Knock on the Coffin Lid

If you like deck building games with unique characters with their own specific decks this game is for you. With the three characters, each has 4 classes with their own decks/items etc. RNG is a big part of this game, but being tactical in making your deck is also important. I fully recommend this game to any who are new to the genre.

Four words sum up my endless frustration with this game: Vanadis's last boss fight.

The most mechanically interesting character is suddenly saddled with a terrible QTE-like fight that comes out of the blue and quickly soured me on the entire game. Such a shame.

Phenomenal. There are a lot (a lot) of Slay the Spire-style roguelikes out there now -- and as much as I've enjoyed the format, it's starting to wear on me. This is probably the most interestingly inspired take on the formula that I've seen yet -- though largely in the details. It's probably also the prettiest, most polished take I've seen so far. The visuals are astonishing, the UI is excellent, and the voice acting is top-tier. Wild that it's this developer's first game -- bought the supporter pack for vibes. Very interested to see what they do next.

To be clear: I do not recommend this game YET. Just see this review as a warning before buying that this game is clearly still in early access even if the devs released a "1.0" patch. The game is very buggy, unoptimized and unbalanced. That being said, the core of the game is a very well chosen one and I do have faith in the devs patching this game into a good one. So please do not expect to get what you should for your money if you buy it at this time, but see it as an investment.

RogueLite done Right!

I love the art style of this game. The story is also intriguing. The game play is also nice. I like the combination of roughlite and the rpg. Would absolutely recommend for any turn-based card gamer.

Initially I loved this game. The setting, story, enjoyable card-battling game play and polished artwork and game production had me hooked.

But unlocking the story elements required to get the information to defeat the ultimate boss requires a LOT of unsuccessful play through's. Doing runs ad-nauseam to unlock specific encounter options or story elements becomes very tedious and sucked the joy out of the game for me.

Not to mention that defeating the ultimate boss has a turn limit in the last phase and there's a sharp difficulty spike in that combat - it seems unnecessarily punishing. Although I was managing fine on my runs at Hardcore difficulty. The only way I could defeat the ultimate boss successfully was to drop the difficulty to Easy which I felt cheap about. When I did complete the game it was a relief and a joy to uninstall!

If you are into punishing story driven card-battlers then this may be worth checking out. But be prepared for a long repetitive grind if you play it.

Amazing Slay The Spire / Across the Obelisk Clone.
Only some mechanics around the Endgame (Which Ending is achieved how etc.) is not well explained.
Everything else is pretty well done.

I really loved this game...but playing over and over the figure a main quest which turned out to be a bit buggy is not fun at all.

Story focused take on Sly the Spire. And a really good one at that. I played a lot Slay the Spire like games and this is one of the best.

Yes, easily a great StS successor with amazing animations and a dark story.

I want to give it a thumbs up but I just can't.

To start, most of the maps are predetermined with set outcomes based on what you pick. This isn't too bad when you first start since you're learning where to go, where to get the gear you need to succeed. (There are usually 2 or 3 tiles that will change between a regular battle or shop)

The problem arises when you realise you need every little bit of help for the proper endings leading to a very stagnant route and limited chances to add or alter your deck severely limit your "Builds".

Even after picking the optimal route, some classes just get countered hard to do poor boss selections. Example I selected a multi-hit class and along my way to the boss I got the chance to add 2 non mult-hits for 10 or less damage since there were no good utility options and found no strength. I Make it to the boss and the first turn he adds a permanent 6 thorns (Reflects thorn damage each hit) So after turn one I only had to attack 4 times to end my own run before you factor in the boss or their minions attacking. There was literally nothing I could have done different as I was not lucky enough to draw strength gain or alternate damage source, nor did I get lucky enough to draw other attacks or find a powerful item set/potions to get through the fight.

This gets even worse at the end of the game when the bosses gain unique perks/traits that just shut down a vast majority of builds unless you are 110% min maxed and know about these traits ahead of time you are incredibly likely to fail. One example would be the boss is immune to damage and effects until you remove ALL of your buffs, and being that a majority of scaling cards are burn effects you will lose all of them unless you save them until half way through when you remove your buffs. Being you need scaling to make it there you are just shooting yourself in the foot.

If you played Slay the Spire it's like fighting the Awakened one while doing a power build or doing a 0 cost spam build against the Time keeper, except here there's a lot more than just the one build being countered. By the end of the game they get a host of other unique traits like damage reflecting, stacking status spams, burning your cards, or just massive damage that would require your buffs or card spams to block/evade which cycle back to their other traits that punish those options.

