I can not knock Epic’s annual custom of giving freely a ton of video games each vacation season. The Epic Video games Retailer free video games checklist all the time accommodates just a few massive identify surprises like Loss of life Stranding or Vampire Survivors that I anticipate numerous PC avid gamers already personal, and for individuals who do not it is mighty good to have the ability to decide them up for nothing. In between the massive drops are clearly smaller video games, like as we speak’s—however I might encourage everybody to seize Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles whereas the grabbing’s good. In case you’ve exhausted Balatro already, this underplayed deckbuilder might sneak up on you and swallow your entire vacation break.
“Deckbuilder” is definitely a misnomer there, as a result of though Astrea follows within the footsteps of Slay the Spire, it trades out playing cards for cube, a easy however novel sufficient swap to actually change up how the sport performs. It is also actually fairly, and made by a tiny indie group in São Paulo, Brazil punching method above its weight.
In his 80% evaluation for PC Gamer, Dominic Tarason praised how dramatic a flip in Astrea may be, which is perhaps simply the form of factor you are craving coming off Balatro runs the place you are scoring billions of factors or no matter:
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Free video games to seize over the vacations
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Dredge, the horror-fishing sport with immaculate vibes, is free on the Epic Sport Retailer
“Astrea hinges on an ingenious system known as Virtues, talents intrinsic to every character that develop into usable as you’re taking Corruption harm. These talents can typically drag you out of hassle (most characters have a ‘reroll’ advantage usable on any cube, together with enemies), however they’re a dependable method of dealing harm, which means that you simply’ll be whalloping your self with a nasty die, firing off your Virtues, and therapeutic again earlier than the opponent has time to behave. In case you deliberate proper. If not, you’ll be able to find yourself being knocked over by a small breeze, or simply plain blowing your self up.
“It’s all the time a tense tightrope stroll, and it creates a thrillingly ‘swingy’ sport the place issues can go improper nearly instantaneously should you don’t plan two strikes forward. The saving grace is that the majority characters have three lives (restored when beating a area’s finish boss), stopping a single miscalculation from spoiling an entire run. However these lives may be wagered for everlasting upgrades, one other temptation I discovered turning me right into a gambler. The result’s a deckbuilder the place nearly each single flip is partaking and infrequently butt-clenching.”
Astrea got here out on PC in September 2023 (it simply hit consoles a pair months in the past), and since launch it is gotten a wholesome checklist of updates together with some rebalancing, official mod assist, a day by day run characteristic, and “customized runs” the place you’ll be able to decide and select from a bunch of modifiers to alter up how the sport performs. With these additions it has the pliability that true roguelike fiends lengthy for.
Contemplating Astrea is at the moment $18.74 within the Steam sale, this giveaway’s completely value grabbing and really enjoying, relatively than left to rot in your cellar of uncared for Epic Retailer freebies. Give it a shot—it is completely a hidden gem.
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