Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit has released a new autobattler card game called Dancing Duelists. The game is available for free on itch.io and features a cast of different characters, all with their own decks, who you level up between dance-offs with new cards and abilities. It's way better than it has any right to be.
Don't get me wrong: this comes from a three-week game jam, and so the core is there but there's little wider structure, and I ran into one or two minor glitches over several runthroughs. But this is as good a proof-of-concept as you'll play, featuring 10 characters with unique deck styles, a range of power-ups you apply as you progress through the dance-offs, and the delicious trick of letting you get overpowered as hell.
My first attempt was with Disco Dan, whose key card is called spin: it only deals one damage, but then allows you to play another card. With enough of these in your deck, and specific cards that can buff it, you can spin and spin and spin: the only downside being that after a certain number of spins, Dan gets dizzy and the turn ends.
Even then that's a simplification of how you can build-out this character. But Disco Dan and I didn't quite mesh, and after getting absolutely walloped by some self-healing tree thing I decided to try out Boom Boxer. Now we were cooking with gas. This character is a heavy hitter with a vigor mechanic that can further buff the damage, and after winning a few dance-offs I'd added enough good cards and abilities to basically turn this thing into prime era Mike Tyson.
Boom Boxer lost one dance-off but was so overpowered by the end of the run it was almost comical. Even this was as nothing, however, next to the clown I picked next called Carnival Carry: all
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