Bite-sized Review:
Azoove

By Chris Picone, 14 March 2024

Azoove is a card game that differs to most in that you're battling the elements rather than monsters or an opponent.  Really, it's a card-based survival game, where you build the story as you go. What really sets it apart, though, is its cooperative nature.

Aesthetics

Azoove is a good looking game, though rather minimalist in its execution.  Having said that, it's still in Early Access so I suspect some elements (such as the event cards all sharing an identical symbol) may be updated over time.  Each day you face a new incident, which comes with a lovely little art piece and a brief story of what's come to pass, and each scene features a lovely artistic background that give a real sense of time and place.

Gameplay

This is primarily a resource management game; you must manage, first and foremost, food, orientation, and health. If any of those drop to zero, it's game over.  You must also manage fatigue and stress. These are easier to manage, and zeroing out only forces a rest day. Having said that, if you have three rest days during your journey, it's still game over. For some reason. This is something that probably needs a little more explanation. Each day you face some new incident which forms part of the story - some discovered landmark or weather event during your journey - which also bring some significant hit to your resources. You're then issued a generic "resource pool," which you can choose to share with your co-op partner (which thankfully can be AI) - and they with you. These resources are used to on events to acquire a lucky find of food or some other discovery which will replenish some of your overarching stats.  Your companion does the same thing but you won't always know what they're choosing so you need to play it safe a lot of the time, and carefully plan your rest days when you know you can't succeed anyway. Resources must be spent carefully because you can use some of them at camp at the end of each day or save some to be used to unlock bigger events on future days.

Verdict

It probably needs a little more balancing yet and can definitely benefit from a little more variety in both the incidents and events (the game's hard so you'll likely need several playthroughs to succeed) but it's still in Early Access and I believe that's being worked on.   All in all Azoove is a fun and challenging survival game and I love the way you build the story as you go through your actions

Links: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2435450/Azoove/