I Need MORE Single Player Collectable Card Games!

[@aeioufootball]

This aeiou joker needs to fix his freaking game ! ! Oh wait... Wildly insightful video. There are too many things you absolutely nailed about the game for me to mention them all. Just to get into one though, I love the section on asking "when you stop discarding cards". This has consistently been my favorite moment of watching playthroughs from a card game design standpoint, and feels like a player "level up" moment on par with when you realize it's not always right to take a card in Slay the Spire. Cheers

[@Pan.Gaming]

Hey! It's the dev of the hour! Thanks for showing up. :) You've made a delightful game, and I just wanted to talk about it, since I haven't seen anyone else do it. Interesting things deserved to be talked about! And, sorry about the bit of complaining, I just had to put that out there somewhere. Oh, also, thanks for letting me know how Cardaire is pronounced on Twitter, cause this video would have been a lot more iffy if I wasn't sure...

[@oof5600]

W dev

[@yukinohazuki9918]

Where's the damn sleeper agents.

[@Icannotdraw-ug3gj]

They stayed sleeping

[@mohamedelassry6737]

Yeah, it's weird that the Wild hunt isn't here yet.

[@AngelosDeNotitia]

hello there

[@Altaltalt4-js1sh]

Ey

[@Aleksandr_Tararin]

Most sleeper agents transfered to Limbus Company department and received brainrot over the last year, unfortunately. - Limbus Company hater

[@larsthememelord3383]

PROJECT MOON MENTIONED SLEEPER AGENTS ACTIVATED

[@randomdeltaruneguy506]

PROJECT MOON MENTIONED!

[@the_gooberX3]

OPEN THE CURTAINS

[@hauntedhoody2976]

LIGHTS ON

[@randomdeltaruneguy506]

DON'T MISS A MOMENT OF THIS EXPERIENCE

[@lolka_bam]

OH THE BOOK IS STRANGE LIKE CLOCKWORK ORANGE

[@anheyang7545]

~Keep your eyes buttered till the end~

[@Sireington]

One big pet peeve with the menagerie of card videogames is that everyone. Just. Keeps. Doing. Slay the Spire. VISUALLY. Like dude come on what do you mean you have 2D rigs of idle fantasy characters over my options of cards. I really did love the presentation of balatro and inscryption for that.

[@kittywolf6443]

you should try thronebreaker if you want a card game that looks really good xd

[@jaysonata3211]

I’m about to take the plunge into Ruina with no prior experience in the genre so I hope it goes well 😌

[@Pan.Gaming]

Wish you luck with that journey! It's can be rough at times, but the plot/music/gameplay (and so on) is worth it!

[@gumph277]

Thats exactly how I went in and I loved it, if you haven't played the previous game in the series Lobotomy Corporation then I would highly recommend watching "A Brief Summary Of Lobotomy Corporation So You Can Go Play Library of Ruina" by WordsmithVids, it provides a good overview of the game while telling you everything that happens so you can still go back and play it yourself.

[@TheTwelveFixers]

Just wanted to warn you that the difficulty spike is vertical by the way, have fun playing though!

[@BABABABABANCHAN]

solo deckbuilder CCG is a genre that i really wanna make games for in the future, they're so cool (and so are roguelikes CCGs, although in a different way)

[@Pan.Gaming]

I've tried my hand with making a card game before, and it is difficult. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing (I mean video essays are enough of a task in itself for me). But, it's certainly one of the reasons why I love to support and talk about indie devs and small teams.

[@dorian_cthulhu]

I’ve personally made my own card game and website to play it on and yeah it’s hard, I’m studying so I don’t have much time but it’s gradually getting somewhere and even though the game is full of flaws and I’m only realizing this down the line I still love my creation and it was totally worth it

[@april5356]

ProjectMoon mentioned, play Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, and Limbus Company. GLORY TO KIM JI-HOON!

[@chiragasnani3437]

Another game you might like is Cardpocalypse. Its a collectible single player game where you play a new kid in a school where everyone likes playing a specific card game, and use stickers to personalize their cards.

