Cobalt Core is a brilliant and spectacularly polished indie mashup of Slay the Spire style deck-builder rogue-lite and a more action-y Faster Than Light space dogfight simulator. The overall structure and loop of the game is effectively identical to Slay the spire: you’re presented with a branching map of encounters (fights, rewards, events, shops, etc), and choose your routes through an act. You’ll pick up new cards for your deck, and attack, block, heal, etc via playing those cards in turn-based combat. There’s three acts, and if you survive to the end you’ll get a delicious morsel of plot and start a new loop.

The core difference between this and Slay the Spire is that combat is a 1v1 space dogfight simulation. Your ship on the bottom, their ship on the top. Both ships are made up of a couple blocks with different types like wings, fuselage, cannons, missile bays, cockpit, structural bracing, etc. Every turn you’ll see intents from the opponent, similar to StS, but here you also see which lanes they’re going to shoot, if they’re going to fire a missile, if they’re going to charge shields, etc. In addition to all the normal card things, you also have the ability to evade or disable. Evade is similar to Block, it’s a resource you can build and consume, but you can use it to physically nudge your ship left or right at will to either dodge a shot or aim your cannon(s).

Another departure from Slay the Spire is how decks are built out: instead of a mono-color deck, you build out a tricolor deck based on which 3 crew members you take on your loop. This is pretty neat because instead of having a whole deck that has to include all your utility cards, unique cards, etc, each crew member can have a limited and focused set of cards and you can build out your potential deck pool or style right from the outset. You also unlock more characters as you go, and each has a specific mechanic they bring to the table, as well as their own unique artifacts to further modify and customize their builds. In addition to characters, you can further customize a given run by swapping to alternative ship models, or just ratcheting up difficulty.

This game is incredibly polished, it’s cute, has some great clean pixel art, great soundtrack, and has a TON of charm and heart. While you’re battling, a good chunk of the screen real estate is dedicated to showing your crew’s portraits, all constantly animated, and all reacting to what’s happening, congratulating a great shot from an attack-focused crew member’s card, or shouting out a catch-phrase when they use one of their rare cards. I usually prefer very strictly utilitarian user interfaces, but this really works and significantly enhances the vibes of the game.

I’ve gotten a few wins so far on normal, and the game feels very balanced. It’s hard, but not impossibly hard. You’re going to get beat up, but there are ample opportunities to repair, and can choose a harder or easier path as you go. And there’s so many difficulty modifying levers to fiddle with that should it ever end up feeling too easy I’m sure I’ll be able to dial it in to a level of difficulty I prefer.

I have nothing bad to say about this game, I only have adoration and hopes that it expands to more platforms. This game NEEDS an iPad port. Same as Slay the Spire, I will gleefully buy it again day-one on iPad. Highly Recommended.

2024-01-04 - Addendum⌗

This was the game of my winter vacation. Many many more hours, wins, new characters, etc. If I wasn’t personally playing it I was back-seat co-piloting another game. Review BodyI unlocked (nearly) the full crew, most of the ships, and feel I have a much more complete sense of the game. I really like some of the alternative ships! The smaller one with dual cannons is my favorite, but I appreciate the drone-focused one as well.

I also really like most of the unlockable crew members, they give you a ton of flexibility in how you want to shape your run, if you want to focus more on movement, combos, scaling, etc.

There are two crew members, though, – Isaac and Max – who I really didn’t vibe with. They’re not bad, but they’re just distinctly Not My Jam. For one of them, I get what they’re going for, but for the other, I just couldn’t get them to Work.