This leads you to hoping what little choice you get from rng will actually be useful and it only gets worse when you try to make it to these final fights. You are limited to a few possible routes combinations to select the correct choice to activate the final boss prerequisites leading to an even more stagnant route selection.

It was an enjoyable first few hours but ultimately there is very limited choice, the mechanics are actively strong arming you into the same/ similar strategies and routes every run.

It's so good. Cannot stop playing. Can't even be arsed to write a detailed review so I can go back faster to playing. Just give it a try.

Brilliant, fresh take on the roguelite deck-builder genre.

Pros:
+ Multitude of deck types, card combos and items that will take a long while to discover and synergize. Very satisfying combat
+ Very good writing, i.e. the narrative that binds the many encounters along the way each run
+ Great graphics (would've preferred them to lean more on the dark fantasy side) and excellent voice acting
+ Excellent replayability thanks to the great variety of encounters and card combos
+ The game end credits reveal lore / encounter hints. Cool

Cons:
- After unlocking the many new cards, the good ones are drowned among the weaker ones which makes the building of a good deck that much harder
- Too many achievements for its own good. It kind of cheapens that whole aspect of the game
- Animations are sometimes too slow, unnecessarily prolonging the game

Fantastic game. Although StS was the original sin, I find this far better. The amount of builds you can try to raise is staggering. The game art - while on the comic strip side - is compelling and concise throughout the game. And is VERY good for a deckbuilding game. Sound design is a bit weaker, looking at you Björn ;) Music is servicable, sometimes even beautiful. An extraordinary effort went into providing ambience for EVERY event and if you hover over set items.
All in all this game was a serious POSITIVE surprise for me, after trying out some StS-alikes.
I didn't talk about the story aspect. This is the major innovation - at least in the scope it is presented.
I Leave it for the reader to discover. It is a vehicle - or the other way round - to complete the progress trees, but is is a good low-key one.
I heartily recommend this game, as it also is fairly priced for the uncommon refined quality it shows.

I love the story good to see the genre of this game not just focus on pure game play and also focus on the story.

Fun game, but I don't like how many game mechanics they leave for you to figure out. Its definitely fun exploring the map and learning actual game mechanics but when they randomly add a timer with no explanation, or special event cards that are not super clear, makes the game annoying.

The Inspiration is obvious, if you lake Slay the Spire, you'll like this, i like the gear system to really change up your runs and potentially make some ridiculously OP builds. There is a difficulty system as well so the barrier of entry is lower that other card battlers but still maintains a high ceiling.

Knock On The Coffin Lid is probably the best implementation of the fusion of RPG and Roguelike I've ever seen, it's a very cool game, even if not 100% polished. The target audience is probably people who really enjoy figuring out janky combos against equally janky enemies. Casual players certainly might still enjoy the game too, there's beautiful art and a compelling story, and the surface of the gameplay is pretty simple, but the amount of depth and complexity required to truly thrive in the game's systems feels more like Dream Quest than Slay The Spire. I loved Dream Quest, because I'm a fucking nerd, but your experience may vary.

As much as I want to like this game but it keeps on freezing every time I press end turn - get new hand I can't play with it's performance is so bad it distracts me so I'm gonna leave my review as thumbs down until they fix those freezes.

Quick Review

This game features a rarity in card battler roguelites: A compelling story! i'm in love with the narrative and i really like the groundhog day aspects of the way time and the different runs are handled. It's great to find a new ? encounter and learn that there are multiple ways to deal with the event, some of which you may have to come back to in a different run.

The game is challenging, fun, and the combat and gear systems are really interesting and engaging.

I don't have many gripes, but i will say that sometimes i forget what the different map icons represent, and it would be nice if they showed some information when you hovered over them. it would also be nice if the lore books contained a little more information about the different events and encounters. It's awesome that you can have choices and events effect other events down the line in the current run or possibly in a run later on, but it can be hard to remember when to do what and how. I love that the game doesn't hold my hand, but I'm getting old and it would be cool if there was a place I could go in-game to help me remember the differing options I have.

overall I'd rate this game a solid 9.5/10 and I highly encourage anyone who's a fan of roguelikes and/or card battlers to give this game a try, you won't regret it!

For me this game is an innovative masterpiece that redefines the genre. It sets the bar very high compared to previous card battlers I've played. There is a plethora of dynamics with customized events that evolve as you progress/do re-runs as well as based on the character you're playing, there are extensive storytelling rpg elements, five classes per character to date, very nice art, impactful items and set bonuses, the game feels very alive, and there is a high difficulty ceiling for those who want it. Lots of different paths based on how you want to role play, challenge yourself, or customize your run. I've been hooked, especially with working on the highest difficulty setting, and will be supporting this game for a long time! Can't wait to see them realize their roadmap. Of course, no game is perfect, they have things to improve on like for all games. I have full confidence in these devs! Bravo and thank you for this true gem, that makes many other deckbuilders in the saturated market look very lacking in comparison.