[@DeemoAdd]

4:09 awh hell nah not the discord hug emoji

[@mashin3272]

I have noticed this problem too, almost all single player card games being rogue likes. Inscryption Part II really reasonated with me as well and got me figuring out that apart from games like Card City Nights, Library of Ruina or the TCG Pokemon video game, there's nothing much similar to it. That's part why I'm working on Cauldron Caution. (free demo available) Although it's more subsidiary to Point & Click than RPG, I still think it helps fill this gap and might interest you ! It doesn't have a lot of visiblity but sure does have some fans already which is a big win for me.

[@TorManiak]

Damn, Card City Nights mentioned? That's a deep cut. I wish people talked about that game more, same for the rest of Ludosity's works. I only see Project Moon sleeper agents nowadays with how prolific they've been since LoR made the games popular(saying that as a fan of them: it's tiring).

[@AnaatthiGozo]

This is exactly what I've been looking for aswell. I've been digging up old Yugioh GBA games but those seem to be more just card battle simulators than games with proper progression, still loving the old pokemon and digimon card battlers

[@pie6088]

Yugioh world champ 2011 for ds is really good. It has a story mode and lots of content. I think some people even play it online in discord groups using emulators.

[@conner4707]

We do need more of these games! Shadowverse Champion's Battle is the last one i played that filled this niche. Will have to try this game and the others mentioned in the comments!

[@chiinure2938]

PM mentioned!!

[@bobbleth]

Cross Blitz has an awesome story mode, as well as as a good roguelike mode. I highly reccomend it!

[@Pan.Gaming]

It looks *very* interesting. Going on my wishlist!

[@kittywolf6443]

you should really try thronebreaker, its such an underrated card game heck. Its just deck building as you make story choices and doing gwent for every battle instead of actually fighting, its amazing

[@j6355]

Breach wanderers! Customizable starting deck and customizable draft pool, different heros (and in the beta different skins that give those heros different passives) so that every run feels like you have direct control over your experience, if things dont go well, maybe you made poor deckbuilding choices, maybe your deck is fine and you just need to go in with a different mindset to pilot it. Its a deckbuilder i CONSTATNLY go back to because of the degrees of customization.

[@VixYW]

YES! So much this! We need more games of this type.

[@altrivotzck6565]

What I want to see is some sort of mid-point between these kinds of games and something like Slay the Spire. Something with a longer run time than your usual roguelike, but without taking up the entire time of a full game playthrough. Something like Wildermyth, if you've ever played that, but with roguelikey deckbuilding mechanics. It'd be like playing a run of Slay the Spire, but around 5-10 times longer. I've thought about the idea for such a game before, and I realized a good name for this kind of game would be "Campaign Deckbuilder" You play a campaign full of roguelike-ish relics and cards that lean into specific playstyles with high levels of synergy, and after you end the campaign, you start over from the beginning, with some extra optional starting conditions like the typical roguelike progression, such as different characters, "starter decks", or a choice of starting legendary relic. In the game I imagined for this hypothetical subgenre, you would fight opponents in CCG matches with mechanics reminiscent of MTG or Hearthstone, on an RPG-esque overworld map, while collecting cards and relics, and advancing a skill tree. You would be able to customize and recustomize your deck however you wish, using the cards you've found, with the usual CCG-style deckbuilding rules. In this imaginary game, the enemies would generally be stronger than the player, but each starting character would have their own unqiue way to counteract this, such as (the first character you unlock) being able to see every card in the enemy's hand, or increasing the cost of every card by 1 & having ways to benefit from this increased cost. These characters would also have their own unique cards they can find, unique passive skill trees, and unique choices. Like StS, there would be some special events you can come across that let you access cards and powers unique to other characters.

[@NorthernDruid]

I really liked the deckuilding parts of Potionomics for their innovation in the space, feeling much more in-between a traditional CCG and a roguelite in how the "matches" played out.

[@michaelpoh275]

Project moon mentioned!

[@cubedman5094]

A single player collectable card game i enjoyed is called Cardpocalypse, a story based card game set in elementary school where everyone is obsessed with the card game

[@twilighttricksterXXI]

Awaken ye Sleepers.

