A great concept which I'd like to see them expand upon.
The combat system is quite interesting. You and the enemy have seven card spots each and you stack cards on top of each other to form poker hands. You can stock whatever card or group of cards on top of each other (as long as you don't end up with more than five cards), but bear in mind that you can't separate cards that have been stacked together. You can not just move your own cards, but take cards from your enemy's card spots as long as you just take one card and not a group.
For each turn you have three attack points which you can use to either stack cards, use a five card combination to attack or use a powercard, if you have enough rage. The strength of the attack depends on your hand. For instance, one pair takes 8 points from the enemy, full house takes 15, five of a kind 20, while straight flush is 40 and royal flush is 50. Your rage builds up when you attack and to a lesser degree when you get attacked. Once you have enough rage, you can activate cards such as calling in an ally to attack, use an elemental attack, put up a shield, get more action points, remove rage from the opponent or give a five hit point boost to all your attack for a limited number of turns.
The battle system is quite deep once you get into it and there are a lot of strategic decisions that goes along with it. Obviously, the big points are in the straight and royal flushes, but they are quite hard to get. So do you use one of your seven spots to try to get it, or maybe two in order to increase your chance? The more stacks you have the less freedom you have to move other cards. I've had battles where I have gone without straight flushes and battles where I have been preparing for a royal flush in every single colour. In addition you have to use your powercards cleverly and it is also smart to look at what your opponent is up to and try to sabotage him by using cards he needs.
I really like the battle system and think it is a great idea, but I can't help but wish they had been a bit heavier on the RPG side of things. There is no EXP or levelling up, so the way you get stronger is by recruiting new allies and getting passive powercards (throughout the course of the game you will get three blessing cards that ups your maximum HP and three secret cards that ups your maximum rage).
Here is a system I think would work. You don't really level up, but for each battle you gain EXP and when you have enough EXP you can spend it on rewards. Rewards could include higher max HP and rage, gaining more rage per attack, each attack taking one point more damage, uping the strength of your allies and making healing cards more effecting. For considerably more EXP you could get an extra action point for each turn, the ability to automatically regenerate some health each turn or maybe an extra card spot. I think it would benefit the game greatly. On the other hand, at least the fact that you get stronger so seldom have made it easier for them to balance the game so that you never need to go grinding, but you never get so powerful you break the game either.
As far as story, graphics and music goes they have really committed to the end-of-the-age-of-Vikings setting. You encounter a lot of Vikings, and also have some as your allies. You also fight a Fenrir wolves, and the old gods, who are now threatened by the popularity of Christianity comes up as an important plot point. One of your allies is even based on a Norwegian king, although in the game they spell his name Harald Hardrada, when it is really Harald Hardraade (with the aa being a letter gameSpot doesn't accept).
All in all, Runespell is a perfect example of making a good game without using too many resources. You move around on a map that looks more like a board game and there are quite few movement animations, enabling them to deliver pretty well on the still graphics and do really well on the design. There is no spoken dialogue, but the dialogue is still quite good. The music is great, though a bit more variety would be nice.
The game ends on a "there will definitely be a sequel" note and follows up by saying straight out that the main character Changeling will be back, so I hope that they will be able to expand on the concept. I just really like the battle system and I think it has a lot of potential. I could even see mythic poker developing into a real offline card game if they polished it and made more powercards. If you think the game sounds interesting, you should definitely go download the free demo on steam.