Game seems right up my alley. After playing for a few minutes on the Steam Deck, I'll have to refund, for 2 reasons.

There are no controller options. So you have to use the touch pad as a mouse. It works, it's fine, but honestly many card games have controller options and I find it a crazy oversight not to have them. Would make it much better to play.

The main reason is the text. It's quite small and stilized and there's no option to change sizes. This is a text heavy game, with story and tooltips and what not. It's barely readable on the deck and I find myself straining my eyes. Another crazy oversight not to have different text sizes.

Negative review from the point of a Steam Deck user. If these things get patched (controller support and text size), I'll gladly buy it again and give it another go.

This game seems like it has potential but it is in desperate need of QoL improvements and bug fixes.

It is playable on steamdeck but not well as the text is extremely small. It can be very slow to load.

Worst is saving and quitting after a big fight and cutscene, only to have the game reload before the fight with no warning.

This is the new Slay the Spire but with hundreds of different stories. So you don´t need to be a deck pro to enjoy the game

This game is a compelling alternative to Slay the Spire. I personally prefer StS battle system because I feel like it's faster and there is more card diversity. However, in this game I found a lot of fun in discovering new events and decision making process while traversing the map. If I have too many cards, I'll go eat cactus (it allows to reduce deck size), if I have a lot of AoE damage I'll skip fights with enemies immune to AoE. This is a reason why I can recommend this game to somebody who does not need game for 1000+ hours.

Great rogue-like game with exciting storytelling and simple mechanics. If you enjoyed slay the spire you may look at this game too.

Knock on Coffin its simple wake up play through the route and reach the end easy!
now take that and shove it where the sun don't shine.
yes the core element and rogue like builds on the idea of predetermined part from the base game, however interactions that you have in choosing different areas allows for unique dialogue and information the choices you make mater and key development of character makes it a fantastic replay value music is capturing and engaging allowing the player to feel immersed in the world provided so over all a fantastic game to play well done!

This is the most pleasant surprise in a while, the game exceeds my every expectation and became my favorite in the genre, Between the lore and overarching narratives, multitude of paths and changes in those paths, the bosses, the endings, the way it ties back into itself and secrets its such a joy to be tied with deck building rouge like mechanics, i love it and if you love slay to spire or any game in this genre i doubt you wont love this.

A pretty amazing deckbuilder. It's really narrative driven, which is super fun for a roguelike. Highly rexommend!

There are so many good stories to be told, and many choices to make gotta love that kinda game, gives you a chance to do everything your own way

106 hours in and I still haven't seen all of the possible situations / outcomes.

More story than Across the Obelisk, more card options than Vault of the Void, more re-playable than Monster Train / Slay the Spire

If you're a card gaming fan, this one is a hard recommendation from me

Very cool playstyle with several classes and set items. Would be cool with some randomness in the map and not just static nodes of predetermined outcomes.

The game is pretty fun, a lot of story / event variations, I just wish there were 1 or 2 extra maps before the end of a route. Other than that, recommended.

A learning experience and a roguelike with a very gratifying twist on progress, (in form of story and options being unlocked, therefore changing the way the map and world interacts with the player) therefore making the game and different class/skill options a lot more useful. Some other roguelikes might have build options that remain literally unexplored forever due to how bad they are in comparison, whereas in this game they gain validity due to maybe being useful in the forest area with the elves due to how things interact over there.

Very entertaining and well done, a nice refreshing twist, albeit at the cost of limited replayability.

Loving the game, it is easy to get into and it as an impressive variety of gameplay, way to finish the game, story to learn...

This is a very soft recommendation, but with several caveats.

First, if you're looking for an endlessly replayable deck-builder a la Slay the Spire and Monster Train, this is not it. It wears that style of game as a trenchcoat for what is actually more of a trial-and-error roguelite where each run narrows down which path you have to take on your next run if you want to succeed, and unfortunately that path leaves very little room for deviation or adventuring. This process can be fun initially, but does start to feel grindy if you run into some bad luck and don't win on that run, because next run you're going to repeat the exact same path over again.

There are 3 characters, each of which have 4 classes. The characters do play uniquely from one another, and the classes are different enough for some spice, but it's clear that each character was designed without too much regard for the other classes because some are so busted that you can easy-clear the entire game with just the starting deck (fox Vanadis), and some are so awful that even with optimal deck build and card draw they barely scrape by (lunar druid).