[@kritikality]

Great video! You should definetely check out Chrono Ark, its a roguelite deckbuilding game, and the cards you obtain are based off the party you choose (theres also roland and kali mods 🔥)

[@TheTwelveFixers]

HEED MY CALL, SLEEPER AGENTS!

[@Ariamaki]

0:38 Just because it's very funny to me: There's at least FOUR different wikis I can name, including the plain-old busted unlovable Fandom wiki, that have every single card image of every card in Ruina. There's even a dedicated Ruina cards-and-IDs datamined game resource search engine called Tiphereth. Bit of an odd oversight, especially since it seems like you put time into looking, so I've got no clue how you missed ALL of them. :V Video still good regardless, I just had to point it out.

[@Pan.Gaming]

x_x

[@eee1453]

Could you name those wikis? I only ever found the ungodly fandom one

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

I sooo much agree. I played Pokemon TCG on the gameboy years ago and i loved it, played it over and over, even still have a game guide for it that i have refused to get rid of. I would love to see more games like it.

[@adelinehaley9428]

5:33 Based Raviel, Lord of Phantasms reference

[@HappilyMundane]

2:22 AY WHAT WERE YOU ABOUT TO SAY THERE BOI? DON'T BE THINKING YOU'RE SLICK, NOW.

[@nechocat1234]

so in terms of roguelike cardgames I like touhou lost branch of legend, it also has an option to not use the standard initial deck and choose between 3 cards 10 times to form your deck. For a single player game that is like an actual tcg there is this game called final stardust cosmic nexus, it's not great but has soul and you can feel the devs love for card game animes

[@ulkimion]

I've been thinking of making one for oh so long, the genre is so fun! I've been testing the waters making a slay the spire clone, almost done with the first act (at least mechanically), i really want to make a proper card game rpg in the future tho

[@Mimiyan_or_Pikapikafan]

7:00 reminds me of the GBA Yu-Gi-Oh games, especially ones like GX Duel academy

[@Soggy-Clock]

The swarm descends, the lobotomized

[@joshnoritake3167]

Card-en-Ciel, definitely the wildest card game made by the team that also created gal gun double peace and mega man battle network (the actual devs, not Capcom)

[@favgameisundertale1912]

Love this video! If you're willing to try old GameBoy games, I'd recommend Yu-Gi-Oh Early Days Collection. None of the games (to my knowledge) are "Yu-Gi-Oh," even as it was back then. Before Yu-Gi-Oh the card game actually came out, it was just a manga with loose rules, and I'm sure people remember the anime and it's loose rules too. The Sacred Cards and Reshef of Destruction are some of my favorites out of them, and then there's also that really frustrating one on the PS1, Forbidden Memories.

[@DeemoAdd]

Love how there was not a single mention of the magicks deck for inscryption

[@Pan.Gaming]

I, personally, was not a fan of the gems mechanically, and it doesn't really fit the idea of I was going for since it's not really something you can dip into. (Or, at least, I wasn't able to... like P03's wire connection mechanic.) I was a fan of the gems in act 3, however, but that wasn't going into this video, since I just wanted to mention act 2.

[@DeemoAdd]

@ Yeah the magic deck was definitely people’s least favorite

[@kevinsyea]

LIBRARY OF RUINA!!!!

[@techmarinemartelus257]

New paniel gaming video pog. 6:50 the graphics kinda remind me of sword of the stars the pit since I tried that again recently. Out of interest have you tried monster train I think it counts? Another mucho bog video though

[@onyxxcrimson]

WAITER!! WAITER!! MORE SINGLE PLAYER COLLECTIBLE CARD GAMES PLEASE!!

[@OmegaStuck]

New paniel video, time to fill my wishlist again

[@phantom2533]

nice! I was looking for something like inscryption 2, thx for recommendations

[@draconite7515]

Nahhhhh take me to the dungeon 😭. Based youtuber ngl

[@DonutDMerlot]

marvel's midnight suns is a fun card-based strategy dating sim. It regularly goes on sale for 10ish dollars. Also the voice acting cast is stacked. Highly recommend! (the male player character voice is a lot better than the female one. Idk why, but she sounds so bored all the time. The iron man voice isnt amazing either, which is weird since Josh Keaton is great and does a great Ironman usually. Could just be the writing idk. Everyone else is great fun tho! If you spring for the DLC, morbius has a fab VA)

[@oof5600]

Open the curtains!

