Roguebook

Roguebook is criminally under rated! This is a must play for anyone into roguelites/deck-builders. Follows the Slay the Spire formula quite closely, but with some key innovations that held my interest for longer. Namely: the exploration in between battles, switching between two characters in battle, difficulty modifiers that change the way you approach the game, and using gems to enhance your cards. The game is very polished in terms of presentation and gameplay, but there were a few annoying bugs that I had to work around.

The worst clone of the game we all know, uninspiring, boring and just not fun

A Solid Roguelike

A must have gave. Very playable and replayable. Better than Slay the Spire. Very cohesive in presentation, gameplay, gorgeous artwork, music, challenge. A coherent world I could spend much time in. Satisfying gameplay, challenges, rewards, unlocking development. Get it.

A solid Slay The Spire clone. Evolves the game a bit and has some fun unique ideas of its own.

Great game; has many similar elements like Slay the Spire, and Monster Train, but with a unique twist to the genre.

If you like Slay the Spire and/or Monster Train, you will also like this. A lot of the same flavors with its own uniqueness. Give it a shot!

Its Slay the Spire with 2 heroes at a time and a 4X overworld . If you like StS you'll enjoy this . It was a steal for $5 on sale.

Great little roguelike, good character design and smooth gameplay. Doesn't seem like there's a massive amount of content in the long-term, but a solid indie for sure.

I'd love to forget everything and play this game again for the first time! Loved the idea of two heroes and the swap mechanic.

A fun design for the deck builder type games. Good pace, decent variety, and combat is challenging enough without being overly complicated. The two hero concept adds some depth and the map layouts provides fun through exploration.

Amazing. Played this for 100+ hours on xbox, so I came on here to buy it just to support the Devs. Its so good.

it's a solid 7/10

Joyful. Gorgeous. Amazing. Rewarding.

If you have any interest in deckbuilders, BUY THIS GAME. It's innovative without being gimmicky. All of the systems interweave beautifully - nothing feels tacked-on. These are the best roguelike elements in any video game I have ever played. Each unlock (which you can toggle back off!!) feels meaningful. The inclusion of unlocking one random card replacement for your strikes / defends (again, you can turn this off) is genius. Every run feels fresh and unique.

I genuinely don't want to write more right now, because I cannot stop playing.

Holy gods, this is a good game.

Game was fun. Clean. Tactical.

Until I got a game breaking bug with controller support that constantly flashed controller icons and interrupted keyboard/mouse controllers. I disabled all steam inputs. Unplugged controller. Updated. Uninstalled the game, reinstalled. Even uninstalled and REMOVED temporary files in steamapps. Bug still persists.

I even tried disconnected keyboard & mouse to use controller only support. Still flashing.

Absolutely unplayable experience due to this. I'll modify this to a positive review if there's a change or fix.

slay the spire with beautiful art.

The ultimate rogue-like experience... or would be, if not for the occasional crashes.

[+]
1) Game design
The most intuitive, polished, thoughtful design ever.
2) Monster/Character design
Cool, refined, stylish monster (and character) design.
3) Diverse
A lot of cards, gems, items, and other things to play with.
4) Replayable
Each run can be entirely different from the previous. All depends on what you choose.
5) Short, but fun
There are only 3 maps to go through, but that's more than enough to enjoy each run with different combination of characters and perks.

[-]
1) Crashes
Some occasional crashes. No big deal, but can happen during a battle.

Conclusion: 9/10

Lowkey one of the best games of its genre. As far as roguelike deckbuilders go, it's hard to ask for more. The synergies are extremely well thought-out and the variance between games high. Doesn't seem to quite reach its full potential, but still very good.

If you're a fan of Monster Train or Slay the Spire, be sure to check this out.

Crazily addictive game, so many combinations with different characters and talent tree improvements.
I can't recommend this relatively cheap game enough.

Again....It Just Slaps

Great Deck builder

Tragically another poorly balanced card battler with little substance. Most cards do nothing useful. Difficulty is zero until enemies one shot you through full hp. Every run comes down to luck with relics.

good game for magic the gathering lovers esppecially. Or if you like slay the spire

Great game with a charming art style. The map exploration adds a nice nuanced touch to the genre. Its great to explore the various strategies and styles of play each character is capable of, and how that deepens in a team of two. Lots of replayability and room to grow and master with enjoyably challenging battles and run altering options.

I feel as with any deckbuilding game, it's easy to pick every card you find, but when you realize that sometimes adding a great card to an already full deck can be bad, you'll start to get the hang of things.

I'd recommend on Discount only.

It seems there are lots of mechanics to get you to make a big deck. I get why, but it doesn't work so well. It means you don't have much room for expression in strategy. Just means you end up with these massive bloated decks.

Just meh overall. Very nice art and all that but the gameplay seems to fail to understand the genre.

But yeah, I'd recommend on sale.

