This gem surfaces soon
We have it ready, but it is not unsealed yet. Come back when it opens.
Opens on 2026-08-07 (JST)
You fight with a deck of over 150 cards, and you summon phantoms to help. Then the game asks you to spend your own phantoms as fuel for stronger ones.
The store page splits its pitch into two headings, and the split is the design. The first is "fight with cards": a roguelike deckbuilder where the mage Hitoyo, sent by the Magic Guild, draws from a deck of over 150 cards to fight monsters as she climbs. The second is "summon phantoms": creatures that attack for you and shield you from attacks, and here the system doubles back on itself, because phantoms already summoned can be spent as the cost to summon stronger, advanced phantoms, which then sit in a separate pouch area available regardless of what is in your hand. So the game is not one resource economy but two running in parallel, cards you draw and phantoms you both deploy and consume, and reading which of your own board pieces is worth demoting to fuel a better one is where the harder decisions live. Made by Cloudgear Games, whose only two Steam titles are this game and its companion artbook, both with developer and publisher identical. Priced at ¥1,400, it is at 92 percent across 105 reviews (97 positive, 8 negative), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated-content disclosure and Steam's content descriptors completely empty. English and Japanese are both supported, so nothing is stopping you. One honest note: of its 105 reviews, 97 are in Japanese and just 3 are in English, and no English-language article about this game exists yet, on AUTOMATON WEST or elsewhere.
Published 2026-08-07
01First, the one feeling
- The deckbuilder half plays like the genre you already know: draw, read the board, spend. It is the phantom half that changes the math, because a phantom is not a fixed asset the way a played card is; it is a thing you can still choose to spend later.
- The pouch area, holding advanced phantoms outside your hand, means the upgrade path is not luck-gated the way a redraw would be. You know exactly what you are giving up when you cash in a phantom, which makes the trade legible instead of just costly.
- The harder reads are never about the cards in your hand. They are about which phantom on your own side of the board has already done its job and is worth demoting into something better.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You want Slay the Spire's roguelike deckbuilder core with a second resource system layered on top, not a reskin of the same one loop
- You want a design where upgrading is a visible trade you make with your own board, not a blind draw
- You want small and self-published: Cloudgear Games' only two Steam titles are this game and its artbook, both developer and publisher identical, content descriptors completely empty
Not for you
- You want a settled number; 105 reviews at 92 percent is solid but short of this site's ideal 95
- You want a game already found in the West; of 105 reviews only 3 are in English, and no English coverage exists yet
03The roots of this taste
92% positiveonly 105 reviews — yet almost no one has found it
Phantomancer Buried gem
The store page splits its pitch into two headings, and the split is the design. The first is "fight with cards": a roguelike deckbuilder where the mage Hitoyo, sent by the Magic Guild, draws from a deck of over 150 cards to fight monsters as she climbs. The second is "summon phantoms": creatures that attack for you and shield you from attacks, and here the system doubles back on itself, because phantoms already summoned can be spent as the cost to summon stronger, advanced phantoms, which then sit in a separate pouch area available regardless of what is in your hand. So the game is not one resource economy but two running in parallel, cards you draw and phantoms you both deploy and consume, and reading which of your own board pieces is worth demoting to fuel a better one is where the harder decisions live. Made by Cloudgear Games, whose only two Steam titles are this game and its companion artbook, both with developer and publisher identical. Priced at ¥1,400, it is at 92 percent across 105 reviews (97 positive, 8 negative per Steam's own review API), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with no AI-generated-content disclosure and Steam's content descriptors completely empty. English and Japanese are both supported, so nothing is stopping you. Of its 105 reviews, 97 are in Japanese and just 3 are in English.
Give it your first passSlay the Spire The origin
The origin of this taste: Slay the Spire, the American indie roguelike deckbuilder that defined the loop of drawing from a deck and reading a board that changes every run. Phantomancer is not an official Slay the Spire work, but its own twist runs a second economy alongside that same core loop, phantoms you summon to fight and shield you, which can themselves be spent as the cost of summoning something stronger.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- Slay the Spire Root
- Phantomancer You are here
- Read-and-build games same root
- Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend same root
- Mortal Glory 2 same root
- Spell Tonaeru same root
- ELbab same root
- Shooters, Ready! same root
- Harumachi Toroidal same root
- One Turn Kill same root
- Harusuberiya Chronicle 2.5 same root
- Welcome to the Guild Exploration Party! another taste