[@moritzw.7030]

Lights On

[@mohamedelassry6737]

Don't miss a moment

[@Illumin4re]

Of this experiment

[@Nekotya]

Oh, the book is strange

[@Atrixse]

Like clockwork orange

[@Croadly]

If you need another great card game after this, i highly recommend cross blitz. Its got a roguelike mode where you fight for high scores to unlock new areas, characters, and starting gear. It also has a story mode where you can play as one of 5 characters (with more on the way). Each character has their own story mode with dozens of maps to explore across multiple chapters, replayable matches, fully customizable deck, and the graphics throughout the entire game are absolutely beautiful!

[@benzur3503]

Monster train is really lovely

[@stevejohnson1078]

Play 'Dream Tactics'!!!!! It's more or a strategy RPG rather than 'pure' deck vs deck gameplay, but it's really good, and it deserves so much more love than it has gotten. Out of the games you listed, I'd say it's closest to Library of Ruina with each character having their own deck as well as personal passives that you get to set and build around. Probably my top game from 2024, if you liked the mechanical depth of Ruina then you'll love this too. But if you're looking for specifically 'single player version of multi-player card-games' then I would recommend 'Recesses' which is exactly just that. It's definitely on the small side, but it's priced fairly, and has a deceptive amount of depth to it. Or if you don't mind roguelikes then I'd recommend 'Isle of Swaps' which is a roguelike deckbuilder largely based off of the Pokemon trading card game.

[@Selnathorn]

It is unbelievable how rare non-roguelike CCG deck builder are. The only other one I found was Cardpocalpyse although I dunno how good the game is as I have yet to pick it up.

[@Kiyokoghurt]

Can I reccomend a few REALLY good single player cardgames? Steamworld, Hand of Gilgamech is great, pretty visuals and collectable slowly. Cross Blitz is in its beta but has gorgeous pixel art and unique board based mechanics based on your color/class. Chrono Ark lies on the rogue-like card game ish but god the story is incredible and has some of the best deckbuilding mechanics and party system makes really unique combinations considering how many there are. Dungeon Drafters is a grid-like deckbuilding rpg-like game where you earn boosters by clearing floors. Its a semi roguelike where you farm randomly generated towers to get packs, but you keep all cards you aquire, get special cards via quests, and upgrade over time. I would reccomend it.

[@cookiekraft4534]

Are you talking about steam world quest? because imo all the steamworld games are great, and I would definitely agree with this recommendation.

[@Kiyokoghurt]

Steamworld! It autocorrected sadly, but yes that

[@bugstuff2121]

finally! someone mentions griftlands. even if it's literally just a hard to see piece to see on the thumbnail it's better than nothing!

[@swizard]

Give "Card City Nights" a try, both games are short gems. Another which was a solid 7/10 was Kamifuda. It's nearly impossible to find these games, as roguelites dominate the genre so hard

[@IAmNotCreative2498]

Another non-roguelike singleplayer cardgame with RPG elements is Etherlords II. Its old and a little clunky, but it looks a lot better than Cardaire. I also enjoyed card city nights 2, as it plays very differently from most other card games.

[@DekuLord]

There was a game called Hex:Shards of fate that was a fantastic entry in this genre that is sadly now unplayable. The game was a standard Digital TCG that was almost identical to Magic, but it had a single player mode and it was everything I could have wanted for a single player card RPG. What made the game really stand out is that as well as the standard card game mechanics, it had a level up system, so my Rabbit Cleric could get a couple copies of a 0 cost heal that drew a card added to their deck, and generated a free 0/1 token whenever they played a rabbit card, and a bunch of other minor boosts. The game was fantastic, but is sadly a casualty of always online gaming and can no longer be played.

[@gameboom7579]

PM MENTIONED!!!

