Deckbuilder games offer a fascinating gameplay mechanic that can be simultaneously casual and deeply strategic. A well-designed deckbuilder game has the potential to become a captivating experience that you can sink hundreds of hours into, and games such as Slay the Spire, Balatro, and Griftlands have proven that they can take many forms.
Dark Sky, developed by Ganymede Games and published by Midwest Games, is a narrative deckbuilder set on an alien mining planet facing a crisis. We create a party of unique characters, build and upgrade our decks, and face our enemies in tactical combat. The RPG adventure and narrative elements made Dark Sky different from some of my other favorite games in the genre, and I was curious to see how it played out in the game.
We start Dark Sky as a spaceship is attacked and crashes into the mining planet we work on. We have to evacuate, and on the way, we fight a few enemies in a short tutorial, familiarize ourselves with the exploration and interactive elements of the world design, save our friend, and have him join our party. It’s a flashy and exciting start, with tutorials integrated perfectly with gameplay, and a narrative that made me invested in the fate of these characters from the first few minutes. We get to the surface of the planet, where other residents are gathered to analyze the damages and decide on how to move forward. We meet a few more characters from other alien species, and recruit another member to our party to help with the most immediate issue; finding a water filtration gadget to replace the one damaged by the crash.
I quickly felt immersed and invested in a masterfully done opening section, but I slowly realized that this quality wasn’t going to hold up for the rest of the game. Dark Sky‘s narrative falls into the scifi and fantasy trap of using proper names and bits of lore without any previous context, and while they do make sense eventually, it hurts the pacing and the relateability of the story. And it’s such a shame because even short bits of explanation as tooltips whenever these terms came up, would’ve helped a lot with understanding what the characters are talking about.
Despite this flaw, I eventually found my way back to the flow of the story. Each character has their own unique story, and even though it took a while for me to understand the world and the history and relationships of each character, the payoff was worth it. We explore the planet, doing the quests and tasks entrusted to us, and recruiting new characters to our roster. The exploration is a weird bit of Dark Sky. It’s not an open-world game, and most of the encounters and narrative bits are linear, and I rarely found any hidden or interesting secret while navigating the world. On the other hand, the environmental designs and atmosphere of different areas looked great and gave me a better grasp of the world between combat sequences. I wished there were more gameplay intensives to encourage exploration, but I can still appreciate the beauty of the scenery and art style. I also want to acknowledge the fantastic UI design of Dark Sky. For a new game with tons of new keywords, effects, and mechanics, I never felt lost or confused about what was going on in combat.
The gameplay of Dark Sky follows a similar trajectory to the narrative design. It starts strong, but it can’t fully capitalize on its strong foundation. At the very start, we control one character with a single deck of cards. As we recruit more characters, each of their unique decks will be combined into our draw pile at the beginning of combat. We can select up to three characters to participate in each combat, and with each of them having their unique decks, cards, and upgrades, the potential for exciting combos and strategies was endless. However, the interactions between characters and their unique mechanics were underwhelming.
While there are cards that can buff other allies, and certain conditions applied on enemies can interact to create more powerful effects, the game design of Dark Sky doesn’t encourage and empower these interactions nearly enough. Often, the best strategy was for each character to do what it’s best at, and hope for one or two combos to happen on their own. The combined decks of three characters could sometimes be a hindrance rather than a help. There are preparations and combos for each character that can empower their next attack, for example, but having a draw pile of three different decks meant that the chances of us drawing our next piece of combo were lowered.
Dark Sky‘s difficulty was another aspect that didn’t help with my enjoyment of the game. I wasn’t expecting the same level of difficulty as some roguelike deckbuilders offer, but challenging combat is one of the main draws of these games for me. In all my time playing the game, I rarely lost combat and had to start over, and even then I didn’t feel the need to make drastic changes to my decks and plans. Dark Sky doesn’t want challenging combat to get in the way of the story, but in doing so, it hurts both the story and the enjoyment of gameplay.
While the visual design and the overall atmosphere of Dark Sky offer a charming and memorable experience, the story and gameplay feel on the cusp of greatness, but it just falls short of it. Nevertheless, for the 20$ price tag, it’s a worthy experience if you enjoy deckbuilders.
Nima played Dark Sky on PC with a review code.
