i heard about this game from the comments on this post and thought it sounded interesting, so i decided to check it out. it's basically like slay the spire but with a yurucamp-esque hiking theme to it. it's available on Steam, but it seems like it was originally developed for mobile phones and can be found on the google play store.
there's not much story to speak of, there are 2 friends that are hiking together. the pink-haired Koharu is excitable but gives up easily, so Hiyori, the one who's not dressed for a hike at all, offers to help and brings gear for them to climb with. all of the dialogue and the steam page feels like it's machine translated and it gives the game a bit of unintentional charm.
you start by selecting a mountain to climb, each with its own height and possible conditions. your character starts with a small fixed set of cards, and you can choose a couple of cards at the start of a hike. you can also pick from some gear items that give permanent passive effects.
the hike value on your cards progresses you up the mountain by that much. but if the care value is less than the steepness of the slope you'll take the difference in damage. it's basically attack and defense/block stats, but it's a cute way to theme them. you can also click on your friend to draw a new hand, but you can only do it once per station (the game's term for each stage). at the end of a station you can choose a new card to put in your deck, and every few stations there's a camp where you can heal and build gear.
it's not very hard until the later stages of the game but it becomes quite engaging at that point. the aesthetics and novelty of discovering new cards and learning how they work made the easy parts still be fun though. you also get a cute gay scene at the summit of each mountain on the results screen. in higher altitudes and colder conditions, the characters get scarves and earmuffs.
once you've summited all of the main mountains as Koharu, you also unlock the ability to play as her friend Hiyori, who has a different set of cards, mechanics, and gear as well as her own campaign. she has a bunch of little robots she can summon and unsummon for special effects, she kinda reminds me of the defect from slay the spire. she is totally not dressed for a hike but i guess the robots help (?)
i've really been enjoying this game, i was excited to see that there was a hiyori campaign after koharu's... i haven't finished it yet, but i might post more once i have! i really recommend it!
