Still playing once or twice every other day or so. At this point I'm enjoying trying to win with the different "basic" decks (basic as in they have a single color background). I just recently beat the game with the yellow deck and now I'm trying to win with the black one. Yellow was interesting because your deck had to face cards - and for some reason this mean in practice that I found it was really easy to play/get a "full house".
What I'm still kind of surprised about is that I'm still playing on the basic difficulty - after you win a game you unlock (for each deck separately) a new difficulty...and there's like 6 levels or something that sounds completely impossible!
There's a huge library of jokers and I think it's neat that when you win the game with a joker, it gets a little poker chip in the corner as an indicator.
I've already rendered the first planet 100% viable! (I think this was ahead of schedule because I've gotten messages about going back to the planet to see what's going on, but I've already been, and things are great!)
I've also uncovered the "truth" about the kett and their abductions of these other aliens whose name I forget. Supposedly we're all friends now and I think I have to go find another planet to settle? As in, I only have one colony - and I think, based on the empty spaces in the UI that I'm supposed to eventually get to 4? It seems like a lot!
That being said, I've been pleasantly surprised by how non-formulaic the game is. I was half expecting to do a whole thing again on the 2nd planet, but it was very different and varied in such a way that it wasn't boring. So, different activities and such. Though, no access to the little rover which is pretty fun to drive around (and, it's surprisingly hard to get it stuck on the scenery or put out of commission, and trust me, I've tried some wild stuff and it works just fine).
There are also these "away" missions I can send people on and then collect rewards (if they succeed) in 4 hours or whatever. I'm torn on these - I like getting more resources, but I'm not a huge fan of having to spend a few minutes going to the place in the ship where I can access the interface for those missions, assign new ones, and so on. It starts to feel a bit like busywork...
I'm still very much on the "when this gets boring I'll bail" because I feel like I've gotten a reasonably good understanding of the game (even if I haven't maximized combos and nonsense with the different powers and combat abilities)...
Having spent the last few months playing a lot of deckbuilders, and then hearing a lot of buzz around this one..well, I had to try it out! (fortunately I got it for my birthday as well, yay!)
And, is it fun? Yes.
Is it hard? Yes.
I got really lucky with wins in 2 of my first 3 games. Really lucky. But, now I have a better idea of how the game works, what's good, not so good, and when to invest in different things.
As far as deckbuilding games go it's got a few unusual things going for it...
1. Your deck starts out really large! (a regular deck of playing cards) Generally it's pretty hard to make it smaller - there are a few options you might get, but it's not a general/typical option as you play the game.
2. You can easily add cards to your deck, but mostly you want to upgrade either the cards themselves (not THAT easy, but doable) or (more often?) the value you get from the different poker hands you do. So, increasing the multipliers/base value of two pairs might be better than improving one card that may not appear in a hand all that often.
3. You can sell your jokers - these all have different effects and, if you get a n interesting one at the start you can (hopefully) lean into it and shift your deck in the direction that takes the most advantage of it. (and then hopefully pick up other jokers that "double down" on that option). For example, a joker that gives you money when playing face cards coupled with a joker that treats all cards as face cards is good.
So far I've won with a few different decks (there are starter decks that have a different effect) and I'm trying to get the green one to work! (you get money for not playing all the hands). I thought I had it when I last played earlier today - but no luck.
After an "ooh, that was close" moment where I almost bailed (there was a door that bugged out and didn't open, wasted a lot of time backtracking to figure what I missed, went online saw that it was supposed to open and quit the game, next day, when I loaded again I was thankfully at the door and it worked), I must say that I'm really having fun with this. Mostly I'm enjoying the fantasy the game provides: lead a community in creating a settlement in an undiscovered (to you) galaxy.
So far I've created the first "foothold" on a planet (a science base instead of a military one) after "magically" (deus ex machina moment for sure) being able to interface with an ancient(?) alien technology that somehow near instantly controls the weather making everything work. There's apparently a whole network of these alien structures across different planets and I imagine I'll be investigating more of them!
Doing this unlocked a new mechanic/system in the game where I can automate some resource generation because there are enough "viability points" (well explained in the game's narrative!) to bring out a group of people from cryo-hibernation to continue working on settling.
I think I'm a little over 8 hours in... I have no idea how much longer I'll engage or id this will start to drag/grind a bit? We'll see..
