Monster Train

Monster Train is a strategy and deck-building game with roguelike elements, developed by American studio Shiny Shoe. It was released on May 21, 2020, on Steam. The game received positive reviews, being nominated to the Game Awards 2020, in the category Best Strategy/Tactics Games of 2020
Gameplay.
Monster Train is deck-building game with elements of roguelike. The game has a vertical field, a train with 4 floors, with a pyre on the top floor. The enemies will try to reach the pyre to destroy it, and the player must protect it to achieve victory. For this, the player will use several cards that can summon monsters or activate special effects to defeat the invaders, but the player only can summons his creatures in the train's first three floors.
Reception.
The game received positive reviews, reaching 86 points in Metacritics. Dan Stapleton, from IGN, wrote that the game is "a ticket to dozens – if not hundreds – of hours of challenging and surprising roguelike deckbuilding runs, thanks in large part to its mechanically diverse set of decks and the way they interact with each other when combined in different ways", and in his verdict, he scored 9/10. Cody Peterson, from Screen Rant, wrote "Monster Train is an enjoyable deck building roguelike game that manages to reinvent both genres with some interesting new game mechanics", giving the game a 4 out of 5 star rating. Mark Steighner, of the Dark Station, awarded 4.5/5 stars. In his review, Steighner criticized the visual style of the game, calling it "a cacophony of color and animation", but he praised the gameplay saying that "Monster Train absolutely nails the dopamine drip of fast-paced matches, the promise of increasing power, and enough variety in its gameplay that it will take dozens of hours before the game starts to feel repetitive".
Awards.
The game was nominated to the Game Awards 2020, in the category Best Strategy/Tactics Games of 2020. The winner was "Crusader Kings III".