Novus Orbis Review

A clever combo-based deckbuilder that makes every turn a strategic puzzle.

Over the years, roguelike deckbuilders have grown in popularity, with many indie developers aiming to inject fresh concepts into a proven template. Some games stick to the tried-and-true formula of known card combinations, random encounters, and monsters that get tougher and tougher, while others try new things to make each run feel unique.

That’s exactly what Novus Orbis from Ceso Games and Two Left Thumbs aims to do, implementing a combo-based fighting system that drastically changes how you approach traditional deckbuilding. Instead of just drawing cards and using whatever attacks or defensive skills you have at your disposal, the game pushes you to plan several steps, think carefully about the order you use your cards, and build combos that gradually make you more effective in combat.

Novus Orbis launched on 13 Nov. 2026, offering a roguelike experience centered on strategic card management, randomized exploration, and escalating difficulty.

Its typical fantasy appearance will immediately remind you of other games in the genre, especially titles such as Slay the Spire, Monster Train, and Wildfrost. But its combo mechanics give it a unique personality that sets it apart from many of the games that inspired it. Currently, there are two playable classes, many card combinations, many adversaries, blessings, pets, and more material coming in the future.

What’s particularly interesting is how its separate features come together to create conflicts that take more thought than simply spending all your resources. On the surface, Novus Orbis seems like a fairly standard fantasy world. You follow a couple of adventurers as they pass through mysterious portals, encounter hostile monsters, exotic settings, and progressively difficult obstacles.

The premise gives you enough direction to set up the adventure, but the story gets more exciting as you make unexpected discoveries along the way. The game does not instantly explain its world. Still, it tosses bizarre cards, enigmatic places, cryptic messages, and unusual happenings into the mix, hinting at something much larger at play in the background.

This gives exploration another purpose, beyond finding the next encounter or better gear. Each run is a chance to find something new, taking you to explore other areas and sample the stuff on offer. Even the initial presentation generates a tone of ambiguity, implying that there are still undiscovered truths in the world. These little revelations help create an interesting sense of mystery, without always breaking up the action with long story segments.

The game also develops its universe nicely. Maybe you’ll see something odd in one run and not know why it’s relevant, but then find more clues in later plays. The randomized structure feels more meaningful because exploration reveals information, not just boosts your deck.

The narrative presentation doesn't appear in the foreground, yet the mysterious atmosphere gives Novus Orbis a character beyond its combat mechanics.

There’s still plenty of room for the devs to enhance the storytelling, add more characters, and give more meaning to the bizarre happenings around the world. But the slow trickle of riddles gives you good motivation to keep looking for answers. Novus Orbis’ core is built on traditional deck-building roguelike elements. You start each run with a small deck of cards and slowly build it by killing foes, opening chests, finding rewards, and taking alternate paths.

Each card costs a specific amount of SP, your main resource during fights. So, picking the right cards for the resources you have available is key to developing a winning plan. The randomized map structure means you can choose different rooms as you move through the major encounters. These places can contain normal battles, treasure, healing, bosses, or unexplained events.

Small wisps can also affect your journey, providing useful benefits, healing health, doing damage, or even providing important gold. Each run offers different paths and encounters, so you can't rely on repeating the same technique every time. Winning battles and finding chests slowly build your card collection. You can get better attacks, defensive skills, armor effects, and handy items like health potions.

These additions turn your quite basic starting deck into something that can handle progressively dangerous threats. But gathering powerful cards is only half the experience, as their effectiveness depends heavily on how you arrange and play them. The combo system is the most significant element. Each card has a combo value, starting at zero and increasing from there, and playing cards in the right order slowly fills your combo meter.

The more cards you play at the level they are supposed to be combined with, the better they work, potentially dealing more damage, providing better defensive bonuses, or reducing their SP costs. This means the order you play your cards can radically transform the effectiveness of an otherwise mundane turn.

Another key thing to remember is that you don't always have to use all your resources.

Sometimes it’s better to hold back, end your turn early, or save certain cards for a better moment rather than try to maximize your immediate damage. It's a fun mix of resource management and timing, especially when multiple enemies are coming at you. The game also contains a selection of playable classes, each having a unique way of fighting.

The Warrior focuses on direct damage and defensive skills, letting you soak up incoming attacks and dish out some strong blows. The Mage, in contrast, depends more on elemental effects, stacking multiple elements, and combining specialist cards to boost offensive capabilities. These diverse techniques make it all the more exciting to experiment with different decks.

As you continue, you will find blessings, relics, and artifacts that allow more opportunities for character customization. Some improve your defensive qualities. Others boost offensive power or introduce drawbacks for more damage. Pets can help with your overall build, since some companions can heal or provide additional blocking effects during encounters. One particularly interesting find is a cryptic card that can eventually lead to a helpful pet, showing that some of the game’s incentives might lead to unexpected benefits.

That's where Novus Orbis really sets itself apart from other deck-building roguelikes. Its combination mechanic is more than just another damage multiplier or an occasional bonus. It affects nearly every decision you make in a fight, not just one.

At the beginning of each turn, your combo meter resets to zero. Playing a card with the right combo value moves the meter up a level, allowing cards played after it to have enhanced effects. For example, a simple zero-cost strike might do 3 damage normally; however, when played at combo level zero, it might do 4 damage. Then if you follow it up with a level one attack, it adds five to seven damage. Keeping the sequence right lets you build up the combo chain, and your cards get stronger and stronger.

Even more gratifying is to reach the upper combination levels, since some cards have much more potent effects when played at the right moment.

