The Verdict
“A content-rich StS-inspired deckbuilder with great art and a clever multi-hero party system, hobbled by broken translations and undisclosed online-only DRM.”
Mostly Positive
Above the median for reviewed Steam games.
Analysis by Ivan Z. Ganza · Methodology →
Quick Stats
230en
781 total (all languages)
229 analyzed
Current as of Apr 27, 2026
Jan 15, 2023
$14.99
Apr 23, 2026
0.1/day
Slowing
Metadata current as of Apr 27, 2026 · Source: Steam
Market Reach
≈25,000
≈$140.0K
Based on 781 reviews (all languages)
Based on review count × genre/age/price-adjusted Boxleiter ratio. Gross revenue before Steam’s 30% cut, refunds, and regional pricing.
Design Strengths
- Multi-hero party system — sidekicks join gradually, each adding one draw and bonus energy, keeping deck focus on the main hero while delivering a genuine sense of party growth
- Rune system replaces single-upgrade-path with attachable rune cards that modify individual cards, adding a second layer of customization and RNG depth
- Card replacement on pickup lets players maintain a tight, intentional deck rather than accumulating bloat — praised by a vocal subset as the best change from the StS formula
- 12+ distinct characters with unique class cards, talent trees, and dedicated story modes deliver genuine per-character replayability
- Anime-style artwork is consistently cited as a visual standout — detailed character designs and animations make the world feel alive
- Up to 20 difficulty tiers with selectable partners and procedural talent trees create substantial build variety across runs
- Per-character story modes unlock after completing a normal run, adding narrative reward for progression beyond the roguelike loop
Gameplay Friction
- Cards must be clicked to read their effects — hover-to-inspect is absent — making card evaluation significantly slower than genre peers
- Rune modifications applied to a card are not reflected on the card's display (outside of energy cost), leaving players guessing at augmented effects
- Default difficulty is widely described as trivially easy for experienced deckbuilder players; one-turn kills are common in early acts, removing tension
- Dragon's Abyss endgame mode has damage-scaling imbalance where boss HP and attack outpace available defensive options, effectively gating high-difficulty completionists
- Difficulty settings lack descriptions, and the UI does not communicate how modes affect run parameters or progression
- Map routes are short (max ~15–20 tiles across 3 chapters) with few branching events, making individual runs feel thin despite total content volume
- Card replacement mechanic is polarizing among engaged players: those who want classic deck-management tension find it trivializes a core deckbuilder challenge
Audience Profile
Ideal Player
A patient roguelike deckbuilder fan who wants 100+ hours of character variety and build experimentation at a budget price and can overlook rough text quality.
Casual Friendliness
low
Player Archetypes
Not For
Sentiment Trend
stable
Insufficient recent review volume to determine trend.
Genre Context
The roguelike deckbuilder genre is dominated by titles with highly polished UX and precisely tuned difficulty curves — player tolerance for ambiguous card text or missing hover-inspect is near zero. Indies' Lies differentiates through a multi-hero party system and rune-based card augmentation, but its lack of hover-inspect and translation quality fall significantly below the genre baseline players arrive expecting.
Promise Gap
Audience Match
The store page targets broad deckbuilder fans with emphasis on content volume and lore depth, but the actual audience skews toward patient, genre-experienced players willing to tolerate rough UI and translation quality. Casual or genre-newcomer players implied by the accessible price point are disproportionately the ones leaving negative reviews.
Player Wishlist
- Expanded map size with more branching events per chapter to reduce per-run repetition
- Multiple tiered final bosses unlocked progressively (classic roguelite ascension model) beyond the current Dragon's Abyss
- Wider music variety to reduce audio repetition across long play sessions
- Story modes for every character, including those currently missing them
Churn Triggers
- Within the first 1–3 hours, new players unable to understand what cards do — due to untranslated or garbled text — stop playing before reaching the first boss
- Early acts are so easy that experienced deckbuilder players disengage before discovering the difficulty scaling system, leaving after 2–5 hours with 'nothing challenged me'
- Players attempting to play offline (travel, commute) discover mid-session that unlocks do not save without an internet connection, triggering immediate uninstall
- On first launch, some players hit a red-screen startup error with no fix available from support, churning at zero playtime
Developer Priorities
Disclose the online-only DRM requirement on the Steam store page and add the appropriate feature tag; evaluate whether offline unlock caching is feasible
The two highest-voted reviews in the dataset (209 and 155 helpful votes) are about undisclosed online DRM — this is the single largest trust and refund driver, and it actively misleads buyers
Commission a native English copyedit of all 700+ card descriptions, tooltips, and character names to eliminate mistranslations
Translation errors are the most frequently mentioned issue (30 reviews) and directly break the core gameplay loop — players cannot make informed card decisions, causing early churn
Add hover-to-inspect for all cards (in hand, in shop, on reward screen) and display rune modifications on the augmented card face
Absent hover-inspect is the top UI complaint and compounds translation issues — players must click to read every card, multiplying friction across hundreds of decisions per run
Revise default difficulty upward or add a recommended difficulty prompt for players with 50+ hours in deckbuilder games
Early-game triviality is the primary reason experienced deckbuilder players leave before discovering the game's depth; 33 reviews cite balance as a friction point
Fix Dragon's Abyss damage scaling so player defensive options scale with boss HP/attack at difficulty 14–20
Endgame balance failure cuts off the players most invested in the game — exactly the high-playtime audience that generates word-of-mouth and positive reviews
Competitive Context
Most frequent comparison by far. Some reviewers call Indies' Lies a genuine improvement — more characters, card replacement, rune system — while others call it a near-1:1 clone copying cards, events, and terminology without sufficient differentiation. The comparison cuts both ways depending on reviewer investment in StS.
Cited as a comparable genre peer; some reviewers prefer Indies' Lies' character variety, others favor Monster Train's mechanical distinctiveness and challenge.
Referenced as a similar multi-character deckbuilder in the same competitive space; no strong valence expressed.
Named as a comparable roguelike deckbuilder; reviewers place it in the same genre category without extended comparison.
One reviewer called Indies' Lies 'a bad copy of Slay the Spire and Gordian Quest,' implying it borrows heavily from both without sufficient differentiation.
Cited as an alternative deckbuilder with comparable map and deck-building mechanics; no clear preference expressed.
Sentiment History
Sentiment over time
Playtime Sentiment
Sentiment by time invested
· 136 post-launch reviewsPlayers who invest more time rate this game significantly higher (+56pts) — a strong signal of a slow-burn experience that rewards patience.
Competitive Benchmark
Compared to 344 similar games in the Strategy genre released in 2023.
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