There are many deck-building roguelikes that get made, but one caught my eye in the game of Nif Nif. It is the premise of playing as a pig that aims to clean the forest from evil dirty mud.
Game Name: Nif Nif
Platform(s): PC
Developer(s): Springfox Games
Publisher(s): Springfox Games
Release Date: To Be Announced
Price: Unknown
Nif Nif starts by letting you understand the mechanics. Use showers to shield yourself from mud, or tissues to wash enemies off from the mud. Nif Nif has routes he can progress forward in the forest. Each route either has you cleaning up a fellow animal of the forest, a store, or being able to nap at a campfire.
The Good
Nif Nif has fun animations, art, and dialogue. Nif Nif has great interactions with the other animals of the forest. You also get awesome artwork on the cards that can remind you of anime inspirations. For instance, one of the cards is Nif Nif using three brooms like Zoro from One Piece. Getting new cards is always a treat as you can see what Nif Nif gets to do on the card, like surfing.
Nif Nif is probably one of the best entry-level deck-building roguelikes you can have to introduce someone to the mechanics. You start with three action points. You draw five cards from your deck each turn and each card costs action points to activate. Stronger cards require more action points. At the end of the turn, you discard your whole hand.
The Bad
The big problem I had with my time with Nif Nif was mostly that I played only a portion of the game. It was a demo so not everything, nor every cosmetic was available. I went through a full playthrough of a round in just 30 minutes.
Nif Nif does not currently have controller pad support. That is because you need to use a mouse for everything. I used the Steam Deck for my playthroughs and it worked well as long as I kept using the touchscreen rather than the gamepad.
The Verdict
Nif Nif is a great entry point for deckbuilding roguelikes. It was only a demo I played but that’s because Nif Nif is currently on Kickstarter. I highly recommend this game if you are interested in trying out deckbuilding roguelikes but are not a fan of the difficulty that deckbuilding roguelikes have.
Be sure to wishlist Nif Nif on Steam. It will be coming soon to PC.
Review Disclosure Statement: Nif Nif was provided to us by Springfox Games for preview purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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