Recent reviews by vaylren

Even if you can overlook all the issues with how the game handles cards & microtransactions, a rapidly falling playerbase, a lack of meaningful progression, and its general poor launch - at it's core, Artifact's gameplay is an unsatisfying chore.

There are very few times playing the game where random chance plays a small enough element for the average player to make a significant outplay, or carry out a game-long strategy outside of the premade 7+ mana game ending cards. The game includes a random element at each stage of gameplay - creep random lane spawns, attack direction arrows randomly generating, random card draw from your relatively large deck, random shop items each turn. This in my opinion leads to the vast majority of games being decided by which player draws the right random chance at a critical moment, rather than which player predicts the play of an enemy and plans around it.

Sometimes all you needed to win a lost game was 1 card the whole game, a tp scroll to change a heroes lane after getting it deployed in a bad matchup for example, but the shop does not have a standard set of items, so you're out of luck. While winning, games feel very straightforward - you draw the right cards once or twice, and the game ends, in spite of losing your heroes over and over, or many misplays along the way. There is no clear path to victory without a good measure of luck, which makes a lot of your wins feel hollow and almost out of your hands.

Having said all that, the visual and audio design are fantastic, with a sleek menu system in the style of Dota, and an incredible amount of voiced lines for each card. There is clear effort and care taken with every part of the game, which only makes me more disappointed at how much of a near miss this game was. I do not see a way for this game to see a meaningful revival in playerbase outside of a complete overhaul and rerelease of a lot of the core gameplay and monetization, and even that could be a roll of the dice.

It seems rare to find games that are this intricately detailed, and clearly lovingly crafted. It's rarer that these games are free.

Mandagon is a short experience, but if you ever find yourself with an hour in the afternoon, let yourself enjoy the serene soundtrack and find your way through the temple door.

I recommend playing this game to some extent. The first 2 sets of levels (possibly the top 3 on the last set) are difficult enough to be rewarding, provide a good skill curve, and are very interesting both visually and conceptually. However, the rng elements of the game become increasingly infuriating in the last couple of levels, outweighing the reward of improving and passing each pattern section of the levels.

Some of the level design is questionable, for example on the anti Y boson level, the platforms in one pattern section are actually hidden and completely non visible until it is too late to react. On other levels, the visuals, though overall excellent, can cause issues with vision on where to go next.

I definitely don't regret buying this, but I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, especially for people like me who don't play games like this very frequently.

Relaxing & simple, but maintains a level of deceptive difficulty that makes it rewarding to play. Easily worth the small price tag.