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doctorofmagic · 2 years ago

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First look at Doctor Strange v6 #1!

Full interview:

Surprising no one, Dr. Stephen Strange is back from the dead, less than two years after he departed the mortal plane. March’s Doctor Strange #1 resurrects the Sorcerer Supreme for the latest chapter in writer Jed MacKay’s Strange saga, which began with 2021’s Death of Doctor Strange and continued in the Strange series, spotlighting Stephen’s widow, Clea. Artist Pasqual Ferry and colorist Matt Hollingsworth join MacKay for the new series, which focuses on Stephen and Clea’s marriage — and plenty of magical superhero life shenanigans.

Over the past year, MacKay has established Clea as the Sorcerer Supreme of both Earth and her native Dark Dimension, a dual role that makes her an especially formidable hero. Early in Strange, which concludes with this week’s issue #10, Clea declared herself the “Warlord of Manhattan,” and she’s been very aggressive in taking out mystical threats to her domain while searching for a way to resurrect her husband.

Now that Stephen is back, MacKay has the opportunity to delve deeper into their unique mystical marriage. “What I find interesting about Clea and Stephen’s relationship is that it has a pedigree that is up there with all the other great Marvel superhero partnerships,” said MacKay. “This is a relationship that extends way back into Marvel’s history, and I wanted to see that expressed on the page. These are two people who have known each other for a very long time, have suffered their ups and downs, and have come through them to find a new balance in their lives together.”

“I think there’s a certain gravitas in the two of them together — neither of them are young, fresh, unseasoned,” said MacKay. “Stephen Strange is an elder statesman in the Marvel universe, the person that’s always brought in when magic intrudes into lives of other heroes, and Clea is every bit his equal: an alien warlord who possesses great power of her own. I think Clea and Strange are a power couple in every sense of the word, and I’m interested in exploring that relationship and bringing it back to the forefront in the world of Strange.”

Their marriage is especially rife with storytelling potential because up until Stephen’s death, Clea had lost all memory of their relationship in one of those deals with the devil that Marvel heroes do every so often (see: Spider-Man’s “One More Day”). “[Stephen’s death] has brought them together after every power in the world conspired to keep them apart,” said MacKay. “In bringing Stephen back, our heroes have a fresh start. What remains is seeing how they use it.”

With a fresh start comes a new art team. Artist Pasqual Ferry has been working in superhero comics for over 25 years, drawing big-name characters like Superman, Iron Man, Thor, and the Fantastic Four. After taking a few years off from monthly comics, Ferry returned in 2021 with the Spider-Man: Spider’s Shadow miniseries, and there was a notable shift in his artwork. He began incorporating panel layouts evoking the grid-based abstract paintings of Piet Mondrian, giving the alternate-universe horror story its own distinct design sensibility.

With Spider’s Shadow, Ferry tackled one of the two heroes he’d been dreaming of drawing since he was a kid. Doctor Strange is the other one, and the new series is a passion project for the artist. “I have always liked magic, I have always liked the world of fantasy and anything that has to do with imagination,” said Ferry. “I’ve been intrigued by the designs by Steve Ditko, whom I admired for his work on Spider-Man. I always thought that the character of Doctor Strange gives artists a lot of potential to play with and imagine new things.”

“It’s the possibility, the challenge, the idea is to bring something new and wonderful to the table,” said Ferry. “There have been many great artists working on the character, from [Mike] Mignola, P. Craig Russell, Paul Smith. Great artists that have given us their version, and it is important that when Doctor Strange is in those worlds that we create an environment maximizing the use of panels and designs.”

“Pasqual is a marvel,” said MacKay. “He brings a seemingly effortless magic to these characters that sets them apart in the way those who live in the worlds of magic should be. He has an appetite for the weird and unearthly, and I can’t wait for people to see the strangeness he’s going to conjure!”

Ferry is also looking outside of superhero comics for artistic influences to maximize the book’s visual impact, from the nightmarish fantasy painting of Hieronymus Bosch to the surrealism of René Magritte and the mind-bending distortion of psychedelic art. He’s excited to translate these more abstract artistic concepts through a superhero whose aesthetic has been shaped by visionary comic book creators. Ferry’s frequent collaborator Matt Hollingsworth rounds out the art team, and his extreme versatility means that no matter what influence Ferry incorporates, the colors will match the style of the line work.

Stylistic contrast also plays a big part in how Doctor Strange’s and Clea’s specific types of magic are represented on the page. “I am going to try to differentiate Clea’s powers from those of Doctor Strange, making it clear that Stephen’s are fundamentally White Magic, while Clea’s come from the Dark Dimension, inherited from her parents, Umar and Orini,” said Ferry. “Aesthetically, while Strange’s spells will be bright, perhaps with an art deco touch in their shapes — I love P. Craig Russell’s designs — Clea’s will be darker in tone, more twisted, baroque, while remaining harmonious in shape. It could be said that Clea’s are more subtly threatening.”

That extra bit of menace ingrained in Clea’s personality will cause tension between the Spouses Supreme. Like any marriage, Stephen and Clea’s relationship has its own challenges, largely stemming from fundamental differences in their perspectives and how they engage with the world.

