Deck of Haunts - Sow Tension and Fear as a Malicious Mansion.

Ever wondered what it would be like to create and play as your very own haunted mansion? Where you get to lure unsuspecting humans into you cursed halls, manipulate their fears and drain their essence. Well Developer's Mantis Games, along with publishers Dangen Entertainment and Game Source Entertainment have done just this and I can honestly put my hands up and say: I love this game.

Welcome gamers, to the devious and strategic, turn-based card game:

Deck of Haunts

In Deck of Haunts, players get to step into the role of a sinister haunted house, where the walls whisper secrets and terror lurks around every corner. As the master of this haunted home, it is the players goal to ensnare humans that have intruded your home and to not let them escape, by playing on their fears and drain their very essence, to expand your dark influence and stop them from reaching the very heart of your home, now when I say heart, I mean an actual heart, beating away within it's own room. Survive 28 nights and you complete the game, but if the humans get to the heart room and deplete it's health, then it's game over and you have to start from scratch all over again. Also it's worth mentioning, that if a human survives and escapes, then the police will be notified and start coming along to investigate and they do have abilities that can render some of your traps useless. Eventually 1 or 2 will turn up with other humans, but it's best not to have a full night with just police only when you are only just starting out. Also there will be specials group of people that will turn up at some point as well - Priests and the Stone Masons. Both can be difficult to tackle and take out, but if you play your cards right and have built a mansion, full of rooms to slow them down and deal damage, they can be beaten.

Where it all began

Let's start upgrading

Time to start being strategic

Build your mansion and craft your deck of haunts

To stop these intruders from reaching the heart, players need to strategically design the mansion, by placing rooms that serve to protect your heart room. Throughout each day time, construct a maze with inside the mansion, filled with traps, scares and unique twists, all tailored to either drive your visitors insane or end their lives. You can also utilize special rooms, each with their own unique powers to aid with the hauntings.

Along the way, players will unlock and collect new cards as they progress. These cards can be then used to include tools of terror like: bone-chilling screams, phantoms, creaking floors and shifting walls, they can also be used to upgrade the rooms to the special rooms.

I love playing the Torment Room card

When night falls these cards become your deck, which can then be used to either scare or end the life of your victims, so you can collect their essence to expand the mansion further.

So there are 2 main types of cards to use: Ones that cause physical pain and will eventually end the lives of the intruders. The other types of cards can drain people's sanity - once a person is drained of their sanity, they become insane. There are other cards that can either inflict both, create tension - which can cause physical or sanity drain to be multiplied, or use traps - like locking a room for an entire turn, or moving a human to another room, which can come in handy if they are too close to the heart room. The more you level up your profile, the more cards and room upgrades you can unlock along the way, which can come in handy for those more difficult groups that turn up.

No one is escaping so easily

Time for a little bit of pain

How long did I survive for?

There are level difficulties to chose from and I decided to play on easy mode, to get myself use to the controls and see how the gameplays as well. So the first time I played Deck of Haunts, I made it to roughly night 7/8, after a lot more of playing and strategically placing rooms, moving them about as well and gaining some new cards and room upgrades, I made it up to night 11/12 then night 20/21 and eventually made it to night 28. I will be honest here even on easy mode, night 28 is difficult to beat. I won't say what groups turns up, as that would be spoiling, all I will say advice wise is: be prepared, get as many room upgrades placed, cards upgraded within the run and make sure your heart room has plenty of health as it's going to need it. I was soo close to surviving the night, but in the end I just did not have enough health to survive.

Try as I might, he managed to slip through

Hauntingly Beautiful Graphics

The look and feel of Deck of Haunts is on point, the gothic design of each room type is crafty and inventive, while seeing a drained human in the fetal position, rocking back and forth before I ruthlessly execute them is pure wickedness.

The 3D top-down view of the house provides a very tangible view of the game’s state, at a glance. Watching the intruder's every move, as they decide which doors to open, when to split up and when to regroup, truly gave me the sense that I was watching a macro view of a horror movie in motion.

Another aspect of the game design that pulled me in and immersed me in the world of the game were the card-based abilities themselves that make up your deck. Each one very succinctly and palpably represents an identifiable horror movie trope, but also fit snugly within the internal logic of the game.

It's good to be deviously evil at times

The ambient sounds work debased wonders for the sense of atmosphere too. No real soundtrack or music is needed, just the clacking of your cards and the sound of scratching, bashing and slashing to warm the cockles of your foul heart.

My Final Thoughts

Honestly I love Deck of Haunts, it brought out a devious side of me that I never knew I had and it was a great feeling to be the villain for once in a game. My only issue with the game, was not being able to heal the Heart Room as much, that option only came up for me once or twice and I know there are room upgrades to build machines to upgrade the health, but its a luck of the draw to be able to get it, I guess I should start believing in the Heart of The Cards more hahaha. I do know there is an update coming out soon, that will include a Creature Starter Deck, I am very much looking forward to this and as soon as it's released I will be giving this ago. Overall whether you’re a die hard horror fan and want to get a little taste of being the evil entity that would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling kids, or if you’re a roguelike deck-builder fan who’s tired of the same old same old, there’s plenty for everyone to enjoy in Deck of Haunts.

Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to take a moment to read this review, your support is always appreciated and means a lot to us all.

Deck of Haunts is currently available on:

Steam

XPN Rating 4.5 out of 5

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