Neurodeck claims on its store page to be a “psychological deckbuilding card game to challenge your fears,” which basically means a deckbuilding card game where your opponents are all physical manifestations of phobias. This is represented in interesting ways; Squalophobia (the fear of sharks) will eat your cards, while Masculinity has low HP but can wipe some builds out in three turns thanks to its massive attack buff. I’m also incredibly impressed by how polished the version I’ve been playing today has been, which is particularly impressive given how many bugs were present in the version I first got my hands on 10 days ago. I noted at the time that it would require a herculean effort to fix even a small number of the problems I encountered, but every issue I brought up appears to have been addressed, with the only potential bug I noticed being a small controller quirk.

That’s not to say that Neurodeck doesn’t have any problems, though. Each successful playthrough unlocks a higher “resilience” level that hobbles you in some way, and by the time you reach the maximum resilience level of 5, it’s possible for some starting characters to lose the very first battle due to RNG. There’s also a lot of repetition; phobias always use the same attacks in the same order and are tiered to create a difficulty ramp, so you’ll fight a lot of the same fights over and over again while trying to build a deck that complements your character. And when you’re done, there’s rarely a sense that you’ve accomplished anything beyond unlocking a higher resilience level. Even once you unlock the game’s only unlockable character, her second and third “emotion” starting decks/perks aren’t available (and from the sounds of it, may never be if Neurodeck doesn’t sell well). What’s interesting about that is that one of the achievements requires beating the game on a mode that isn’t currently in the game and may never be.

The writing here is so random, slow, and missable that it’s pretty obviously not the point

One of the biggest surprises in this psychological deck-builder was how little its characters mattered. You begin by selecting a character (until you unlock Jupiter, you’re stuck with Lei) and can sometimes unlock passive traits—perks, basically—from two possibilities by choosing answers on a questionnaire, but none of this says anything about Lei or Jupiter as people. The only time they have any thoughts or personality is during events where the “start reading” button is present. This is easily ignorable, and even if you notice and press it, the absurdly slow pace of the text crawl will ensure that you never again bother. Even if the text was faster, though, the stream of consciousness writing details events that barely flesh them out as people. Honestly, I don’t know why Neurodeck even bothered to include this stuff. All the writing manages to be is meaningless, optional filler.

Neurodeck‘s gameplay can be fun when the stars all align and you get the right cards

Card games (and strategy games in general) tend to excel when you’re afforded the flexibility to create many different builds and overcome the same difficult bosses in different ways. This is one area where Neurodeck succeeds, allowing you to create builds based on stacking damage-dealing status effects, stacking beneficial statuses on yourself, small decks that allow you to control which cards appear and when, big decks full of cards that can be played freely, and so much more. Despite appearing simplistic, a lot of complexity can arise once you start unlocking and obtaining powerful new cards that complement each other. With the right cards on hand and a little creativity, you can finish off late-game bosses on your very first turn.

The two resources you’re constantly juggling are stamina and sanity, with the latter serving as your health. Losing all of your sanity results in a game over, while cards can only be played if you have the stamina to afford doing so. You and your opponent take turns attacking, with each phobia running through a list of 1-5 attacks and communicating their next attack ahead of time. During your turn, you’re given three actions to play cards with, though ending your turn with actions intact will restore some of your stamina. Cards can also restore your stamina and/or sanity, so you can choose to play defensively on some turns.

Lei has the “mind focus” ability that can draw one card (two if playing on her “surprise” emotion) at the cost of 8 stamina and one action. Jupiter, meanwhile, can’t draw cards beyond the two that are auto-drawn at the beginning of each turn, but she has a meditation meter that some cards can increase, and some cards can use this as a multiplier. Reaching 5 meditation points, meanwhile, grants her an extra turn. There are also some unique cards that each character has; I typically focused on building up “rage” while playing as Lei because it granted me a +[however many stacks of rage I had] damage to every damage-dealing card that I played, whereas Jupiter can build decks full of cards that don’t expend an action but burn through her stamina. When you find the cards you need to make a build reach its full potential, it can be a beautiful moment.

