At first blush, Zoeti looks a lot like any other deck-builder on the market. You and the enemies take turns hitting each other, with enemies foreshadowing their attacks with intents. It's really in the vein of Slay the Spire, right down to the playable character choices being a thief, warrior or wizard. This really isn't uncommon for the genre, and the general design of the characters and enemies is fun. I think there's a lack of enemy variety to some degree, but the game's runs are not long enough to demand more.

Where Zoeti differs from the standard deck-builder is that it is focused on poker hands. You don't actually build a deck. Instead, you gain skills that you can associate with different poker hands: one pair, two pairs, flushes, straights and so on. Rarer hands have more powerful skills associated with them. When battle starts, you're given a poker hand and can play any combination of hands you get. You may use a one pair for a defense card or a straight for a heavy-hitting attack with a debuff. Each "slot" can only contain one skill, but you can swap out skills between fights if something isn't working for you.

This means the game doesn't have an energy system, but the number of actions you can take is determined by how big of a hand you're willing to spend. Higher-tier hands allow for more powerful attacks, and lower-tier hands can be used more. Any cards you don't spend are carried over to the next round, and you get a preview of upcoming cards so you can roughly plan ahead. This effectively gives you a more flexible energy system, à la Dawncaster and its ilk. You're limited to how many cards you can hold at one time, but certain skills can increase that.

The system has a few flaws that keep it from being as instantly engaging as more traditional deck-builders. Having to build a strong poker hand is a cool concept, but it left me feeling pretty limited in terms of what I could do with combos. In comparison to the more straightforward energy system that most genre games use, saving up for a royal flush to use a key skill felt limiting enough that I shied away from using the big-ticket skills in favor of smaller but more reliable ones. This comes with the unfortunate side effect that basic skills are inherently more boring.

I also found the balance to be a bit off. Part of this might be tied to the basic poker concept, but sometimes I'd win battles in a single turn and other times, I'd be overwhelmed with seemingly no way to counter. This isn't unheard of in the genre where RNG plays a big role, but unlike traditional deck-builders, I didn't feel like I could mitigate the RNG as much as I'd like. The entire thing left me feeling like some of my losses (and some wins) were less about clever play and more about pure luck in a way I found to be unsatisfying.

I'm not a huge poker player, so that may be the key. Players who are fond of counting cards, guessing probabilities, and figuring out when to hit and when to stand will enjoy the combat system. Coming into it more as a Slay the Spire addict, however, I found that Zoeti lacked the same general addictiveness that I associate with the genre. There's nothing wrong with a more niche concept, but it makes it tougher to recommend more generally.

One thing that drags down the game is a lot of frustrating bugs and lack of polish. For example, for a good while, I was unable to access the shop and then mysteriously, it fixed itself. I had a couple of crashes and weird bugs. There were some buttons in the game's menu that seemed to do nothing, and a lot of card text was vague. In general, it felt more like a game in Early Access than something that was freshly released. I hope the developers intend to support the title down the line, as much of this stuff can be addressed in patches.

The art style is colorful and charming, with a lot of nice character designs that stand out. Like most games in the genre, it tends to forgo all but the most basic animations, but that isn't enough to be a problem. Just having a nice art style does a lot to make it stand out. The music isn't hugely memorable, but any deck-builder will have you listening to your own music by your hundredth run. It's a solid presentation, if not a new step forward.

Zoeti is a neat concept that desperately needs more polish. The poker gameplay setup might not be as fun to me as the standard deck-builder, but I still enjoyed it, and I could see myself getting deeper into it if I were more interested in the card game. The art style is cute and charming, and the characters are amusing enough. The bugs and general lackluster presentation drags it down, but it can still be fun. Zoeti is just going to struggle with distinguishing itself in a very full market.

Score: 7.0/10