Aces & Adventures

About

Aces & Adventures is a single player tactical role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Triple.B.Titles and was released on February 23, 2023. It received positive reviews from players.

A poker-powered deckbuilding adventureThree tables stand in a circle of stones in the misty heart of the old woods, forming a portal to a soaring world drawn from the pages of ancient Norse and Middle Eastern mythology. There, you will embark on a journey to save Cardrasil, the Life Tree, from the evil that gnaws at her roots. Each card of the enchanted deck she entrusts to you are leaves plucked …

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86%

Audience ScoreBased on 999 reviews

story80 positive mentions

grinding25 negative mentions

Innovative gameplay combining poker mechanics with deckbuilding and RPG elements, offering unique classes and strategic depth.
Beautiful presentation with detailed card art, immersive voice acting, professional narration, and atmospheric sound design.
Multiple game modes including a story-driven campaign and roguelike adventure mode, providing extensive replayability and progression systems.

Some arbitrary game design choices limit poker hand usage and create balance issues, leading to frustration due to reliance on luck and RNG.
Clunky and unintuitive UI and menu navigation, including a poorly designed deck editor and confusing progression screens.
Performance issues and poor optimization, including problems on Steam Deck and occasional crashes, along with lack of proper controller support.

story
304 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
26%
71%
3%
The story is an engaging, fully voiced narrative woven into a poker-based rogue-like RPG, praised for its compelling storytelling, immersive voice acting, and unique fairy-tale aesthetic. While the plot is often described as somewhat simple, occasional and corny, it effectively guides players through character-driven chapters and offers replayability through branching paths and multiple modes. Some players find the story repetitive or slow-paced between fights, but overall it complements the gameplay well and enhances the experience, especially for those who appreciate narrative depth in card games.
- “The campaign mode follows a story-driven path with handcrafted encounters and narrative events. It’s presented through stylish storybook pages, fully voiced narration, and hand-drawn artwork, lending the game a fairy-tale aesthetic with darker mythological undertones.”
- “The story mode contains branching paths that will give you some replay value as well as other randomly generated maps in a slay the spire style rogue-like mode. With all story being told through cards, with assistance from some fantastic voice acting and visual and audio effects to help immerse you in the adventure.”
- “This is a beautiful game with really fun card mechanics and engaging story. The story chapters are a small 'run' with voice acted narration between fights that are pre-determined and hand crafted, and in between fights you sometimes have 2 paths to choose that are actually very impactful and change the run immensely adding replayability despite it being a linear path to the end.”
- “The storytelling is neat the first time, but having to click through all the story cards again just to progress to the next choice/fight gets annoying, and having all these random animations to sit through for all these random things that have nothing to do with gameplay gets annoying, mostly things like menu transitions.”
- “Main thing you do is to stumble from one uninspired story card to the next, never knowing when you will encounter the next opponent instead of another scrap of the mythological story.”
- “The story has been done 100 times by other people, and much better.”
gameplay
259 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
58%
3%
The gameplay of "Aces and Adventures" offers a fresh and engaging blend of roguelike deckbuilding and poker-inspired mechanics, featuring diverse character classes with unique playstyles and strategic depth. While the core mechanics are addictive and innovative, some players find certain poker rules unintuitive or poorly explained, and the tutorial lacks clarity, which can create a learning curve. Overall, its satisfying gameplay loop, variety of enemies, and progression systems make it appealing for fans of card battlers, despite occasional balance issues and performance hiccups.
- “Really enjoyed a spin on game mechanics, how even the same character has different playstyles (also fighting more advanced enemies requires a different approach to tactics etc).”
- “Aces and adventures is a unique blend of deckbuilding, poker mechanics, and turn-based RPG combat that carves out a distinctive identity in a crowded genre.”
- “What elevates aces and adventures from a simple poker gimmick to a deep strategy game is how it intertwines these mechanics with distinct character classes and narrative-driven missions.”
- “So many of these mechanics aren't explained and really don't make sense in practice even after 12 hours.”
- “The mana system is a major grind, seems like it needs some tweaking/rebalancing, but the gameplay and the general atmosphere of the game are immaculate.”
- “It's a unique twist on the genre incorporating poker into the game modes, although there are unintuitive mechanics such as if someone plays a pair you can't beat it with three of a kind, and vice versa, which is the opposite of how poker works.”