It's fine, but I'm honestly really disappointed for a game from Richard Garfield. This would be a good beta, but very underwhelming as a full release.

its fine but gets old fast

Very fun

A challenging Rogue-like deck builder game. With new cards, gems, and items emerging each game, there is a lot of uncover and no one "right way" to play. If you've played a lot of 'Slay the Spire' and are looking for something new, this is a great one to pick up!

Helps ease the pain waiting for Slay The Spire 2.

I got it on sale for $4.99. For that price, it's a fantastic game and scratches the StS, Monster Train rogue deck itch. It's a slick looking game with some nice twists on the genre and story line.
Definitely buy it on sale as the full price is too much.

For me this game is at the top together with StS !
I'm at the beginning, first victory after a few tries and i enjoyed all of it.
Beside the roguelike deckbilder element the discovery element on the path to the final battle is extremely fun!
I cannot come up with any negatives
10/10

The progression is slow and the elements are very repetitive. Because it's a short campaign, the devs seem to have elected to make it impossible to advance without failing the first couple of maps like 15 times. There is some strategic element for which you are in control but the lack of healing sites and good pickups require you to play through the first map over and over with the same heroes over and over with the same cards. The unlocks are slow and require a massive grind before you unlock. I would have liked to see more content to keep me playing instead of limited progression.
The content and combos are limited compared to Monster Train and Slay the Spire. I picked this up for $5 and I still wouldn't recommend it at a deep discount. The map is simple and uneventful as well. Making much of the game boring and slow. I am going to keep a look out for more good rogue-like deck-builders. This isn't one of them IMO.

12 hours later... So I gave it another shot and finally landed on a good combination of cards and completed the game. It was just like I thought. The whole run is limited to three maps and the story-line abruptly stops. Also, the fights feel way out of balance. The final boss was easier than some of the normal fights! This feels like it should still be in Early Access status.

Good game.

Incredibly fun turn-based, rogue-lite card game. Very similar to Inscryption, but more adventure/fantasy than horror/mystery.

Really nice game

Roguebook does a good job at being "similar, yet different" to StS. So if you're in that purgatory of wanting to play StS but not wanting to play more StS, this could be the move.
I would never recommend it to someone who wasn't sick of playing Slay the Spire - just go play that then.

The most important thing to remember when playing Roguebook is that the "card rewards" are not really rewards - they are basically "shops" and it's best to think about them that way. You get to see what's on offer, but you really can just keep those 25gp instead, and you'll have one less card in your deck and be 25gp richer.

That said, Roguebook feels very clearly designed by someone who played a bunch of Slay the Spire, liked it, understood what was good about it, then tried to make a game that was similar - but different in key ways.

In StS (and most other games of this type) you have to prune your deck a lot, and big chunky decks are bad. That's just a dynamic that comes up on its own in this type of game. Roguebook has like a dozen different bits of design clearly intended to counterbalance this somewhat, so that mid-sized and even pretty large decks are actually quite playable.
There are literal rewards, several rules keywords found on cards e.g. related to the size of your draw pile, there are ways of getting more card draw or cycling, etc.
Having a big deck might be why you're dealing a lot of damage, blocking a lot of damage, drawing more cards, why you have more cool talents unlocked for this run, etc.

Ultimately, the game is balanced so that mid-sized or even real bigboi decks are very playable and kinda fun and chaotic. Smaller decks still work for the same reasons they always work, so it's more of a rebalance.

The central gimmick of combining two different characters and swapping between then when you use defensive cards is well integrated in the game. It helps make the game feel different from StS. You can combine different characters to get different talents to choose from. It works.

While Roguebook is overall a very good game with excellent design, it's just a really tall order to try to make anything that wouldn't be unfavorably compared to a game as incredible as StS. But I'm a pretty critical guy and I think it's good enough - at least, good enough for those of us in "StS purgatory". What else are we gonna do, play StS again?

For everyone else, I recommend Slay the Spire instead.

Roguebook is an interesting game. Having played 117 hours, I really enjoyed this game but I don't think it meets the quality of other Deckbuilders i've played. It lacks the simplicity of a game like Slay the Spire but also fails to present the wild combinations of decks and builds afforded to those who enjoy Across the Obelisk. If you like the genre, I think this game will hold your interest but it would surprise me if I met someone who said this was their favourite Deck Builder.

I cannot put my finger on why I don't like the game but it just did not land for me.

it's very fun game. so many card combination

DO NOT buy this game at full price.

This is a pretty fun spin on the Roguelike Deckbuilder genre, with a lot of polish, but it's also an abandoned project with no end to the story. Glad I played it, but $5 was the right price.

This is my favorite Roguelike, yet it's almost still hard to recommend for what a buggy piece of shit it is. Granted this is not as buggy as the Nintendo Switch version, but Christ almighty it still is a disaster. Clearly the devs has no intention of fixing all the issues wrong with it. All that being said, I've had this game corrupt my saved progress more than a dozen times and it's crashed on me more than 100 times. No exaggeration as I been playing this game since its release.

