Recent reviews by Architect

(I have roughly 40 hours on the Alpha at the time of this review, and did a run through with Sal in Early Access to make sure I didn't miss anything majorly different between Early Access and Alpha)

I strongly recommend Griftlands. To give a brief overview, it has great world building and setting, varying and charismatic characters, good dialogue and plot, good music, active detailed art/imagery, and dynamic unique systems around its combat/negotiations.

There have been a lot of comparisons between Griftlands and Slay the Spire, but to clarify, I think both Griftlands and Slay the Spire are very good deck building games, each with their own superiorities. I think that regardless of how Griftlands and Slay the Spire compare against one another, that any fan of one of these would likely find fun in the other.

The main thing I really enjoy with Griftlands is the whole setting of a cyber space galactic alien Heshian whatever the ♥♥♥♥ way to describe this universe, and the surprisingly enjoyable and digestable world building based around this crazy yet somewhat grounded setting. With all the distinct lore, terminology, factions, religion, politics, etcetera, there's a lot to play around with in terms of constructing compelling plot and varying situations to try to play around with each character. This helps supplement the unique aspect of utilizing a negotiation deck alongside a combat deck. This unique usage of multiple decks for multiple kinds of situations and conflicts wouldn't work in many other deck building games like Slay the Spire since their settings don't often have conflict that can be resolved through means apart from fight or flight.

Griftlands also has great dialogue and compelling characters. Despite many of these characters being little more than replacable stepping stones in your path to victory for each run, you can tell how each character has personality and history behind them. Not to mention how even extreme/corrupt characters like Nadan, Oolo, Kalandra and Fellemo each have their own charm and justifications for their morally gray actions and agenda.

The art and imagery throughout the game fits its style very well, and is suitably active and dynamic to make sure it never feels flat or boring. The music is usually on the subtle side, so it isn't too noticable usually, but it fits with the atmosphere very well. That's not to say the music is always focused on being subtly in the background, the boss themes especially (Rook's is my favorite) are awesome.

When it comes to the battle system (both with negotiations and combat) there are many potential synergies and focuses to work with, as always when it comes to deck building games worth their salt. There's a lot to work with for both decks and both characters. I won't go into whether or not this system is better or worse than other deck builders, since that seems more subjective and up in the air due to the sheer complexity of all the different factors and systems to work with in that kind of evaluation.

All in all, Griftlands is a pretty distinct deck building game with a lot of fun and complex factors to play around with, so i'm excited to see how this expands going into the future, since this is still early access and all.










Nadan is best boi

Too much water 7.8/10 IGN
Seriously though great game would recommend