[@vwxyz345]

Dude shadowverse champions battle was made for you. Its a switch exclusive but id highly recommend it. Its super fun, single player rpg deck building/battling

[@JedSea]

This is my #1 genre. read all the comments to see if I miss some games. The game that nobody mentions is Vanguard Dear Days. very expensive though EDIT : also, Aces and Adventures

[@Spytefull]

The writing in Dear Days is so damn cheesy, I love it. Helps that I love Vanguard in general, but still. W recommendation, there's a second one coming out this year I believe

[@angelovanderstad2264]

this game looks like it mixes the good parts of both yu gi oh and magic to a fenominal degree

[@metaKnightSpamer777]

the game 'Cobalt Core' gets my fullest recommendation;

[@lotahota6627]

You should play Recesses. It's a similar game where you get to discover the secrets of the universe while throwing all sorts of cute, scary, gross, and weird guys into the black hole.

[@GuardianChipO]

This feels like you want the yugioh tag force games or yugioh world championship ds games.

[@MegaDBZBT3]

Anode heart has a ccg attached onto it that's pretty good if you're also willing to play Digimon on top of it

[@tks_haki]

3:26 no shot, how uncreative can a company be. Just take vowels as company name. Awesome well done. Who ever came up with this Idea, needs a raise xD Have you ever played "Voice of Cards"? It is not as challenging as any of the games you mentioned and also not a deckbuilding game. But for some reason came into my head and might be a game you could enjoy. The music and Story (I played The Isle Dragon Roars) was pretty nice. Probably something arround 10-20h Gameplay (storywise)

[@Pan.Gaming]

I think I tried the demo for one of the games and was interested, but I never actually got around to buying it. I'll have to put it back on my radar if the supreme Haki is suggesting it.

[@CandleBite]

Weirdly of all things "Marvel's Midnight Suns" is a Deckbuilding Tactical RPG too. Also The Megaman Battle Network/ Starforce series are all Action/ Deckbuilders

[@Milkydotnet]

I don’t think anyone has mention this but I think you might like this game called Cobalt Core which is on steam, I can’t describe the gameplay well enough but I believe you might find it fun

[@MacUnderscore]

the board game community has a distingision for this actually! deck builder vs deck construction! you want more singleplayer deck construction games and i do too!

[@elseifgames129]

It's an older game, and it's been long enough that I don't know how well it's "deckbuilding" aspects hold up, but check out Baiten Kaitos. It and its sequel were recently remastered.

[@_The_Gem_In_I]

You should have a look at Cards of Heart, another slept of Adventure CCG game

[@theinfomaniac8988]

I'm not sure if this one really counts, but Marvels Midnight Suns is a surprisingly good mix of deckbuilders and Xcom. Its extremely underrated and nobody talks about it.

[@jademonass2954]

i honestly think we need more singleplayer card games that are like structured like inscryption and undercards simple-ish games that havr card slots and the cards themselves battle i dont quite like slay the spire or dicey dungeon because they dont use the cards as the "attackers" and "blockers"

[@tinvahtaric8680]

Spiral Knight Siege Rhino reference 😂❤❤❤❤❤

[@OneCatProductions0734]

I don't know if you would like this game, but Dicey Elementalist is a decent mobile card game. It is like 5 dollars for every character and is a rougelite heavily inspired by dicey dungeons. I've put in nearly 100 hours and have had some fun making crazy Stealthy-Ice builds. I don't know if it would be up your alley though, as it is more like act 1 of inscryption rather than 2.

[@AntennaPen]

Hexaria. You'll love it!

[@Plaugus_Screenz]

Ah i remember playing the Pokemon Gameboy card game fun times sadly i believe I misplaced my copy and my Gameboy has a damaged bleeding screen

[@Zanerus]

Steam world Quest might hit the want.

