Deck of Haunts review

Instead of stepping into the shoes of a stereotypical hero or villain, Deck of Haunts is an imaginative deckbuilder that casts you in the role of a vengeful haunted house. Each turn in the game’s 28-day campaign is split between two cycles. During the day you’ll expand and customize your mansion’s rooms, building a labyrinth of deadly traps and scares. By night, you use a deck of haunt cards to manipulate, terrorize, and ultimately eliminate nosy intruders, recalling the impish activities of Dungeon Keeper.

Haunts offers a respectable amount of strategic depth, as you work to defend your Heart Room against trespassers that grow increasingly aggressive. Initially, low-level horror film fodder can be dispatched quicker than Michael Myers performing a speedrun massacre on All Hallows Eve. But later, larger groups of cops and priests arrive, bringing the ability to break down doors or having spiritual resilience. Then there’s the stone masons, who are the game’s equivalent of rowdy college kids at an Airbnb. Get rid of them as quickly as you can.

Certainly, the game’s core loop of expanding your haunted house, customizing your deck, and stopping any intruders attempting to escape is both easily absorbed and rather gratifying. If you liked sadistic satisfaction of torturing your Sims or scaring the Sardini family in Haunting Starring Polterguy, Deck of Haunts provides another outlet for mischievousness.

New Fear Unlocked: Lack of Controller Support

Undoubtedly, Deck of Haunts distinguishes itself from the graveyard of deckbuilders with its humor and strategic options. From intruders’ humorous speech balloons, the ability to remodel and add damage-boosting weapon rooms, Haunts balances rewarding mechanics with a bit of macabre playfulness. I’m reasonably certain the Belgium-based developers have committed Tim Burton’s oeuvre to memory.

Pleasingly, each run is distinctive, with procedurally generated intruders and different starting mansion layouts. As you succeed in scaring or eliminating intruders, you earn resources and unlock new haunt cards, room types, and upgrades that persist between runs. Expectedly, this meta-progression means that failed attempts reward you with perks to make your next haunted house just a bit more formidable. That said, I wish Deck of Haunts communicate some elements a bit more clearly. From activating an injurious bell tower to revealing specific meta-game rewards, Haunts is a bit too taciturn.

A lack of controller support makes Haunts frustrating to play on the Steam Deck. But even mouse-and-keyboard traditionalists might run into control snags. Periodically, cards could cover up targets on the bottom of screen, requiring camera movement. Similarly, some of the invader icons lined up on the top right of the screen can have buff breakdowns that obscure the playfield.

The Irony of Dying in the Living Room

Expectedly, you’re going to encounter runs where it feels like you’ve cursed by the random number generator, such is the nature of a roguelike. Humans have two key stats: health and sanity. If either of these empty, they will be incapacitated. As such, success means you can’t always depend on getting cards that targets their physical or mental health. Like a game of poker you might take calculated risks to freak them out. Or you can hope that the game deals out an unlocked card that dishes out damage exponentially. However, the best approach isn’t always direct action, but clever manipulation of your victims.

Despite a few blemishes, Deck of Haunts offers a compelling mix of tactical planning and deckbuilding. While the meta-game progression isn’t always evident, the thrill of scaring the shit out of snoops will likely keep you coming back for another run. Whether you’re a fan of deckbuilding strategy or simply long to play as a murderous mansion, Deck of Haunts delivers a good time.

Deck of Haunts was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.