Sword Fracture, for instance, can do a huge 100 damage at combo level four. Reaching that stage demands careful organization, but a well-executed string of events can be immensely rewarding. But the system is not totally limiting. Some cards will let you mess with your combo level, either by reducing it, skipping steps, or building more complex combos.

This lets you experiment with multiple deck compositions, rather than a single sequence dictated at the start of the game. Picking up more cards means you need to figure out which skills work well together to properly create your strategy. Another big combat mechanic is enemy cooldown timers. Enemies will telegraph their next move, letting you know if they are about to attack or use an alternate ability.

However, their cooldowns lower every time you play a card. They also progress when you conclude your turn. When an adversary hits zero, it does its thing even if you haven't finished your turn. This affects how you approach what seem like innocent behaviors. Playing a card you don’t need can speed up an enemy’s cooldown and get it attacking sooner than you expect. So it’s not always the smartest move to play every card you’ve got.

When there are numerous foes, these selections get much harder, since each enemy may have a different cooldown. You may get the opportunity to take down a deadly enemy with an upgraded combo. Still, you’ll have to do it before another opponent attacks, and you end your turn. Or you can go defensive, which will help you take less damage and keep your health up for later fights.

Sometimes the best move is to use a potion or end your turn. This is doubly true if the cards you have available don’t mesh well with your combo level. Knowing when to stop attacking is just as crucial as knowing how to deal the most damage.

Bosses add an extra layer of difficulty, so you’ll need to mix offense and defense.

Some foes can even nullify assaults that don't deal a certain amount of damage. These encounters force you to build better combos rather than relying on multiple weak attacks. The combo system becomes more significant as difficulty increases. But there is a disadvantage. Sometimes you will draw cards that don't match the combo values you want, and you will not be able to pull off the combo you planned.

This can make some turns frustrating, especially if your alternatives aren’t flexible enough. It could take new players a little while to learn how card order, enemy cooldowns, and resource management interact. But once it all comes together, the combat is one of the most satisfying portions of the experience. Novus Orbis doesn’t use the usual experience-point grinding to grow your characters.

 Instead, most of your progression comes from collecting cards, blessings, relics, artifacts, and pets during specific runs. Winning encounters allows you to upgrade your deck, and treasure chests and other sites offer further benefits. These findings affect how you approach future battles, letting you slowly build combinations that fit the character you’ve chosen.

Blessings and pets are particularly helpful, as they provide additional perks that can really shape your design. Some Blessings increase your attack power, while others boost your survival. Pets can offer useful defensive aid or heal you, making them helpful companions throughout lengthy fights. The game also has achievements and unlockable discoveries to enhance replayability.

There are also more reasons to come back, with strange cards, alternative builds, and mystery occurrences to try. But the lack of meaningful meta-progression is a huge omission. Some roguelikes offer a ton of permanent enhancements between runs, whereas Novus Orbis focuses more on building knowledge and strategy through repeated runs.

Visually, Novus Orbis opts for a lovely pixel graphic presentation, immediately establishing its retro-inspired character.

The character designs, exotic landscapes, and overall graphics evoke an older role-playing game, which fits the strategic gameplay. The Warrior, in particular, looks like he could slot right into a classic fantasy RPG. The graphics are rather basic but are designed for readability and usability, rather than fancy graphical effects. This works well, as most of your attention is on the cards, enemy intentions, and combat interface.

The graphics, however, may not suit everyone. Some landscapes and visuals can feel uninspired, especially compared to more visually ambitious games in the genre. The presentation does its job, but it could use more environmental variation, distinctive animations, and more visual effects. But the pixel-art style has its own charm, and the overall aesthetic suits the game's essence. With extra material and visual enhancements, the presentation may be much more memorable.

Another area where Novus Orbis could use further polish is its audio presentation. The music design is adequate; it supports the action, but the soundtrack doesn't really stand out, and it doesn't have the same lasting effect as the battle mechanics. The soundtrack does a good job accompanying you as you explore various environments and battle foes, but it rarely becomes a compelling reason to keep playing.

The sound effects follow suit, doing their job without necessarily making each strike or combo feel especially punchy. This isn't a big concern, as the strategic gameplay is still the main draw. That said, better music and more distinctive sound effects would make successful combo sequences, boss confrontations, and major discoveries feel much more satisfying.

Novus Orbis is an interesting addition to the roguelike deckbuilding genre because it knows that one truly good mechanism can completely change the feel of an established formula. Its combo-based combat system encourages thoughtful preparation, experimentation, and resource management, leading to battles where the order in which you take actions is as important as the cards in your deck.

I think the enemy cooldown mechanism works well with this mechanic and stops you from mindlessly wasting all your resources.

 Instead, you must always ask yourself what the optimal outcome is from attacking, defending, healing, or ending your turn. The mix of the two produces an interesting strategic experience which grows more rewarding the better you grasp the systems. The two classes you can play have different battle styles, and randomized portals, blessings, relics, artifacts, and pets add to the variation.

The unusual world offers another reason to keep investigating, especially when strange finds hint that there’s much more to learn. However, the experience is not without its flaws. The minimal meta-progression may put off some newbies, as does the occasional frustration of incompatible card draws and the relatively plain interface and learning curve. Developers also have the chance to enhance the current content and add new classes, settings, and narrative discoveries.

In the end, Novus Orbis works because its core gameplay mechanic feels meaningful, not like padding. It pushes for exploration and makes every good combo seem earned. If you appreciate strategic deckbuilders and roguelikes that make you think really hard about each move, definitely check out this game.