Thronebreaker - Witcher Tales

I never successfully played TW games so I never did gwent. I looked at the gameplay of Thronebreaker on Twitch and was on the fence, didn't think it's interesting because of the card battles. However, I'm interested in the story elements and after much thought, bought this.

I chose easy to skip the card battles but I take a look at the cards and fiddled around with me. I understood the trinket stuff but the rest is just befuddling. It seems I must meet the criteria of the numbers on the top left with the image of the bound book and the wine and bread to get an approved deck. If the numbers are too low or too high, the game keeps telling me the deck is invalid. However, I have zero idea how to get the ideal cards in place so I'm left with the default cards. 

I skip a great many battles but won very few.

I thought it was going to be a slightly good RPG, but you're keeping me more and more interested
But I just don't have the money to buy it right now

Oh, I forgot to post here!

I actually bought the game in the GOG winter sale before Christmas and played it for about 15 hours. I really like it. It certainly is more of an indie style game but one that is really done well. I like the story and the characters. Presentation is simple but the really good english voice over makes it feel a bit like a good audio book/play, which is what I like about it.

I also actually like the new Gwent. Yes, it is very different from what it was in the Witcher 3 but let's face it, TW3's version would never have done for a whole stand alone game, it was just not complex enough. This new version is much more interesting as you have to take into account all the interactions between the different cards. Granted, I don't have any experience with other card games (like Hearthstone or whatnot) but I do like this version of Gwent.
I also like all the puzzles with the custom decks where you have to figure out just the right moves to win. It's a very different kind of puzzle solving than I am used to from other games and it's fun.
I found that the battles themselves can be rather challenging. I had one pretty early on that I just couldn't win no matter what I did with my deck, so I had to load an earlier save to get my moral up to give myself the advantage I needed.

Despite the challenges, it is a very chill game to play since there is nothing timing dependent in it and I play it one handed, just using the mouse.

All in all, I'd say it's not a game that absolutely blows me away but it feels like this game knows exactly what it wants to be and it does what it wants to do very well. For 20 bucks, I am definitely getting my share of fun out of it. Didn't have time to play for a while now but eventually I do plan to finish it for sure.

Goes to show that CDProjekt doesn't just know how to make multi-year AAA productions, they can also deliver nice little indie style games.

I don't remember seeing this mentioned anywhere but, when in the timeline does this game take place?

Before the first Witcher. That is about when Geralt gain his knight title as mentioned in W3, i think.

Booted this up for the first time and got past the tutorial. So far it seems interesting, though I'm wondering when Geralt will show up. So far so good on the card battles, except the one vs the mob in Wetterton(sp?). I can't figure out how to win that one....

My only complaint with the game was that mandatory story battles were often quite easy while some side stuff was way more difficult. It wasn't balanced quite right imo.

But that's a minor gripe with a game I enjoyed a lot and took me longer than expected to finish which was a pleasant surprise.

It's too bad the game was a financial failure. I would buy another such game in a heartbeat.