Most card video games, particularly these introduced into the type of a online game, adapt video games we all know and are accustomed to. DECKLINE isn’t afraid to be different on this front. Utilizing the favored Russian card sport Durak because the baseline, I wanted to learn to play, adapt, and, most significantly, win. Nevertheless, the interpretation of Durak that’s unfolding earlier than my eyes isn’t the enchantment of DECKLINE. The extremely oppressive ambiance, sound design, and world are. Whereas the prize for profitable or shedding could be the identical, I don’t suppose some other card sport has had me on the sting of my seat the way in which that DECKLINE has.
Haunting Visuals and Sound Make a Pleasant Recreation of Playing cards Really feel Lethal in ‘Deckline’
Six playing cards are dealt to me, and 6 playing cards are dealt to my opponent throughout the desk. The sound of bullets ripping previous our shelter outdoors peppers my ears. A knife is dropped onto the desk, and it’s my flip to be the Attacker. As I try and learn to play Durak for the primary time in my life, the lights exit, ears are buzzing as artillery is dropped outdoors of our constructing. I panic, reaching for the nervousness medicine on the fitting facet of the desk and the lamp on the left. I don’t understand how a lot time we’ve left, if we’re capable of survive in any respect, so we’d higher profit from our doable final seconds alive.
DECKLINE is haunting. Uncooked, visceral, and terrifying. The visuals, creative but rudimentary, paint the right image right here. All that is still are a couple of troopers, hopelessly greedy onto the smallest hope that issues will probably be okay. They know precisely what the playing cards maintain for them. However they do their finest to stay calm, enjoying one remaining sport earlier than their time known as. It’s horrifically unhappy, however no less than there’s an opportunity you may see the pearly gates as a winner.
DECKLINE isn’t vivid, colourful, or joyful like Balatro. As a substitute, it’s a bleak and disturbing look into the world of battle. There’s a cause why DECKLINE is tagged on Steam with ‘Psychological Horror’. Whereas I return to DECKLINE, decided to rack up extra wins, the ache and terror nonetheless linger inside. Irrespective of what number of instances I’ll win at Durak, I all the time lose.
