Cartomancy Anthology is a collection of 22 short games that explore the major arcana in tarot. Each game is made by a different developer and they were worked on independent of each other, but they all come together to highlight each tarot card's message.
While the lack of cohesiveness in game design might seem off-putting at first, it actually works in the Anthology's favor, allowing each game, or card, to shine in its uniqueness. I had a great time exploring each game and their messages, and they presented quite a few soul-searching opportunities. Considering that it's tarot, if they hadn't, I would have been disappointed!
The games cover a wide variety of genres, styles, and lengths, so there's something for everyone and every schedule. However, when you first play, the cards and games are chosen at random – you draw one or three cards for your daily pull, and play through those. Of course, I say “daily pull” because that's how the game is implied to be designed, but you can choose to play more in a day if you want. As the selection is random, you might get 3 games that each take 10 minutes to go through – or an hour each, as I did on my first day. Thankfully, if you do get a longer game but don't have the time to complete it, the autosave lets you pick it up again later, even after you've played other cards' games. This is great, but I would have liked an indicator of approximately how long the game will take to be included.
Additionally, each card, when it is pulled, shows you a list of content warnings. Considering tarot cards, especially the major arcana, can deal with very heavy subjects, this is a great inclusion. Even if you pull a certain card that day, the game gives you an opportunity to skip it, which is a nice option if you're in the wrong headspace. Once it's pulled, it stays available in your deck, so you can visit it at a later time when you feel up to it. Tarot can be incredibly healing, but if you're not ready to face those issues, it can instead be damaging. It's great to see that awareness from the developers, and I appreciate it even though I didn't use that feature personally.
I was amazed at all the different genres included, showing so many different ways to connect with tarot. A pleasant walking sim explored my relationship with the Hermit, a unique gardening sim brought up questions about Judgement, and a delightful shooter/platformer surprised me as the Sun's entry. Some could be described more as “experiences” than as what we traditionally think of as games, such as Death's journey, and the unique color puzzles of the Star helped me think about finding my path in new ways. On the other hand, some were just fun – I enjoyed the fishing sim of Wheel of Fortune, but collecting different things for the witch didn't provide me with any new insight. But maybe that's it – learn to enjoy the cycle, no matter what it brings. Hmm, I'll have to think about that one.
However, they weren't all wins – the World is still broken, over six months after release, to the point of being unplayable due to a core mechanic not working. And I was disappointed that the Tower, with all of its possibilities for heartbreak, destruction, and starting over, took the form of just reading a story with no interactions, choices, or other elements to connect to and feel the weight of that card. I mean, I'm all for a good dystopian story, I literally studied them in college, but the story format didn't fit in a collection of *games* here. But the games that shone far outweighed these blunders, thankfully.
On the other hand, speaking of stories, I have to make a note about the grammar. It's one of my sticking points in indie games! So I'm happy to say that these games' dialogues and narratives were well written. Not every game has text but for the ones that do, they definitely passed the grammar check from me. We love to see it.
I do want to point out one additional blunder: many of the games lacked any sort of tutorial or even basic instructions. Considering the very short length of many, a full-blown tutorial would be overkill, but even a simple instruction page would have been helpful in many instances. In some games, such as Death, I wondered if I was missing the objective, and I got stuck on games I otherwise enjoyed, like the Star, because I'm pretty sure that I missed a mechanic somewhere. However, other games in the collection do a good job of explaining without hand-holding; I loved the Moon and how it allowed exploration and discovering some mechanics and puzzles on my own, while also explaining the basics both through the story and pop-up text. For a lot of these games, exploration is the point, or one of the points, so I don't want to take that away from them, but a little tip at the start would've been great. I mean, we may be on the Fool's Journey here, but even the Fool came across help along their way! Ironically, the World has a great tutorial in which you get to see the mechanics of the game and they look really intriguing, but as I mentioned, they don't work in the actual gameplay. But at least they made a tutorial!
Now, for the last part of this review, I want to address this anthology as a tarot tool specifically. The games definitely help players understand and connect with these cards on another level, but you may be wondering if these can be used for readings themselves. And I'm going to say: it's up to you! I don't really use electronic tarot as divination myself, just because I don't really connect with it in that way. Sure, I have a daily tarot app on my phone, but I use it more for study than any sort of guidance. But that's me, and I don't think digital divination tools are less valid than physical ones if you like to use them. So, if you do, I think this can definitely be used for tarot readings – but I'd turn off the “only show me new cards” feature for that, of course.
But then again, I say that I don't connect with digital tarot and wouldn't use it myself for that purpose, but even that's not 100% true. I recently started consulting my own cards about something, and that night, my daily card in Cartomancy was the Heirophant. I usually don't connect with the Heirophant in general, it may be my least favorite card as someone who's always been a rebel, but I started playing the game, and... it was the exact situation I was dealing with. Like, it could not have been more accurate if it had been written specifically for me. And it was a situation I hadn't thought about acting on until that day, so... maybe there is some weight to using the game as divination. It definitely gave me a lot to think about, at the very least, which is ultimately what I think tarot is supposed to do.
Overall, Cartomancy Anthology is a great collection of unique games that explore tarot through many different genres. Some games hit me at my spiritual core, and some were just pleasant and fun, but almost all left me with lots to think about. These games do a great job of highlighting the choices that one can make when presented with tarot cards along their journey, and ultimately leave you with a lot to reflect upon. Whether you're just looking for unique games to play, starting to learn tarot, or are a seasoned tarot reader, you'll enjoy this collection as long as you're open to the messages. I definitely recommend it to anyone who's interested in tarot. If you've checked out this anthology already, which game was your favorite, or which one impacted you the most? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I'd like to thank Code Coven, the publishers of Cartomancy Anthology, for providing me with a game key in exchange for my honest review of this game. Even though I received a free copy, all opinions here are entirely mine, and not influenced by the developers, publishers, or method of acquisition. Okay, disclaimer done, onto the review!
