App Army Assemble: Heck Deck - "How good is this card game meets bullet hell shooter?"

Heck Deck is described as a bullet hell card game, which is an interesting mix of genres. The game was first released earlier this year but has since received a free content update that introduces several new cards. So, we thought it was a good time for our App Army to check Heck Deck out and share their thoughts.

Here's what they said:

I really tried to like this one. I really did. Heck deck has an interesting gameplay premise. Bullet hell shooter mixed with a card game. My problem with it stems from the controls and flow of gameplay. Controlling it feels awkward. You control your character (a ghost, I guess?) by dragging the screen, trying to dodge the rocks and projectiles on screen. On the bottom of the screen, you can swipe cards up to use them to attack and heal.

My biggest problem is that every time you take your finger off the screen, everything stops. I believe this is so you can pick a card without worry of being hit, but it completely throws off the rhythm of dodging and shooting. Interesting concept, but the execution needs work in my opinion.

This game is perfectly fine. It's got an interesting enough premise, and the gameplay is fairly engaging. I couldn't help but compare it to the far superior Backfire, unfortunately, but barring any unflattering comparisons the game works fine. There are no technical issues and the graphical style is clean, if somewhat boring. I definitely would not pay for it though.

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Heck Deck is a combination bullet hell shooter/deck building. You battle on a single screen and try and destroy geometric shapes that spew out cards you must pick up to use to win. The twist is you take damage when picking up most cards (health ones don’t do damage) so you have to keep an eye on your health as you battle, pick up too many cards and it’s game over. Everything stops when you don’t move mechanic stops you get overwhelmed.

What lets the game down is the touch controls, your character is controlled by the movement of your finger, but you have a turning circle for changing direction. This makes aiming hard and the game gets frustrating quickly. Which is a pity cos the game looks and sounds good but it’s so frustrating to play it’s just not an enjoyable game.

Upon reading the description of Heck Deck I got really excited. A game combining two distinctly different genres such as a bullet hell shooter and a card battler sounded awesome. To some extent, it lives up to the hype I got myself into. It can get quite intense avoiding incoming fire(cards) while trying to line up return fire(cards).

Experimenting with different cards is fun too, both defensive and offensive ones. As there is no tutorial it takes some getting used to the mechanics of taking damage to get new cards, and I still don´t know if that is what I am supposed to do. You can tweak the gameplay quite a lot letting the action pause when not moving your formless protagonist in space.

That helped me a lot to get into the card-battling aspect of the game by toning down the bullet-hell shooter aspect. The graphics are truly bare-bones in a kind of Baba is you-kind of way. Functional, but no eye candy. The music got annoying fast too. Controlling what looks to be spermatozoa in space, avoiding and shooting cards is as funny as it sounds in my opinion.

The graphics are simple and look good for the game. I didn’t care for the music so I turned it off. You might like it. Control is a bit awkward as the best control area puts your finger right over your ship. You can control from other screen areas but then control is less precise. And you need precision here. Ultimately I liked that “shortcoming” because it added to the bullet hell vibe. When I first started playing, I was disappointed that there was no tutorial. But the fact is, that little bit of learning the hard way makes this game even better.

A bullet hell game should get you shot and hurt a few times as you learn your way around. Click on the little button towards the lower right to see what your cards can do. They come with interesting abilities, including added health. Get hit a few times to learn when you get new cards. Overcorrect a turn (and pay for it) a few times to learn that most things you even clip will damage you. I didn’t get a lot of time to play because of my work schedule but I could see that there are plenty of levels to play, so I have a lot more to look forward to. I’m a fan of bullet hell games as long as they’re as interesting as they are challenging. And this one is.

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