Deck of Haunts turns the traditional haunted house horror story on its head by putting players in control of the building rather than the unfortunate souls exploring it. Developed by Mantis and published by DANGEN, this strategy game combines deckbuilding, house construction and roguelike progression, challenging players to become the nightmare lurking behind every creaking door. The premise immediately stands out, offering a welcome change from the familiar routine of surviving supernatural encounters. Unfortunately, while the idea provides an excellent foundation, the execution does not always do it justice. There is plenty of satisfaction to be found in designing a deadly maze and manipulating its visitors, but the experience sometimes feels more like a management puzzle with a spooky exterior than a genuinely unsettling horror game.
The main objective is to protect the mansion’s heart from increasingly dangerous intruders over a series of 28 nights. During the day, players expand the house, connect rooms and improve their defences using the essence collected from previous victims. Once darkness falls, the focus shifts to playing cards that damage visitors physically, drain their sanity, increase their tension or manipulate their movement through the building. The two phases complement one another well, as the layout of the mansion directly influences the effectiveness of the cards. A carefully positioned room can strengthen an otherwise modest haunting, while a poorly designed route might allow intruders to reach the heart before they can be stopped. This combination of architectural planning and tactical card play gives Deck of Haunts a distinct identity, although the limited narrative leaves the mansion itself feeling more like a strategic board than a character with a history or personality of its own.
The card system is where much of the game’s strategic appeal lies. Each night requires players to make careful use of their available actions, deciding which visitors to target and whether to focus on their physical health or mental stability. Some cards build tension before a stronger effect is unleashed, while others exploit specific weaknesses or work particularly well in certain rooms. Finding combinations that turn a modest haunting into a devastating chain of effects can be rewarding, especially when a carefully planned setup brings down a troublesome intruder. Killing visitors also tends to provide more essence than driving them insane, creating an additional incentive to weigh efficiency against the risks of each encounter. However, the available options can begin to feel repetitive, and the most effective strategies may eventually become more about optimising familiar combinations than discovering genuinely surprising ways to terrorise the house’s occupants.
Constructing the mansion is almost as important as building the deck. Ordinary rooms provide the foundations for a defensive maze, while specialised spaces introduce bonuses and effects that can amplify particular strategies. Players must decide whether to invest their resources in expanding the building or improving their collection of cards, and that choice can significantly influence how a run develops. The changing composition of incoming groups and the arrival of more specialised opponents also prevent every night from playing out exactly the same way. Police officers, priests and the increasingly threatening Stone Masons require different approaches, making it dangerous to rely on a single strategy throughout the entire campaign. This interplay between room placement, resource management and deck construction is arguably the game’s strongest feature. Nevertheless, the learning curve can be steep, particularly when card descriptions, enemy traits and room interactions need to be understood before a plan can work. The tutorial does not always provide enough guidance, and an interface that requires too much attention can make planning unnecessarily cumbersome.
The roguelike structure provides a reasonable incentive to return after defeat. Each attempt offers opportunities to experiment with different room layouts and card combinations, while progression gradually introduces additional options that can reshape future runs. There is a satisfying puzzle-solving element to learning which strategies work against particular opponents, and the prospect of improving a previous attempt can make another run tempting. The difficulty also increases as the mansion attracts more capable visitors, eventually forcing players to think beyond simply eliminating everyone who walks through the front door. However, this escalation is not always balanced smoothly. The final encounters can represent a substantial jump in difficulty, potentially punishing players whose cards and room upgrades have not developed in the right direction. Repetition becomes more noticeable over time, too, as the basic objectives remain largely unchanged and the limited narrative offers little additional motivation to push through another lengthy attempt.
Visually, Deck of Haunts adopts a stylised gothic horror aesthetic that suits its subject without relying on realistic graphics. The mansion’s rooms, gloomy lighting and illustrated cards establish a suitably sinister atmosphere, while the designs contain enough personality to make browsing the available haunts and upgrades enjoyable. There is also a welcome sense of genre familiarity in the presentation, drawing on the visual language of classic haunted-house fiction rather than contemporary splatter horror. The problem is that the atmosphere often remains superficial. Much of the action is communicated through card effects, basic damage indicators and visitors collapsing when their physical or mental reserves are exhausted. The rooms rarely come alive in ways that make the player’s supernatural interventions feel particularly dramatic, and the absence of more distinctive animations or interactions wastes some of the premise’s potential. The presentation is functional and occasionally charming, but a game about being a living nightmare would benefit from more memorable manifestations of that nightmare.
The audio is more successful at supporting the mood, with eerie environmental sounds, unsettling whispers and ominous musical cues helping the mansion feel suitably unwelcoming. These details reinforce the gothic presentation without overwhelming the strategic gameplay, and the restrained approach is appropriate for a game in which players spend considerable time studying rooms, cards and enemy attributes. Yet sound design alone cannot compensate for the lack of dramatic feedback during many encounters. The concept invites elaborate supernatural incidents, but the relatively restrained presentation means that successfully frightening or eliminating an intruder rarely delivers the spectacle that the premise suggests. Rather than building toward moments of genuine horror, the experience frequently settles into the rhythm of a tactical exercise.
Now available on PlayStation 5 after the earlier PC version, the underlying appeal remains the unusual combination of deckbuilding and defensive house construction. The game offers a different kind of power fantasy, allowing players to plan their victims’ downfall rather than merely react to threats, and there is enough tactical depth to reward experimentation. However, the quality of that experience depends on how much enjoyment players find in manipulating systems rather than witnessing the horror those systems are supposed to create.
Deck of Haunts is therefore an intriguing strategy game that stops short of becoming the distinctive horror experience it could have been. Mantis has established a strong foundation through the relationship between deckbuilding and mansion construction, and the gradual discovery of effective combinations can make individual runs genuinely satisfying. The problem is that predictable encounters, limited storytelling and a lack of visual variety gradually diminish the novelty of playing as the haunted house itself. Players who enjoy roguelike strategy and the process of refining a build will find worthwhile challenges here, particularly when a carefully constructed mansion finally overcomes a dangerous group of intruders. Those expecting elaborate scares, a compelling supernatural mystery or a constantly evolving campaign may find the experience less rewarding. Deck of Haunts is an original and often enjoyable twist on the genre, but its mechanics ultimately do more to engage the mind than its horror elements do to unsettle the player.
Score: 7.3/10