Even once you build an overpowered deck, though, you still have to be careful about which phobias you go up against. For example, Nyctophobia places cards into your deck that damage you when drawn, so going up against it with a small deck is almost guaranteed to be a death sentence. Mysophobia, meanwhile, removes your status effects (and puts negative ones on you), so builds that rely on building up rage over several turns will struggle to deal enough damage before it wears you down. Every build, no matter how powerful, has a phobia that can stop you in your tracks, but you’re given the freedom to choose from two possible encounters, and that helps you to focus on phobias you match up against more favorably.

Being able to avoid phobias is a double-edged sword that opens the door for repetition

While giving you the option to select one of two possible phobias to face off against was 100% the correct call, it does mean that you’ll fight the same bosses 2-3 times per run, with many of those early fights being nearly identical. Your first fight is usually Arachnophobia or Haptophobia, and since you only have access to a starter deck during these fights, the only real strategy is to out-damage them. The underlying problem is that there are only 14 phobias to go up against in the entire game, including three possible final bosses. That means 11 phobias divided into several tiers, so you’ll often face off against the same phobia several times during a run to avoid going up against something your deck would struggle against.

Neurodeck‘s final bosses vary wildly in difficulty and are randomly assigned (unlike earlier levels, you’re given no choice for who to fight in the last battle), so you can make it to the last level and get crushed by an absurdly overpowered final boss. Usually Phasmophobia. Then you have to start over and hope that you get cards that fit your build.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll ever get the cards you need. Higher resilience levels start you off with a negative status ailment that damages you ever turn, and this can be added to by some opponents, but I’ve had runs that never saw a single status-clearing card offered.

I’ve also had Jupiter runs where I focused on cards that deal 12 damage when her meditation meter is at 0, only for every post-battle card to come with a meditation increase, forcing me to skip them. Randomness influencing your build is a feature in every deck-builder, but it feels especially limiting here. Neurodeck needs to make it easier to find certain types of cards (possibly by adding an event that allows you to remove an entire card type from the pool of what’s offered) to avoid the wasted runs contributing to the repetition. This is a game that can be incredibly entertaining and strategic when you have the correct cards—as evidenced by the excellent Mental Trials mode that gives you a deck put together specifically for each fight, tasking you with beating unusually strong opponents by finding the most effective way of using it—but you can only struggle against RNG for so long before the shine is worn away.

Neurodeck would benefit greatly from more opponents and options to spec into a deck, basically. Absent those, more Mental Trial fights would be great, because that’s one of the game’s current highlights despite how few fights there are. It’d also allow the devs to increase the amount of content without having to design and animate new opponents, which is likely a costly and time-consuming process given the uniqueness of the art style.

The visuals and music are unique and memorable, but neither have enough variation

There’s a lot to like about Neurodeck‘s boss art, with each phobia having tons of personality while being made up of nothing but 1-3 colors and negative space. It’s the little touches that I really came to appreciate, such as the way all of Haptophobia’s hands give you a thumbs-down upon being defeated. And while Phasmophobia is horribly balanced in-game to the point of being a run-killer, the way it gets closer to the screen to laugh in your face is a great little detail. I wouldn’t mind more variation in terms of backgrounds and color schemes, though; right now, every level is the same bluish shade, and there’s no reason why backgrounds couldn’t be tinted a complementary color to help the player appreciate their differences (which are easily overlooked because of their similar colors). I also like Neurodeck‘s music, with the main menu’s piano being one of the highlights for me. However, too many tracks use the same background music. In fact, the Theophobia final boss is the only fight I can recall having different music. Having more phobia-specific music would have helped to sell the differences between them, but instead, the repetition causes it to blur together.

Story: N/A Gameplay: 4/6 Visuals: 1/2 Music: 1/2 ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ – 6/10
*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

*A Steam key was provided for this Neurodeck review. I worked around the many bugs in its pre-release version for about 12 hours, then played the mostly bug-free release builds for another 5 hours.

Neurodeck review – Fun, but I fear it’s undercooked first appeared on Killa Penguin