graphics
107 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
53%
43%
4%
The game's graphics feature beautiful, hand-drawn artwork and a charming, fairy-tale aesthetic with strong voice acting that enhances immersion. While the visuals are often praised as stunning and creative, some users find them overly flashy and occasionally distracting for a card game, with optimization issues causing performance drops and overheating on certain hardware. Overall, the graphics deliver a polished, unique style but could benefit from better optimization and interface clarity.
- “The artwork is outstanding, the voice work is great, the immersion is great.”
- “From beautiful card artwork to enemy designs to the leveling system, everything just looks great, feels great to play, is great.”
- “Extremely polished single player card game in terms of presentation, artwork, cardbacks, card art in general, voice acting, all top notch.”
- “Combined with regular graphic bugs and a sluggish pace, this is a serious thumbs down, and I'm uninstalling now.”
- “The graphical settings overkill made me laugh a bit - it ran sluggishly and made my GPU very hot when I first started it, but turning the settings down made it behave reasonably.”
- “Yes, it's still early access but the developers seem to have gotten their priorities backwards with unnecessarily detailed graphics and voice acting being put ahead of basic playability.”
replayability
49 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
49%
45%
6%
The game offers high replayability through its combination of narrative-driven campaigns with branching paths, multiple unique characters with customizable decks, and roguelike modes featuring escalating difficulty and procedural elements. While some note that replay value may decline after reaching max level or completing all content, the variety of playstyles, progression systems, and game modes provide extensive strategic depth and long-term engagement. Minor improvements like additional enemy types and clearer UI could enhance replayability further, but overall it is praised for its depth and lasting appeal.
- “Set in a mythical world filled with Norse and Middle Eastern influences, the game merges narrative-driven campaigns with quick, replayable challenges, offering both story and strategy in equal measure.”
- “There's also a ton of replayability here with the roguelite elements of the several different characters who all play very differently with their own unique decks and you can level them up and unlock new more powerful cards the more you play them.”
- “The game has mechanical depth with permanent upgrades for five characters, customizable decks for each character, slots for a variety of decks to adjust your playstyle, a full story mode with a variety of challenges (and great voice work!), and a very replayable branching traditional roguelike mode.”
- “While the card mechanics are brilliant, the game could benefit from additional enemy archetypes, more environmental variety, and perhaps deeper narrative branches to enhance replayability further.”
- “The replay value is solid, but you get the feeling that it won’t be the same once you reach the max level.”
- “I don't think there's a huge amount of replay value, and some of the characters could use some rebalancing, but overall definitely worth checking out if you're into games like this.”
grinding
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
4%
96%
Grinding is often described as a significant and sometimes tedious part of the game, with many players finding progression, leveling, and achievement completion slow and repetitive. While initial gameplay remains engaging and fresh, the grind can become exhausting, particularly for completionists and those aiming for higher ranks. Despite enjoyable core mechanics and visuals, the grind combined with awkward UI and lack of meaningful choices can detract from the overall experience.
- “8 hours in and it still feels fresh, not grindy, not RNG heavy, and enjoyable to play.”
- “The amount of grinding necessary to unlock everything is simply too much.”
- “Just know that there are big asterisks on enjoyment, there isn't a whole lot of depth or growth, and there's a lot of grinding to get there.”
- “Not knowing how many more stories to finish a season and not being able to see at a glance what rank I got on all the decks completed so far make it seem super drawn out and intentionally annoying and grindy for achievement hunters.”
optimization
22 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
59%
27%
The game suffers from noticeable optimization issues, particularly in the main menu and on weaker hardware like the Steam Deck, where performance can be choppy and GPU-intensive. Despite these problems, gameplay itself remains smooth enough on medium settings, and turn-based mechanics help mitigate the impact. Overall, while not optimized for low-end systems, performance issues don't significantly detract from the core experience.
- “The game is paced so that once you've unlocked everything and played for perhaps hundreds of hours, you'll still discover new combinations, optimizations, and ranking (speed) techniques.”
- “It can struggle a bit more on the Steam Deck GPU than I'd expect but it is fine at medium settings, FSR is available and you can get good enough performance running 1080p on the Steam Deck for an external display such as a TV.”
- “Know that there are some performance issues on weaker machines (Steam Deck included) but at least in my experience it doesn't ruin the game since everything is purely turn-based.”
