Disclaimer: I am basing this review on the demo, not the full game. At the time of writing, the full game is not out yet.

In Deck of Haunts You play as a haunted house trying to deal with the humans entering your domain. Play cards at night to deal with the humans and build you house during the day. All while trying to protect your heart from the meddling humans.

Developed by mantis
Published by DANGEN Entertainment

You can find the Demo here and the Full game here.

---

Gameplay

During the daytime you can buy rooms to build your house at the cost of essence. If you place the same type of room next to each other, they will combine into one larger room. The new room will be of the same type. This is needed for special rooms since they need a certain room size. Some of those rooms are.

Bell Tower – It draws humans into the room. You can crush them with the bell by playing a certain card once acquired. This deals massive damage. You can also trap this room with cards to deal effects every turn a human is in the room.
Cost one essence to upkeep.

Heart Room – Your heart, humans will damage it upon entering the room. If your heart is destroyed its game over.
Cost one essence to upkeep.

Phobia Room – Drains two sanity on humans entering the room as long as the room is not investigated.
Cost one essence to upkeep.

Alter Room – Store a card here to increase the number of cards you draw every turn.

---

At night, you play cards to deal with the humans that enter your house. The cards cost action points. You gain more action points at the end of each turn. At the end of each turn you also discard your hand.

The cards you will play can either drain a human or damage them. Do enough of either and you will kill or turn them insane. Both are worth two essence at the end of the night. There are certain cards that consume the human this is worth three essence.

There are also trap cards that you can play on rooms meeting the requirements. Each card will produce different effects based on the card played.

At the end of the night, you can add a new card to your deck. To win the game you need to survive a certain number of nights.

---

The Humans

Humans will move about the house randomly each turn and can investigate a room.

Humans have a health and sanity bar. You can empty their health bar and kill them. Alternatively, drain their sanity to turn them insane. The humans will run away if they see a corpse or reach your heart room.

If a human gets away, the next humans will be stronger. Humans can have traits. These can be buffs or debuffs. For example, they can heal a random human every turn. Alternatively, they can lower the sanity of the humans they’re with every turn. There is a good number of traits to discover as you play.

There are special humans as well that enter your house at night. The one special humans in the demo was.

Stone Mason – They have magical abilities. To deal with the supernatural, they will path directly to the heart room. When they reach the heart room, they will start a ritual that damages your heart every turn.

---

Should You Play?

I will say YES. You should at least check out the demo. See if this is the style of game you like. This game has me excited for the full release. I can’t wait to see all the rooms and the special humans. That will try to destroy my heart.

The gameplay pace feels good. Getting a new card after every night to make my deck stronger. It makes me want to continue playing to use the new card. I especially enjoy the bell crash card because it is so satisfying.

Trying to create a maze of rooms with different effects to help depose of the humans and slow down the special humans is fun. I bet that once this game is fully released, people will create really cool haunted houses.

Thank you so much for reading this post if you would like to read more click here. If you want to be notified when I publish a new post, sign up for the newsletter. You can do this by entering your email down below.

---