[@maxxsaigen5301]

It plays like a fire emblem game with cards, but dream tactics might help scratch your itch. Its a collectable card game with deck building but plays like a fire emblem game where you use cards to attack. Pretty well designed game and is definitely not rougelike/rougelite. And if you have a switch, shadowverse on the switch is basically a single player ccg based of the ccg on phone/pc. Thats another good recommendation and has a whole story mode and side stuff going on. But outside of that, I'm with you, I wish there were more single player ccgs out there that aren't just rougelikes. Library of ruina definitely filled the niche and was an overall high quality game which probably helps in making it memorable. I wish we could get more of that.

[@ilovemywhiteshoes]

whenever pm is mentioned it’s like ravenholm in hl2

[@indan]

As someone else mentioned, Cardpocalypse is this exactly. Isle of Swaps is another game in this genre. Eternal is a TCG that includes several campaigns and single player roguelike draft runs in the game but its still using the TCG model of having to put money in to get more out or grind so, definitely a grain of salt there despite it being a solid game (since Hex: Shards of Fate is dead.) Take Met To The Dungeon definitely falls into that more puzzley side than building a good deck and has a super limited card pool but if you're willing to throw in card games that have roguelite runs in them with consistent meta progression then you should look into Across The Obelisk. It's single player (but can be coop) with heavy meta progression and roguelite runs, but i also fixes your stated issue with not being able to modify your starting deck since you can spend currency from your previous run to change decks to a saved deck for that character on the new run. You might also be interested in Breach Wanderers which is definitely more Slay the Spire-like but also has some meaty meta progression and is just a great card game.

[@indan]

Ah shit forgot to throw in Gordian Quest, if you can stomach a grid-based combat tack on and a LONG campaign then this is right up your alley.

[@protege6383]

Library of Ruina my beloved I wish for LoR 2 despite knowing LC2 is what’s on the way soon Also building smoke is the best in general it’s way too fucking broken

[@chibisatan2901]

Ima reccomend 2 games here, Floppy knights and Dream tactics. Theyre both deckbuilding games with tactical rpg combat. I'll say to just give them a look to see if its your thing as trpgs can be pretty hit or miss with how people like them

[@darknesudarknesu6439]

You might enjoy cardaclysm and cardpocalypse, both singleplayer card collectible. As we descend also intrigued me, but the game hasnt been released yet only in beta, and its roguelike, but seems unique.

[@TGT30]

Reminds me of Joustus from Shovel Knight: King of Cards.

[@peavuh]

joustus my beloved (i literally made an irl set for myself to play with people because its very fun)

[@TGT30]

@peavuh Based.

[@sealoverlord5120]

Hey so, as a ruina fan...What are some games that you would reccomend? im a big nerd for deckbuilding utterly out there builds (Like...My Sweeper reuse builds on Ruina, where i gamble for either 12 or 260 damage every turn.)

[@okamifan9419]

If you want more single player card games you should try the yugioh ones and with the early days collection coming out in February its becoming available

[@theendofthestart8179]

I 2nd this, I played the a lot of the game boy advanced games and enjoyed them as a kid, idk if they hold up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@kiptheott]

System Crash is a pretty good cyberpunk-themed singleplayer CCG. I'm pretty sure it was made by one guy, so the presentation isn't spectacular, but the game itself is solid.

[@4ehoBek_4ehoBek]

Chill we are getting slay the spire 2 soon

[@MokoES]

Fate extra record will be coming this year as a singleplayer deck builder too. Look foward to it

[@marcodragon4995]

Cardaire sounds like if Hearthstone was good, definitely gonna have to give it a shot sometime!

[@Przemko27Z]

Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is may not be quite what you'd want, but it's singleplayer, not a roguelite and has card collecting, so might want to look into it.

[@Pan.Gaming]

It does look cool, and, at the current sale price, I'm picking it up for later! Thanks for the suggestion!

[@Oyakinya-Izuki]

What about the steamworld quest

[@bionichuteagain2583]

may i recommend anode heart layer null

[@Rehoblack]

DISTORTION APPEARED IN DISTRICT 12 OPEN THE CURTAIN

[@Rikuearth]

Would Cardpacolpse fall under what your looking for?

[@MarlonMolina-x2i]

You didn't think we won't notice the elephant in the room right 🤨 Also obligatory PM mention, get the agents here.

