I Love This New Trading Card Game Roguelike!! | Let's Try: Isle of Swaps

Play the Demo / Wishlist Isle of Swaps: store.steampow...
The lunch bell rings and everyone rushes out to play the Critter Card TCG! Build your deck by swapping with those you defeat, rip open booster packs for shinies and conquer your friend's Dungeon Decks as you become the Critter Champion (for this recess at least).
The Let's Try series is a way to preview / review games in order to get my first impressions through the first moments of gameplay.
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[@Jargak]

This was a fun video to watch, and I'm glad the game is getting attention. Since I'm a playtester for this game, I'll try to explain some points in greater detail for anyone looking to try the demo out.
- Every turn in battle you get to play 3 cards, swap 2 cards from your hand, and swap your critters around 1 time. There are stickers to increase these numbers (as yous saw with Energy Drink in the tutorial and Teleporter in one of the trades);
- Almost every status effect in the game has a static effect, and the number is simply the duration/stack count. So if a Critter has 6 stacks of Power Up, that just means he'll have +2 Attack for 6 turns;
- The only exception to this is Poison, which deals damage equal to amount of poison stacks on the critter, then halves the stack count;
- Status effects (Burn, Shock, Poison, Thorns) always do a fixed amount of damage and are unaffected by resistances or Defence;
- At 08:00 the Status Immunity did prevent the Soak, those 2 were the ones you had from before (since Soak doesn't decay unless hit with an Attack). The way it works is similar to Artifact in Slay The Spire: it prevented the next instance of getting 2 Soak, which is not the same as getting 1 Soak twice. Hope this makes sense;
- As you correctly noticed, the Spot cards do not stack and simply override whatever effect was on there before. Useful to remove a negative spot on your side or a positive one on the enemy;
- The upgraded "+" Critters aren't obtainable and are there to serve as a bit of a challenge: they have better stats and an upgraded ability (for example, Tweesk + would heal for 6HP on every attack instead of 4HP);
- For the trades, obviously the inteded way is to trade Rares for Rares (or at least a couple of Uncommons), but if you have a lot of Common cards, you can trade 3 for one Uncommonon, then trade again and again until you have all the cards you want. This isn't the intended way, but the option is there should you need it;
- There are pros and cons to running decks of one/two/three types. If you want to run a tri-type deck, your best bet is picking one "main" Critter and two support ones that are relatively self-sufficient;
- The balance in the game right now is more aggresive-leaning, so if you want to have an easier early game, pick Wallablaze;
- For the fire nuke situation at 38:00 that's just what happens when stars align. Sadly I haven't been able to recreate the success of the Burn build myself (due to lack of 3-critter encounters in the demo) but if you blade your cards right, you the player can pull out a few nasty things as well.
As for the sound/UI issues, rest assured these are being worked on. Either way, hopefully this helps and I hope you'll have fun playing!

[@letsmakeit110]

that binder was a dirty trick. All the nostalgia rceptors i can smell the pages through my screen

[@etherkye2]

This needs a series when it's finished!

[@CTrems]

interesting that rare cards decrease your deck size. Typically a smaller deck size is better, so you get better cards and a more consistent deck.

[@fuzzforce2000]

Thanks so much for checking out the demo, and saying the game has potential is a great compliment indeed!

[@donaldsnyder1543]

Interesting. Hope you do a series when its fully out.
Hopefully they correct some stuff.

[@ameliuhs]

very cute!! I love the playground/recess vibes, what a good aesthetic for this kind of game :)

[@alainbourassa1998]

This look is very nostalgic and well thought out.

[@santeciaprice6146]

Cool card game. This is something I'll play if it came out on the Switch

[@rodrigoarias5699]

nuzlocke mode?
EDIT:ohhh its like the pokemon TCG, but you also catch them, that's a neat idea.

[@prcklypear3963]

Guessing your critters die forever when they get taken out instead of reviving after the battle, as per nuzlocke challenges for the regular Pokémon games.

[@TheeSilentObserverz]

They could make rouge like map

[@nehpets216]

It's a Pokemon style game that feels like playing the Card game instead of the Pokemon game?

[@Skunkfan76]

I think this was made by the same people who made fuzz force Spook squad

[@Retromation]

5:23

[@gameman876]

Hey reto. I know the game is a little old but would you ever do a playthrough of tunic?

[@pepper9238]

very cool

[@cowboydad6373]

burn seems a touch overtuned.

[@Timlagor]

The "vibes" are all very well but the time wasting is going to get old very quickly.

[@leoametle4157]

first :)