I recently listened to episode 145 of the Ludology podcast. That episode covered multi-use cards in games. This episode reminded me of a lot of good card games I totally forgot to talk about when I wrote about multi-use cards recently.

The Precursor

The first game to make multi-use of cards is Up Front. This is a 1983 published games about World War II that is currently out of print. This game was really innovative, it was using its card for characters, terrain and actions.

A Cold War game

Twilight Struggle is a card driven 2 players game about the Cold War. Each card has an Influence value and an Event and you can play your card using any of those 2 abilities.

What is really nice with that game is how easy it is to have access to it: there is the analog version that got reprinted but you can also buy it on Steam, iOs and Android.

Valley of the Kings

[Dominion(https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218/dominion) has created its own category of card games. While most deck builders have one use for their cards (in Dominion cards are either Money, Victory Point or Action) Valley of the Kings applied its own tweak on the genre. Each card in Valley of the Kings is both Money and Action. And effects scale with the power level of the card. The more powerful an action, the more gold this card gives you. It creates a nice tension: do you spend the card for good money or do you keep it for its action?

Apart from this, Valley of the Kings is a really clever and under appreciated card game. It is inexpensive, compact, it has an uncommon theme (populate your Egyptian Tomb!) and the Entomb mechanism is super well integrated. In order to score points from a card, you have to Entomb it and remove it from your deck. You need to gage how many use of a powerful card is enough before cashing it. Also, what is not to like about the card offer being shaped like a pyramid that crumble when you buy a card from its base?

Imperial Settlers and 51st State

This clever and really brain burny card game has first started with 51st State. The theme was post apocalyptic, with factions made out of Mutants, Traders, New Yorkers and Appalachians! All the cards could be used in multiple ways: you can Raze it to gain its resource once, you can sign a “contract” with the card to get some small amount of resources each turn, or you can conquer the card and attach it to your Home Base to benefits from its skill.

The iconography is a bit heavy but the game is really thematic and strategic.

Imperial Settlers is the family-friendly version of the same engine. You play as either the Romans, Barbarians, Egyptians or Japanese and you play your card in a similar way (Raze, Contract or Conquer) trying to get a better victory point engine than your neighbor.

The cards have a bit more text but it makes for a clearer design, in my opinion.

Eminent Domain

Kind of a hybrid between a role selection game similar to Glory to Rome and a deck builder, Eminent is a sci-fi-themed game that allows you to colonize and conquer different planets while researching technologies. Each card can be used either for its specific actions or for its “role”. Additionally most cards have multiple “actions” icons that can be played with a role card to boost its effect.

The rest!

A few other games were named in the podcasts but I didn’t get the chance to play either of them (yet).

Bruges

In Bruges cards have 6 uses! It is probably the game that pushed this mechanism the most (maybe too much?).

La Granja

La Granja is mostly a board game with some cards (instead of a card game masquerading as a board game).

Ares Project

The Ares Project was designed by Geoff Engelstein, one of the hosts of Ludology. It is a strategy war game using some RTS like mechanism (base building, asymmetric armies, resources gathering and combat).

Kanagawa

I know next to nothing about Kanagawa except that its designer is really great (Bruno Cathala) and that the card design is so clear and Zen-like!

Pixel Tactic

In this game cards can be played as units, drafted as commander (put the card upside down) or be played for their single use action effect. The artwork is 8 bitish. And you know I like Pixel Art.