This one is a bit different, and not because you’re playing a rat in a French Musketeer outfit.

Part of it’s an auto-battling card game; your character gets in a fight and proceeds without your input, drawing and playing cards in order, and after a minute the fight will speed up to the point where you can’t quite make out which cards are being played. They’re flying around, numbers are popping up, status effects are making your health bar catch fire or bubble with poison, and other cards are bouncing off the enemy’s health bar to knock it down.

It adds up to a bit of spectacle, though, and its cute art style didn’t overstay its welcome during my run.

The other half of the game is where it gets a bit more engaging; it’s basically the part of Slay the Spire where you choose paths that lead you to bonuses and card upgrades and more gold to spend.

Then it’s on to the next fight. Sometimes you’ll have the choice between three NPC opponents of varying strength; if you imagine not to be auto-curbstomped by a harder foe, you’ll get more rewards. If you lose, you get nothing.

Sometimes, though, you’ll face off against another player’s deck… allegedly.

You win the demo by beating six other players before losing to four, and in my first run I went 6-1. I’m OK at deckbuilding but not an intuitive genius who can insta-guess a new game’s mechanics and meta; either the matchmaking took pity on me, or at least some of the “other players” were bots. Easy, easy bots.

(I was matched a couple of times against a “bunny” character that isn’t available in the demo. And the full game isn’t out yet. Hmmmm.)

In many multiplayer games where they can’t guarantee enough players for matchmaking, bots are a necessity, but again, these ones were frigging easy. Maybe the devs think that’s a selling point; are they catering to players’ power fantasies by letting them all “win” in “PVP” matches? If so, it might work for some, but for me it left a bad aftertaste.

…that’s the only real gripe I had with the demo, though.

A price isn’t listed for the full game yet, but Sokpop games tend to be inexpensive.

I played a fair bit of Slay the Spire (but haven’t gotten around to its sequel quite yet); by the time Grail comes out in a few months, I might be in the mood for a slightly more “beer and pretzels” deckbuilder. Wishlisted.