Deck-building and shoot 'em up combine in this fun free browser game

rockpapershotgun.com:

I've never met a deck I didn't want to build, but I don't think I've met deck-building in a shoot 'em up before. That's the offer of Dire Decks, a cute little arcade shmup which you can play for free right now in your browser on Itch.io. As you face down endless enemies, you draw and play cards representing individual attacks and power-ups, drafting new and more powerful cards as you level up. I dig it! In another time, this might have been a wee hit Flash game on Newgrounds.

There you are, a little guy, stood still at the bottom of the screen. Enemies will approach you from the top, and you'll die if they reach and hit you three times. So shoot them. You have a hand of four cards, representing different attacks and power-ups. Select the card you want to play, aim your shot, and let it go. Different attacks and power-ups (single shots, piercing shots, multi-shots, bombs, and more) cost different amounts of energy (which refreshes over time) to play, so you're trying to aim fast but choose carefully, not wasting energy on overkill. And yes, this all happens in real time, not turn-based.

Killing enemies also gives XP, levelling you up. At each level-up, you have to pick one card to remove from your deck and one to add from a random selection. At first, many of these are straightforward upgrades. Swap out a one-energy single shot for a one-energy piercing shot, or a one-energy bomb, or a zero-energy doubleshot. Swap a two-energy five-shot spray for a two-energy nine-shot spray. And power-ups which restore energy, or make shots bounce, and so on. But it gets trickier as your deck becomes quite strong, and what you want it to be, and you still need to add and cut. That's an interesting deck-building decision.

It's a tidy