you deal damage, gain a shield"). Basically everything you need to know to play the game is at your fingertips at every moment that you're playing. This all makes it really accessible and easy to play and keep up with. This can make it great for newbies, as well as for people who only play games a little bit here and there & need something that's easy to pick up again. Even if you quit mid-run and come back days later having forgotten what your strategy was, you can quickly refresh your memory. It's super easy to drop in and out, since it saves after every event basically (and it tells you this as well before you quit so that you're sure whether it saved or not). But the actual mechanics of the game are really interesting and fun to strategize around. The most basic part of it is instead of damage and healing as separate things, you have Purification (which heals you and damages enemies) and Corruption (which damages you and heals enemies). This adds the wrinkle of "Do I want to use this Purification to hurt the enemy, or should I heal myself?" You also have abilities on your health bar that unlock when your health is at a certain amount. This means sometimes you might WANT to take a little bit of a damage to unlock your health bar abilities. Each character has additional mechanics unique to them, including dice actions, health bar abilities, blessings, and sidekicks ("Sentinels"). Being a rogue-like, the characters level up as you play them, whether you beat the run or not, and you unlock new stuff as they level up. There were two characters I didn't quite enjoy the feel of in my first run with them, which isn't the end of the world since these runs aren't super long. I didn't hate them & I still had fun, but they weren't as exciting as the other characters at the time. But on a second run, I dunno if it just clicked or if some of the new stuff I had unlocked made a big difference, but I completely changed my mind about them and had a blast. The first time I beat the game was with one of those characters and it was such an epic run! Honestly I love all these characters now. I've played them each twice, and because they each have so many different unique dice actions, I can see there are other strategies for me to try with them in future runs that I'm excited to play around with, even after having beaten the game. And who knows what I haven't even unlocked yet! I haven't gotten any of them to max level yet. If you're at all interested, get the demo. I cannot recommend this game enough. It's worth it at full price.

I haven't played it for a long time but so it feels like a very good roguelite card battler, easy to understand and play but I'm sure it will get more challenging as I progress. The art style and music are great, it's definitely got my recommendation.

its very funb

10/10 dicebuilder