[@aereonexapprentice7205]

Recommending Take Me To The Dungeon is like recommending Boku No Pico, minus the trauma or the unexpected awakening

[@OrionCorvus77]

Pan Gaming peak has returned!! (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

[@mechtroidProductions]

I'm looking forward to giving Cardaire a try, but this video does remind me that there's literally nothing out there like Library of Ruina, and that's a damn shame.

[@Pan.Gaming]

Everyday I wait for a single player card game to match the length, layered complexity, and general greatness... which is why I've gone through these other games. They're all good! But, not Ruina good.

[@tangerinecceden1750]

Potionomics has a moderate amount of deckbuilding, however one drawback is that I feel like there is a "right" deck to use once you hit mid-late game.

[@PrincessFelicie]

*MTG "Shandalar"* (or *MTG 1997* or whatever else you wanna call it) is another single player collectible card game that's worth checking out -- though, due to its age, it suffers the same problem as *pokémon the card game the video game* for game boy of not necessarily having aged well. There's also a big library of *yu-gi-oh* single player ccgs from all decades and consoles... Ironically enough, my favorite is dungeon dice monsters on the GBA, and that's dice, not cards. Oh, and I'd be remiss not to mention *Gwent Thronebreaker* as my personal gold standard for the genre. *Potionomics* is half singleplayer haggling CCG, half potion-brewing simulator -- love the game, hate half of it, despite my best and multiple attempts otherwise. The haggling card game is great, the potion-brewing balloons in importance over the course of the game and it is already a slog to get through to start with, so needless to say I never finished that particular game. Mishonorable mention to *animation throwdown* and its ilk... The card collecting and upgrading aspect is grindy fun, but its endgoal is obviously to be microtransaction fuel, so it's fundamentally limited by its dark patterns. If there existed a game like that that wasn't predatory nonsense, I'd be all over it. (yes it's technically asynchronous multiplayer rather than singleplayer, but come on... fighting-player-ghosts-type async multiplayer is as singleplayer as it gets) Okay, that's about all the ones I could think of off the top of my head!

[@PrincessFelicie]

Okay no nevermind I forgot another, and how could I forget it: *Steamworld Quest* ! Same deal as Thronebreaker, it gets to be on the top shelf for exceptional merit

[@Pan.Gaming]

Thanks for all the recommendations! While I have heard about Shandalar before, I haven't actually looked into it. And, I have actually played Potionomics! As a business major, I had a good time with making the potions, and an even better time with the haggling card game. Although I could have done without the time restrictions. I think I only went about half way through it before I stopped played, and when I went back to it, I forgot what I was planning sooooo... yeah. Again, thanks for the recommendations! Looks like I've have some stuff to look and play through now!

[@BlueTemplar15]

Fun fact about "Shandalar" is that it might actually have been the last game designed and programmed by Sid Meier ! (He was too busy starting and running his own game studio after that...) More importantly, "Shandalar" (and its non-story-mode other side of the coin "Manalink") was quite extensively modded over the years, look up on the SlightlyMagic forums. But most important of all, fans got motivated enough that they've started doing their own remake of "Shandalar" a few years ago : Forge Adventure Mode !

[@WisePenguin007]

@@Pan.Gaming I was also going to suggest Shandalar. Played back in the 90s and it was exactly that. An RPG where you had to travel the map, fight encounters which would drop cards, explore dungeons and fight bosses in a MTG style. All colors and mechanics from the card game were included in the game, as it played exactly like the tabletop, just against the NPCs which were themed around their own element.

[@mechtroidProductions]

SHIT WAIT A SECOND. I just realized while reading your review of The Game that Shall Not Be Named on steam... Buddy, that's Gloomhaven. Have you played Gloomhaven? Only considered one of the best tabletop games of all time, and there's a digital version that you can play entirely singleplayer if you'd like. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend you give it a look.

[@Pan.Gaming]

Haven't actually played Gloomhaven singleplayer, but I have played the one on Steam with my brother a bit! It's got some really interesting mechanics in it, and I keep thinking I should play more of it!

[@bluejaybrother]

from a fellow ruina lover please please PLEASE play chrono ark