Developers, especially independent, as you know, do not feed bread - let me conduct some experiment on crossing several genres. Shooter with strategy, simulator with arcade, RPG c races - everything is possible! But the studio BetaDwarf connected three in one: "bagel", fighting in the arena and collectible card game. And not bad, I must say, connected.
Mechanic of the Forced Showdown seems at first sight rather simple. You choose one of the heroes and his companion (from some funny little animal to a brutal behemoth) and go to crush the enemies in the arenas. It is necessary to go through a series of such cards, and in the end to defeat the "boss". Then you will have several more such races, and then you will meet face to face with the main villain and try to overcome him - this is he, throughout all the arenas and their chains, he sets his henchmen against you.
All this is called the loud word "campaign". While their three - relatively speaking, light, complex and very complex. And all are furnished as a spectacular television show about survival in the world of the future - with the cameras hovering around the hero, an effective representation of the participants in the competition and the voiceover of the presenter. 
There are only four heroes, and everyone, of course, has his unique skill and his fighting style. Initially, a combat magician is available who can beat all those around him with a blast wave, and then you can unlock other characters, including a warrior who famously runs a huge firehammer, and a Stormbringer archer. Also, if certain conditions are met (kill as many opponents, pass as many cards, do not pick up "health", and so on), new companions are opened and different bonuses are awarded.
In addition, you can get an increase in damage, defense or, for example, the chance of dropping first-aid kits by going through one of the chains of arenas inside the campaign. This spends special glasses, which you save (or rather, select) during the battles. But if in the next series you perish, then all the improvements made by excessive work will be lost, because you have to start the whole campaign again.
In this case, all the arenas in the Forced Showdown are themed, as are the enemies on them. Somewhere you will have to fight with archers and musketeers, somewhere - with horned monsters, strive to ram you, or even with cars firing some spheres. And the "boss" of the second campaign is a tank! On each card, as a rule, there are a lot of traps, obstacles and special conditions - for example, you can associate with a companion a sort of laser beam of death, passing through which the enemies get damaged. And somewhere, on the contrary, opponents initially gain advantages. With each new passage of the campaign, all this is mixed and generated anew in a random way - do not get bored!
But the special drive of the game gives the presence in its mechanics of a full-fledged card system. Maps inForced Showdown play the role of "upgrades" for the hero, spells and "consumables" ("call two drones for help", "use adrenaline"). You form your deck for each hero (apart from their common, understandably, there are also unique options available) and go with it to battle. In this case, before the match, you can reset any number of cards from the offered.
Well, before each new arena you will be allowed to use the dropped cards at your discretion - taking into account that each costs so much mana, and the total number of the last is limited (but increases from round to round). Then the fun begins. You have to decide what is more useful to use now, and what to save for later: it's better to choose some cunning "upgrade", call for help one more minion or start a game with an energy shield?
There are a lot of options, the cards vary in value, but all in one way or another affect the gameplay. As an element of randomness, when your character, say, passes the next arena from the last strength, and a card that allows you to heal, as luck would have it, does not fall out!
In Forced Showdown, you can and should open new maps and improve their deck. You earn money earned in military works on roulette in the hope that some rare and useful thing will drop out. And even better, if the crystals fall out, they are allowed to create a map of any value for themselves (if there are enough resources, of course).
All this is very important because with the available pack by default, only the first actually training campaign will go through. But the second and third - in any way! Because there your computer opponents "bosses" also begin to use between the rounds different cards that give them bonuses.
As a result, we get real adrenaline. The fights are frenzied, you have to simultaneously attack, avoid traps and obstacles, dodge flying missiles and mines, monitor when it is better to apply skill, pick up falling out of enemies spheres, use "consumables" in time and pray that in the next round a better map fell out. And then another and select individual tactics for each "boss" - they are all here big and unique!
Especially it is hot in daily competitions, where players from all over the world compete in whoever will pass the arena, earn money, points and positions in the global ranking. And there are several such events - and all with different conditions. It's a pity that you can not fight with each other - this game is just necessary! In addition, it is clearly easier and more convenient to fight some heroes than the rest, so the balance still needs to be corrected. Yes, and the number of heroes / partners would not hurt to increase.
Rate: 8/10
Thanks for reading :)
