Vault of the Void

Review by eFreeware

Most deckbuilders ask you to trust the draw. Vault of the Void takes the opposite position: the developer built it as a low-randomness roguelike where you see which enemies are coming before each encounter and adjust your deck accordingly. Very little of your run is left to chance, and the game is pitched as one where creativity and skill decide the outcome.

That framing tells you who this is for. If you enjoy the deck construction more than the drama of a lucky topdeck, this is a game that rewards planning ahead of every fight. It is a paid title at $6.99, with no ads and in-app purchases present, and it has drawn over 10,000 installs with a 4.4 average from 289 ratings since its June 2024 release.

A fixed deck you rebuild before every fight

The central mechanic is the deck size. Before each battle your deck has to sit at exactly 20 cards, which means every card you add forces a decision about what comes out. Rather than growing a pile of options over a run and hoping the good ones show up, you are constantly trimming and reworking the same core of twenty, and the developer describes that iterate-and-transform loop as the heart of the game.

Because encounters are visible in advance, that deck-building happens with a purpose. You can look at what is ahead and tune your list toward it, then rebuild again for the next fight. It is a slower, more deliberate rhythm than the genre usually offers, and it turns each battle into a small puzzle you solve before it starts.

Void Stones add another layer on top. Infusing cards with them opens up combinations the developer describes as effectively endless, so the same twenty-card shell can be pushed in quite different directions. Between the stones and the base cards, there is a lot of room to experiment without ever changing the deck size.

Four classes, hundreds of cards, one long climb

The content spread is generous for the price. Four classes each play in a completely different way, and the card pool runs past 440 entries. Artifacts, which number more than 320, sit alongside the cards and shift how a run plays, so a class you know well can still feel different depending on what you pick up along the way.

The run itself is a climb toward The Void, with more than 90 monsters standing between you and the end. What you will not find are random events; the developer has deliberately left that layer out, keeping the run focused on combat, deck construction and the choices you make around them.

Crossplay between PC and mobile is live, so a run started on one device can be picked up on another. For a game built around long, considered runs, that flexibility matters more than it would in a quick arcade title.

What you pay and what comes with it

Vault of the Void costs $6.99 up front. There are no ads, so nothing interrupts a run, and the game does include in-app purchases alongside the initial price. The developer keeps the game updated; the most recent patch added cardbacks tied to Weaver Mastery and Perfect Phobos and cleaned up a batch of timing, artifact-order and translation issues.

That update record is worth noting for anyone weighing a paid deckbuilder. Fixes to card interactions and artifact triggers suggest a game that is still being tuned rather than left as-is, and the crossplay support points the same way.

The player this rewards

This is a game for someone who likes to think between fights. If you enjoy reading a card pool, weighing cuts against additions, and walking into a battle knowing you prepared for it, the fixed deck size and the preview of upcoming enemies will feel like the right constraints rather than restrictions. Players who prefer improvisation and the swing of a random draw will find less to enjoy here, because the developer has removed most of that on purpose.

The four classes and the artifact pool give that planning plenty of variety to work with, so the appeal is not a single narrow puzzle. Expect a run to be about reading the road ahead and building toward it, then rebuilding when the road changes.

A considered pick for planners

Vault of the Void is a confident, specific design: a single-player roguelike deckbuilder where the deck is capped at 20 cards, encounters are visible in advance, and random events are absent by choice. The $6.99 price buys more than 440 cards, four classes, over 320 artifacts and a climb past 90 monsters, with crossplay letting you continue on another device.

I would point it at players who treat deck construction as the main event and want their losses to be their own. The 4.4 average across 289 ratings suggests that audience has found it, and the steady patching since release is a good sign for anyone still deciding.

What's new in version 2.8.9

In this update, we're adding new cardbacks for Weaver Mastery and Perfect Phobos, plus a few more fixes and improvements: - Fix Criss-Cross+ doesn't deal damage on 2nd Unravel - Fix Apocalypse Trumpet triggers Zeal powers before card effects - Fix timing issues of Shii spread and Threat Trigger - Improve Delay Draw and Fading Ember timing - Improve artifact orders to make them trigger more consistently - Fix some translation errors