Gemblade by Ace Benoff stood out to me on the store page. The character art was really striking and I wanted to take the time to play it to see what it had to offer. I’m so glad that I did. This is a game that I will use as my own personal benchmark for the level of polish that I need to reach for my games.
The game plays similarly to Star Realms, but most people may be more familiar with Dominion. The single player aspect makes it appealing for me because I could sit down and play this game if I’m feeling the itch for this style of game. There was a period of time where I was actually playing Star Realms on mobile, but I much prefer this system.
As a smaller developer, there are so many challenges with making games. One thing that Gemblade does well is in the use of character art from artist aekashics. The art was definitely the thing that got me to click in the first place, but I still really enjoyed my experience playing the game and was delighted to find out that it was based on a game I already loved. If the player feels like they were taken care of from the moment they click on the store page to the point where they leave a review, then I would say the developer has done their job to deliver upon the promise to the player.
I hope we get to see more from Ace Benoff in the future.
Check out my full game study of the game below.