Psychology-themed deckbuilder Neurodeck is currently sitting at a “mixed” 58% rating on Steam, which is about where I pegged it with my 6/10, but patch 1.1 that released yesterday has already gone a long way toward making it a significantly better game. The biggest problems Neurodeck faced involved a lot of repetitive encounters and the difficulty of building a specific kind of deck, and these are complaints that have been addressed by shortening the campaign, buffing certain bosses, and giving you some early events that allow you to begin sculpting out a playstyle before you’ve encountered your first opponent.
I haven’t had the time to finish an entire playthrough yet, but from what I’ve played and recorded, Neurodeck looks to be moving in a very positive direction. There are already additional events that grant you extra bonuses, and I felt far more creatively empowered in my time with patch 1.1 than I did in my 17½ hours with the prior versions. They even added native 4K support; the release version maxed out at 1440p, so the only way to get the menus and such to display at 4K was to edit the Steam launch options. Even then, accidentally lowering the resolution meant having to close the game and restart it so that those launch options again overrode the in-game resolution selector. Having a built-in 4K option is handy.
According to the patch notes, additional patches will be coming in the future that further refine the gameplay, so Neurodeck is one to keep your eye on. It always had potential when the stars aligned and you ended up with cards that complemented each other. Having more freedom to build in that direction right off the bat is a huge improvement. I can hardly believe that this is the same game as the buggy, unreliable mess that was the pre-release version. Neurodeck was massively improved in those 10 pre-release days, though, and this latest patch is just another surprising leap in the game’s underlying quality.
Honestly, I didn’t expect Neurodeck to receive any patches after players started criticizing just about everything. At best, I figured it’d receive one or two bugfix patches before the game was abandoned forever (the typical indie approach), but developer TavroxGames is clearly putting in the work here. And even if you want to be cynical about all of this, the patch notes state that the Switch port has been delayed until the Steam version has been fully improved, meaning they recognize that the Switch version will be many people’s first time with Neurodeck, giving them an incentive to improve it ahead of that release.
The Switch eShop is less of a gold rush than it was when the console first debuted thanks to some good old-fashioned Steam-like oversaturation, but I genuinely hope that this ends up working out for everyone.
Neurodeck‘s patch 1.1 makes it a much better game first appeared on Killa Penguin
