Review Insights · Google Play
Gambonanza
Stray Fawn Studio · 5,703 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
5,703 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 14 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
9 negative reviews mention this · 64% of all complaints
★★★★★ "not fun, glad I only payed $2. I love Balatro, this feels like when your Grandma buys you "Transmorfers" DVD from the dollar store instead of "Transformers". The moves the AI makes are mind boggling. There is a core game here that could be …" - The Atomic Dinosaurs
2
"balatro"
6 negative reviews mention this · 43% of all complaints
★★★★★ "not fun, glad I only payed $2. I love Balatro, this feels like when your Grandma buys you "Transmorfers" DVD from the dollar store instead of "Transformers". The moves the AI makes are mind boggling. There is a core game here that could be …" - The Atomic Dinosaurs
3
"chess"
6 negative reviews mention this · 43% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The idea is good, but fundamentally the chess AI is all over the place, making games ping pong past stage 2. Biggest issue for me though is the seemingly heavy weighed RNG against the player. Too often does a "Random" tile transformation ta…" - Timothy Alder
4
"pieces"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The idea is good, but fundamentally the chess AI is all over the place, making games ping pong past stage 2. Biggest issue for me though is the seemingly heavy weighed RNG against the player. Too often does a "Random" tile transformation ta…" - Timothy Alder
5
"strategy"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "A buggy mess. Touch controls are so wonky. Graphical glitches that require restarting the game. Overall, the modification of the game of chess simply isn't interesting or investing for myself. No God builds here. They call them Gambits/Joke…" - dev deque
6
"bosses"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The RNG can be unbearable, such as the combination of certain bosses and a queen that is protected until all other units are captured. Wildly frustrating. Most of the gambit are entirely unhelpful and were probably put there as filler. Only…" - Cameron Palmer
7
"work"
4 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Great concept, bad execution. It doesn’t really work as chess, a roguelike, or a gambling-style strategy game. The rules feel unfair, the AI trades pieces with no real consequence, and losing your own pieces wrecks the run. Cool idea, but f…" - Corey L.
8
"past"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The idea is good, but fundamentally the chess AI is all over the place, making games ping pong past stage 2. Biggest issue for me though is the seemingly heavy weighed RNG against the player. Too often does a "Random" tile transformation ta…" - Timothy Alder
9
"crumble"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The idea is good, but fundamentally the chess AI is all over the place, making games ping pong past stage 2. Biggest issue for me though is the seemingly heavy weighed RNG against the player. Too often does a "Random" tile transformation ta…" - Timothy Alder
10
"mechanics"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "It's slow with goofy mechanics. clearly a balatro inspired but less exciting and more another" - Duane “Mike” Malany
11
"certain"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "A buggy mess. Touch controls are so wonky. Graphical glitches that require restarting the game. Overall, the modification of the game of chess simply isn't interesting or investing for myself. No God builds here. They call them Gambits/Joke…" - dev deque
12
"hard"
3 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "A buggy mess. Touch controls are so wonky. Graphical glitches that require restarting the game. Overall, the modification of the game of chess simply isn't interesting or investing for myself. No God builds here. They call them Gambits/Joke…" - dev deque
📋 All 14 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
not fun, glad I only payed $2. I love Balatro, this feels like when your Grandma buys you "Transmorfers" DVD from the dollar store instead of "Transformers". The moves the AI makes are mind boggling. There is a core game here that could be good but this feels more like a early build than a play tested game. Maybe Gambonanza 2 will be good.
It's slow with goofy mechanics. clearly a balatro inspired but less exciting and more another
Could be better, tries to copy Balatro as chess but it's definitely lacking in balance and at the end of the day it's entirely RNG if you'll be able to win or not. Could also benefit greatly from a "Confirm action" button as it's too easy to move wrong. At the end of the day, this game is not worth it, it lazily tries to copy Balatro exactly but puts no effort in refining the game to make it playable.
this is a resource management game. the roguelike elements are really just different ways to make "takes takes takes" profitable. the chess is reduced to some sort of abomination that isn't in any way satisfying. this is mostly due to the absence of checkmate being a win condition.
balatro but bad. the entire point of roguelikes is building a deck and getting power. 90% of the powers here are "certain chance something will happen" and most arent great either. you barley make money while each level has several good pieces so its basically 5% trying to build something good and 95 percent trying to keep your side of the board workable. also more often than not you will be forced to trade pieces. blessed is also bugged. I always bless my queen and I dont get stock of her
The idea is good, but fundamentally the chess AI is all over the place, making games ping pong past stage 2. Biggest issue for me though is the seemingly heavy weighed RNG against the player. Too often does a "Random" tile transformation take away one of my already invested tiles. In 4 separate games where an enemy piece has the crumble mod did the game "Randomly" crumble my tile with a piece on it, but 3 pieces in a row? Honestly, you need to check if there is bias somewhere in the code.
A buggy mess. Touch controls are so wonky. Graphical glitches that require restarting the game. Overall, the modification of the game of chess simply isn't interesting or investing for myself. No God builds here. They call them Gambits/Jokers. It just not interesting. The game is flawed where if you follow a certain strategy - it's hard to lose. Yet, boring and scummy all the same. Not comparable to Balatro. Needs so many fixes and changes to recommend. (Motorola G Power 5G 2024)
The RNG can be unbearable, such as the combination of certain bosses and a queen that is protected until all other units are captured. Wildly frustrating. Most of the gambit are entirely unhelpful and were probably put there as filler. Only a small fraction of the gambit feel like an engine for a strategy.
Great concept, bad execution. It doesn’t really work as chess, a roguelike, or a gambling-style strategy game. The rules feel unfair, the AI trades pieces with no real consequence, and losing your own pieces wrecks the run. Cool idea, but frustrating and poorly balanced. I wish I had refunded it after the first playthrough.
at 1st its fun. but I cannot even get past the second boss. the bosses are way to hard.
Cant refund I am unable to refund the game. I downloaded it after it peaked my interest and played it. unfortunately it wasn't my style and wanted to refund after 2 min. it didn't work and im quite upset. I hope to refund this game
The game has decent potential but the balance just isn't there yet, the bosses are too OP and power-ups are lame. The bosses rely on mechanics that aren't really strategy while giving you RNG layer after RNG layer to work past in order to luck into good powers. The bosses just feel like something to be muscled past thanks to the overwhelming powers they have but power-ups don't provide the muscle so its a slog to get anywhere past the third round even with good power-ups and RNG luck.
Quality of life things need to be strongly improved. Saying adjacent but not including diagonals for example. A lot of fend for yourself on the player side that can create some annoying scenarios, like stalemating when you can place a piece. Aside from increasing difficulty, there are not really persistent upgrades. it is annoying that the Crumble stage seems to target tiles that you need. The chess mechanics are cool and the bonus tiles work well. That execution I would say is done very well.
Its really inspiring to see and feel another game like the"Balatro",but its a pretty luck based game,the bosses with their special abilities?Not a big deal,the real problem is we earn too less money each round to fully modify the gambit that are useful,each round with more opponent pieces,and the crumble mode with the boss pieces"immunity"before 3 waits??Man with those waits the boss already wiped me out bruh,i know the team tryna make a game that requires brain,but it shouldn't be that hard man
Sentiment summary
94%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
3%
Negative (1-2★)