The core of the game (and any game of this nature) is card balance and deck variety. This is probably Knock's biggest weak point, as there are just far too many useless cards and deck builds. The equipment/itemization makes up for this quite a bit, though, as you'll find more variety in your gameplay as a result of those than you likely will with card/deck combos.

In the end, Knock on the Coffin Lid is a decent little deckbuilder with many flaws (language translation and game mechanic clarity is another issue I didn't really mention, but is a bit of a barrier to enjoyment at times), but is still a fun time for a while. Is it up there with the greats of the genre? No, but it's good for 20+ hours of gameplay if you're into this type of stuff.

I'd recommend it on a sale, so long as you're not expecting it to be a mainstay of your library.

Decent deckbuilder, awesome art style - but prepare yourself to aim for very specific builds and map routes should you want to win a run. Endgame requires players to visit key points on the map just so people can get past the final boss's phases.

I personally don't like that. It heavily limits player freedom and creativity.

Absolutely great experience exploring different ways to complete these endless journey!

Knock on the Coffin Lid is an exciting deck-building style game similar to Slay the Spire with a satisfying story, quirky characters, and visually appealing art theme. Unlike other games in this genre, players are able to explore freely on a large map of interconnected clues of disgusting entities, intriguing local inquiries, and quirky MC monologues. Battle scenes are turn-based strategic snippets that will gauge the effectiveness of your preparations as you progress. In the beginning, it feels difficult due to the limited access of cards but as you try different routes, you'll discover lil' nuggets that will inspire you to want to try again and again until you get it straight... -ish... Like, a feeling of "I was so close!". As other games in this genre, the replayability is high so you can stick with one character until you get EVERY achievement, or rotate between the characters once you unlock them all to see how they compare. If you are a fan of Slay the Spire or enjoy deck-building games, you MUST play this game! It's totes worth!

NB: Don't forget to Turn On "Fast Animations" once you get the hang of the game-play, it will reduce your fatigue as you repeat runs during your journey!<3 Enjoy~

If you like deckbuilding roguelike story games, this is very entertaining, challenging, interesting, different routes give different benefits, each of the 3 characters has 5 classes to unlock and play with benefits gained from items that may seem otherwise useless. The game is well done and very replayable!

A very decent semi-rogue-lite deckbuilder with beautiful art-style and interesting approach to story-telling. Neither over-complicated in terms of mechanics, nor too punishing. Definitely recommended if you enjoy this genre in general, and also not a bad choice as an entry point to try your hand in deckbuilding games.

Great game if you like Slay the Spire type cards games. They keep adding stuff, so the story keeps going and it makes you want to try some of your old routes again to see what's changed.

Been playing this game form early access and I love how it currently is, they've put a lot of time and effort in this game and so far i don't see any issues with it, it is a challenging game that makes you think more about your chooses.

I'm addicted. Since I really enjoy playing deck builders, rogue like games this game is perfect.
If you love games like Slay The Spire, Alina of the Arena, Tamer Vale, Griftlands, Roguebook etc.. you should really give this one a try.
At first it can get a bit confusing since it plays a bit different but you won't be disappointed for sure!
I would dare to say, this is my most favorite Roguelike Deckbuilder game so far.

Art style 10/10
Soundtracks 10/10
Story 8/10
Character voices 10/10
Gameplay 9/10

An absolute must-have game in my opinion! It is my favorite Rogue-like Card game of all time so far. In my humble opinion even much much better than slay the spire. Reasoning: (one thing regarding playtime - i already have much more playtime than it shows - I played with the Steamdeck but it somehow does not synch)
- A lovely story that keeps you engaged
- Many many things to explore in Every run
- The level of detail is amazing - for example - if you find armor or items and you put it on, it is immediately visible on your character.
- I love the artstyle
- High replay value

Please just buy the Game to support the developers that did an outstanding job and created a great game!

fun gameplay loop flexable routes and random loot keep the feels fresh

I bought this game as another Slay the Spire and as such I was severely disappointed. Lots of things felt similar, almost too similar. It does suffer from terrible bloat of random effects that are very poorly telegraphed to the player. I liked the items system in principle, but the the game throws bunch of items at you and most of them feel very underwhelming. The plot was fine. While it tried to give it's own twist to the formula, I ultimately felt it was a step back, not forward.

I don't usually write review but let's show some support for the devs. This one is easily one of the best rougelike deckbuilding game out there. Could write more but other reviews do it better.

Enjoy, cheers!