I've grabbed more than a handful of deckbuilding roguelikes off the app store shelves just to see what's up, and none has come close to impressing me as much as Dawncaster. While this game has its rough edges in places (balance in particular), in terms of raw fun it deserves to be in the conversation with titans of the genre like Slay the Spire and Monster Train. Rather than having strictly separate classes, it incorporates a Magic-style color system where your player levels up stats which contribute colored energy which in turn determines which cards are playable.

This nails the feeling, core to the genre, of gradually and carefully assembling an absolutely unbeatable synergy engine, taking carefully chosen risks to pay off later down the line. Each class has plenty of juicy themes and strategies which expand even further once you enable additional card sets. Cross-class synergies dovetail nicely with multiclass-specific cards, giving tons of depth and replayability. I was really shocked by how fun this was, and I'll definitely be returning to it again over time.

Reviewed on Mar 14, 2023


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