EDIT: 8/8/25
It was pointed out that there is questionable artwork in the game. It is possible to not see that artwork throughout the game if you do not get that card to use in your system. Devir has put out an apology, pulled the game, and is redoing the artwork. If you own the original artwork you will be able to get Ace of Spades cards to replace those cards in the future from Devir Games.

It was pretty obvious before Gen Con that one of the biggest games there was going to be Ace of Spades from Devir Games. This is a solo or two player boss battling poker card game. Why was it obvious, a fun horror western theme. You beat monsters with poker hands, Balatro style. And Devir is a popular company. Turns out that you could pre-order it as well, which I did and it came during Gen Con for me. Which means, it was maybe easier to get online than at Gen Con. But is Ace of Spades worth the hype?

How To Play Ace of Spades

Like I said this game is a boss battling game. Each round you face off against a different boss and it doesn’t give you breaks. To beat a boss you need to play out poker hands. Each hand must have five cards played, when solo, from a hand of eight cards. Each hand is going to do an amount of damage, and face cards and aces increase the damage.

When you defeat a boss, you get a special power from them. Some powers are one time, but every third boss is going to give you ongoing power. An example of a power would be that all your hearts count as diamonds for a hand. Or for an ongoing ability that every time you play a straight it deals more damage, or when you play a queen it does more damage.

Eventually you reach the main boss and if you defeat him you win. Or I should say, that’s what could happen. If you lose at any point in time to a boss, aka you can’t beat them in a certain number of hands, you lose the game and need to restart.

Hands and Discards

One element of this game to keep track of is how hands and discards work. Each boss you need to defeat in a certain number of hands. Also you gain a specific number of discards per boss. So if you have a bad hand, you can discard cards from it and redraw up.

But discard also does something else. In this game you don’t reshuffle until you’ve beat a villain, that every third bad guy. Or you can use a discard to shuffle your played and discard cards back into the deck. This element is important when facing off against bosses with more health because you run through the deck faster. But it uses up an ability to set-up your deck.

What Doesn’t Work

There are two things that I think people might not like about this. Firstly is the you lose to a boss you lose the game. I could see house ruling it, if you don’t want to reshuffle, that you lose a life and can continue and you get one life. But, that said, it is very easy to say, well, I lost and just reset the boss deck and reshuffle the playing cards. That is a minimal difference in time.

The other is the luck in the game. Now, there are things that you do to help with the luck. But if you don’t like a bit of luck, you may find that it doesn’t work for you. It is luck in what you draw. And that is compounded, though becomes strategic in another way, by the fact you must play five card hands. So even if you play three of a kind you might be breaking up a future hand.

What Works

This is a really easy to learn game. I sat down and was up and running within a few minutes. It is all about playing poker hands and even if you don’t know poker they give you that poker hand information right on the game board.

It is also a quick game. I plan on streaming it soon, but I’d expect to get through a few runs to see if I can win. And that should probably be a hour or less to get through with three runs. Mainly because each run is pretty fast even if you get a ways.

Next, I like the powers you can get in the game. All of theme feel great to use. But none of them seem like they are game breaking. In fact, while the game gives you four cards for each level, they are all pretty similar. It is a deck of cards, so often times it is just for a suit that it makes it better. But there is this great tension of only using the power when you need it as things get harder and harder to take on.

The components in the game are nice as well. The deck of cards is great. And the dashboard you use is really nice. Like I said it has poker hands on there and how much damage they do, and reminders for how much damage face cards and aces do. Plus it is set-up so you can keep track of the enemies health on there as well as how many hands you have left and how many discards/reshuffles you have left.

Who is Ace of Spades For?

Now, I will caveat this by saying, I think it’ll work well with two. I have only played Ace of Spades solo. But it is a strong solo game, so I think this is a good game for someone who enjoys Balatro and board games. It is not as complex as Balatro but it makes it easier to play. Much like Slay the Spire is easier to play and scaled down numbers as a board game. So for the solo gamer in your life, this is probably a good game.

Final Thoughts and Grade on Ace of Spades

There is a lot that I like about the game. It is easy to get to the table, it is easy to learn and it is easy to play. Now I saw it is easy to play, I mean it isn’t fiddly. This is a tough game. And they give you ways to make it tougher and easier. I expect when I stream it that I’ll demonstrate it on normal and easy. In easy you don’t need to play a hand of five cards, it can be less.

Overall, I think this is a very good game and a very good solo game. It’s what I want from a solo game. The challenge is interesting, the tension is there and it isn’t a table hog. My one complaint might be that I wish there was more variety in the characters you go up against. Each level is pretty similar. I didn’t mention it but villains have something that they are strong against. Like spades, or queens, for example. That is a fun twist.

I wish that they had created more variety in that. For example, maybe a boss that is strong against spades but then is weak against queens or something interesting like that, so it might feel like more of a puzzle as you play it out. And not so much more of a puzzle, but more variety in what you face off against. And the same could be said for the abilities. Still that is a minor complaint and is ripe for expansion packs.

Have you tried Ace of Spades?

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy (out of 10): 6
Luck (out of 10): 7

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