- “A roguelike deckbuilder with very good mechanics, visuals and sounds but poor optimization with lots of stutters and no gamepad support.”
- “Just one slight issue: why is the main hub area such a stuttering mess?”
- “The main menu is a textless 3D area with clickable altars, which for some reason has really bad performance and doesn't look very good.”
music
19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
63%
21%
16%
The music in the game is generally praised for its atmospheric and well-crafted soundtrack that complements the mythical and strategic tone without being distracting. Users appreciate the high production value, with sound design and voice acting adding warmth and personality, though a few find the music somewhat bland. Overall, the soundtrack and audio effects are considered a strong, immersive element enhancing the gameplay experience.
- “The atmospheric soundtrack complements the mythical tone without overwhelming the action, and the voice acting, while not always top-tier, adds warmth and personality to the campaign narrative.”
- “Music/sound design 9/10 fantastic soundtracks that inspire and set the scenes, combat sounds fantastic, card drawing and interactions flow together near seamlessly once you know what your deck does.”
- “The music and sound design is amazing as well as the animations and the whole setting.”
- “They should have just left the background music in.”
- “This game initially looks quite interesting, but you quickly discover the gameplay's quite shallow, and the voice acting and music are relentlessly bland.”
- “The soundtrack isn't anything too special, but I think that's great.”
atmosphere
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
58%
42%
The game offers an immersive and charming atmosphere enhanced by unique lighting, an atmospheric soundtrack, and satisfying visual and audio effects. Voice acting adds warmth and personality, while the detailed design elements create a convincing tabletop experience. Overall, the atmospheric storytelling and engaging ambiance significantly enrich the gameplay.
- “The atmospheric soundtrack complements the mythical tone without overwhelming the action, and the voice acting adds warmth and personality to the campaign narrative.”
- “And every single area and encounter of this game is coupled with unique lighting that bathes the board in atmosphere.”
- “The way the atmosphere, lighting, and audio changes from scene to scene despite all taking place at a table is mesmerizing.”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is consistently praised for being funny and refreshing, often enhancing the overall experience with a distinct style and charm. Players appreciate its witty elements, comparing it to a lighthearted, Dungeons & Dragons-like adventure with engaging and amusing gameplay.
- “This game exceeded my expectations: very funny, with a distinct style and a new and refreshing gameplay.”
- “Funny game, but I want to view all of the cards I can get, so I think it would be better if the producers could make a card library in the game.”
- “Game modes include five lengthy adventures which feel like something out of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign set, although with the sense of humor fans have come to expect from the Triple B Titles dev team.”
stability
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
80%
The stability of the game appears mixed, with some users experiencing frequent freezes and crashes, while others report a bug-free experience with no glitches or issues. Overall, stability may vary depending on individual systems or user familiarity.
- “Excellent game design, wonderful stories and graphics, bug free.”
- “I enjoy the game itself, but it freezes and crashes very, very often.”
- “Cool game, tactical, but buggy, just a heads up.”
- “I have experienced zero bugs or glitches as well, and I think most of the complaints from other reviewers are from them not having spent enough time with the game to understand why things happen.”
emotional
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users have mixed feelings about the game's emotional impact; while some find the world-building and role-playing deeply immersive and emotionally engaging, others feel the writing lacks emotional depth and fails to resonate. Additionally, unexpected free content like a cute cat-themed deck can evoke strong emotional reactions from players.
- “The creation of the world, the creation of life and death, was immersive and emotional to experience.”
- “And then role-play in sync with your card choices, and get that emotional bonding.”
- “Edit: I just noticed there is a free cosmetic DLC to have a deck with cute cats. I am emotionally devastated I already 100%'d the game without knowing this :(”
character development
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
33%
Character development received mixed feedback, with some users finding the story and character design corny and amateurish, while others praised the visual aesthetics, highlighting the beautiful character and card art.
- “Going further with the art, the character designs and ability cards are gorgeous as well.”
- “The card art and character design is also beautiful.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game features no microtransactions but is criticized for its time-consuming mechanics, which some players find frustrating for a single-player experience.