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Tech, Games and Whisky

The Sebr's Blog

Customizable Card Games

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My last post was mostly about boardgames, but my gaming life is also full of card games. Especially customizable card games.

A blast from the past

I played Magic the Gathering from its debut in 1993 up to now with a hiatus of a few years in between. This is the game that started it all and its richness is unparallel.

During the 90’s there was a realy big CCG craze. Most games would only last a few months. Sometimes they would last a full year (singular) and then crash and burn. Some had lasting power both in terms of mechanics and theming like Legend of the Five Rings.

Some of them crashed really hard and really quick but had some nice mechanics. I remembered having enjoyed Kult a lot. Its resource system was innovative using souls stored in a sort of cross:

kult

Games that crashed then got reprinted

Netrunner was also super innovative in its asymmetric game play style. It was ahead of its time and got reprinted recently as Android Netrunner. I still play that one quite a bit.

Netunner

In university I played a lot of Doomtown. This game felt really fresh to me:

  • Its theme was weird west (monsters, cowboys and steampunks)
  • You started with a lot of resources already in play instead of slowly trudging through a “mana curve building”.
  • You would need to build a deck along 2 different axis. You needed to have good cards with good synergies. But also, each cards would carry a “normal number and suit symbol” that would be used in a poker style combat.

doomtown

  • There was a positionnal element to the game. Over turns, you would build the city of Doomtown with all its external locations (ex: mines) and its city location (ex: saloon, brothel, bandk, prison…). Your characters would move between the different locations calling out other dudes and committing various missions: arson, stealing the diligence, bank robbing and such.

doomtown

Sadly the game has killed for the second time. But maybe it will rise again like any good “harrowed” dude would do.

Today

These day I play a bit of Game of throne second edition. The game is good, I especially like the “plot deck” mechanic which replace completely any sorts of mana/lands. You play a plot card at the beginning of each turn and it defines how many gold, initiative and “agressiveness” you get for a turn. It also comes with some nifty abilities:

got

The rest of the game is pretty straightforward: you play characters, you attack your opponent and try to win by accumulating more victory points. The theming is astoundingly good though: you have a choice of 8 factions, each with their own pretty distinctive flavor. As a bonus this game is a “Living Card game” (like Android netrunner and the reloaded Doomtown) in that you buy boosters of known cards and there are no card rarities.

An Epic Gem

One game that I played recently and that passed below most gamers radar is Epic the Card game. This game seemed to have been dismissed as being a Magic The Gathering knock off (which it is a bit) but there is so much more to Epic. It is a non collectible card game with super easy to learn rules, if you know how to play MtG or Hearthstone you pretty know how to play.

What is really interesting is the fact that Epic doesn’t have any “resources over time” system like MtG Mana. Each turn you get a coin (that you lose at the end of your turn). And each cards (events or champions) cost either 0 or 1 coin. That means on your first turn you can literally cast the biggest Champion of the game:

wurm

It is like if your game of Magic would start on the 10th turns giving you access to the 10 lands you need to cast any of your cards. Pretty cool. Epic is coming on quickly with a digital implementation (for iOS, Android, PC and Mac). The digital game will come with ALL of the cards. No need to grind for boosters. This will be really awesome.