Like many a bewildered fan of the gaming industry, I have recently fallen under the spell of Balatro, and especially its jokers. The mechanics and overall presentation may be exquisite, but it is the thrill of discovering yet another mutant jester modifier that makes me throw myself at Steam Deck in my sleep. Well, now those jokers have competition: ducks. Stepping, or rather, wadding forward is Placid Plastic Deck – A Quiet Quest, a quacking card brawler that somehow draws inspiration from both the Pokémon series and Inscryption.
In WA Quiet Quest, you play Zoi, a pixelated top-down RPG girl who has recently had a falling out with her best friend. How does Zoi resolve the dispute? Gather your best deck of duck cards, dueck, if you will. These ducks aren’t just the regular, mud-slinging goofballs who stink up my local park with their boisterous screeching and outdoor breeding, trust me. They include Shark Ducks, Hypno Ducks, Bee Ducks, and the quintessential Yellow Duck – Mickey Mouse from the nest. My favorite so far is Marble Duck, the Ozymandian totem of mysticism.
There’s no word yet on exactly how you’ll be playing cards with these adorable birds, but it looks like it’ll be a tiered, turquoise-blue game board that entices and confuses with whirring gears and a duck pond of sorts on the left side.
All of this takes place in a “magical realism world filled with both good and not-so-good, mostly weird characters.” The parallels to Inscryption may not be as obvious in the trailer above – they’re more apparent in the previous teaser, which can be found at Steam page. Friends, I fear that these supposedly “calm” ducks may be somehow lying to us. I fear that this quest may not be so composed after all. There is no release date yet.