But now that negative is out of the way. This is my favorite Rogue like deck builder. Easily over the likes of Slay the Spire or Inscryption. I do hold those games in high regard, and at least they are mostly bug free unlike this title.

What I love most about this game is it's map system. It brings a new level of discovery and risk reward other than being given roughly 2-3 alternative paths which both Slay the Spire and Inscryption do. The graphics certainly have a Hearthstone look. Love it or hate it.

As for the combat, you can find so many ways of synergizing builds. I constantly find new and powerful ways to become powerful years later.

To me it's the best Roguelike and the most buggy.

A great game, but not without its flaws

The Faeria universe expanded

Tough, easy, doomed from the start

Bugs & Bricks

Conclusion

this game makes me happy

This roguelite is highly slept on. Great mechanics, fun characters with decent depth and tons of playability.

Its honestly the best card based rogue lite that I have played (other than StS). The gameplay is super fun, lots of configurations / characters, building a solid deck feels good and finding the OP combos entertaining. For me its just below Slay the Spire (which is the pinnacle for card based games IMO) Its sad that the game hasn't seen more gameplay on Twitch etc. but its a very crowded field out there.

TL;DR - You can't have situations where you can out think with sub optimal stuff, you HAVE to strive for being OP as possible to even have a chance to win ( it feels like a bad tournament with cold opponents ).

Yea this game sucks, it offers the illusion of strategy. If you do not get the BEST STUFF you just automatically lose to some bosses and encounters. A lot effects all ways happen like bleed and there is no way to get rid of it, the debuffs are extremely powerful and annoying. There is no counter play or gotcha, everything is flat and requires you to over power.

Its all about being unstoppable more than it is having a cohesive strategy. I don't even know why the game lets you play if a character dies. You gain so many downsides to reviving you might as well start over. Dying in boss fights causes you to lose half you hand and can completely end your run if you are caught in between an attack and no way to stop it.

This game is not a strategy game its an gathering game.

I feel as if my time and money was wasted, which is a shame because the game looks really nice. If i wanted to get bullied by cheesy mechanics, id make a new MTG Arena account without my extensive library of cards. The only time you lose in this game is either you ran out of resources ( HP ) or you didn't have enough power or defense, regardless of strategy.

I am supremely disappointing.

Roguebook is a delightful addition to the roguelike deck-building genre, offering a fresh take on familiar mechanics. Developed by Abrakam Entertainment and co-designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering, this game brings a wealth of strategic depth and replayability to the table.

One of Roguebook's standout features is its rich and diverse character combinations. Players can choose from a roster of unique heroes, each with their own playstyle and deck of cards. The game truly shines in its duo system, where you combine two heroes, mixing and matching their abilities and cards to create powerful synergies. This system offers an impressive variety of strategies and encourages experimentation, keeping the gameplay fresh even after multiple runs.

The game's innovative map system adds another layer of strategy. Unlike traditional roguelikes where you navigate through predefined paths, Roguebook presents you with a blank map that you gradually uncover using brushes and ink. This exploration mechanic ties seamlessly into the game's progression, as uncovering more of the map allows you to find valuable treasures, encounters, and power-ups.

Visually, Roguebook is a treat. The hand-drawn art style is charming and fits perfectly with the game's storybook theme. Each character, enemy, and environment is beautifully crafted, bringing the world of the Roguebook to life.

The deck-building aspect of the game is well-implemented, offering a good balance between strategy and luck. As you progress, you'll acquire new cards and relics that can dramatically change your playstyle, encouraging adaptive strategies and on-the-fly decision making.

While the game can be challenging, especially for newcomers to the genre, it provides a satisfying learning curve. Each run, whether successful or not, feels like a learning experience, and the unlockable content provides a strong sense of progression.

One minor criticism is that some character combinations can feel significantly stronger than others, which might limit variety for players focused on optimal strategies. However, this also allows for some incredibly powerful and satisfying builds.

Super fun game easy to play and also has progress between runs ( which similar games don't have that much ).
Whould definatly recomment it to others who like card games!

Pretty good deck builder card battler when compared against the gold standard Slay the Spire
much better than a lot of the others ones out there

2 hero with positioning system kind of like in Darkest Dungeon (front vs back)
decent animations (something StS suffered from)
characters have some voicing/sounds
music is aight (StS music was pretty bad imo)

ignore the other reviews that say the game rewards a larger deck size. there are only a few things that do, but for the most part, you still want to keep a small consistent deck like in most deck builders.

game starts to get really difficult as you add on the difficulty modifiers, so replayability isn't as good as StS, its also not as fluid of a game (StS is very low req)

pick this up if you are an avid deck builder card battler and want to try something different
I got it for $5-10