“We’ve seen in the past how Stephen’s background as a doctor is something that informs his every action,” said McKay, “while we’ve also more recently seen Clea carve her way through the arcane gangsters with little concern for bloodshed. How will these irreconcilable philosophies clash?”

[Source]

#doctor strange #stephen strange #clea strange #spouses supreme #spider-man #peter parker #luke cage #bats the ghost dog #jed mackay #pasqual ferry #marvel comics #doctor strange v6

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mikesuszek · 7 years ago

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My Magikarp brings all the boys to the pond

Before I say anything else:

Voltorb is a real bastard.

I used to like this little shitstain. Now I see it for what it is: The laziest design in the entire Pokemon universe. Out of the 802 Pokemon in existence, this little pathetic ball is #1 in the worst category you could ascribe to them. I had to Google that number, and I don’t know about half of them, but I know this to be true regardless.

Someone will say otherwise, but they’re wrong. And after playing enough Magikarp Jump on iOS, I expect zero voices of dissent that Voltorb is also a total bastard.

Voltorb doesn’t deserve its own game, and as of a week or two ago, I might’ve said the same thing about Magikarp, but boy was I wrong. I tend to think of the Pokeverse as a mirror image of real life; The Pokemon Company picks a handful of ‘mon like Pikachu and Charizard and they become the one percenters, the ones that are on all the boxes, posters, basically every piece of merchandise in existence. Would it shock any of us if photos were leaked of Pikachu doing blow off the sexy back of a Machoke in a Japanese high rise? Of course not. We all know Pikachu runs the show.

But Magikarp? Magikarp, in all its floppy, laying-on-its-side ways, is sort of the embodiment of “all of us.” We are all Magikarp. It’s the Weird Twitter of Pokemon. We adore it because we kind of pity it. We like it because we know it’s sort of useless. We collect it because, after 400 goddamn candies in Pokemon GO or a whole lot of level grinding in the main series, we’ll eventually get our hands on a badass Gyarados.

Until recently, Magikarp would never have dreamed of starring in anything. And yet here we are; Magikarp Jump is rocking the iOS and Android charts as a free download and people largely seem to love it.

I’m one of them. I love it. Mostly because its short-sighted, lackadaisical control styles match the useless nature of Magikarp itself. The game actually sort of sucks, but it doesn’t! I could quit it at any time, but I don’t want to!

The big difference now being that Magikarp is glorious. Behold:

FABIKARP.

Yes, Magikarp come in all sorts of patterns now, and among the rarest are the golden fishies, which are beautiful and take the concept of “shiny” Pokemon to the next level.

This is a good time to pause and talk broadly about mobile games. Touch games have copied one another’s general trappings for years: You have the typical match-threes, the “endless” runners, the doodle jumpers, and so on.

That last one is where you’d expect Magikarp Jump to fall, but it doesn’t. Rather, every action in the game is summed up by singular button clicks. Magikarp Jump is only a few skips away from Cow Clicker in its non-entertaining, blatant click-a-couple-times-then-wait-to-do-a-thing nature. Feeding your Magikarp by clicking on food makes sense to me. Simply tapping a button to get your Magikarp to leap in the air, albeit funny, does not. Tapping one button to see how hard your Magikarp trains by flopping against an assortment of objects extremely-does not. Where some of these events could feature some kind of quick-time event or mini-game, Magikarp Jump bypasses all that for button-clicks and hidden dice rolls.

And once you get past that shred of disappointment, it’s fine. Magikarp doesn’t give a damn. The thing jumps sideways, for fuck’s sake. Do you think it has enough of an attention span to let you tell it when to flop into a balloon pump or a tree? Of course not.

So, my relationship with this game is pretty simple: Open it up, do all the things, turn it off, then come back later to do more things, like any other free to play game. This one feels quite friendly, in that I haven’t spent a dime and have beaten three leagues and reached trainer rank 16 -- I stopped writing this for roughly two days and now I’m at 23.

By many standards, Magikarp Jump shouldn’t be considered a good mobile game: The buy-in for diamonds in the microtransaction system is way too steep relative to their usefulness, the game’s animations are supremely sub-par, the aforementioned actions are repetitive and not very entertaining, the game slams into a wall of grind come the mid-levels, and some of the more useful pieces of info and upgrade systems are buried in some not-so-intuitive menus.

Magikarp Jump is kind of a mess. And I adore it for that, because no game bearing the Poke-fish’s name should be anything more than a belly-flop that manages to get high scores from the App Store’s user review judges.

This game is the ultimate indicator that The Pokemon Company as well as Nintendo and its affiliates could put damn near anything on the App Store and it absolutely will be a smash hit. Not only does it appear to be one of the worst mobile games I’ve ever been hopelessly enjoying on a regular basis (but not at all the worst I’ve ever played, which is an important distinction), but it stars one of the ironic-to-like afterthoughts in one of the most consistently popular brands on the planet. And the user reviews for this completely underwhelming game are equally amazing. Here are some choice quotes from a few of the 1,300+ (!) five-star reviews:

“This is an amazing piece of software. The overtones of games from Nintendos legendary past vibrate through this game providing feeling of nostalgia that have never been known to most.”

“This game is flawless.”

“This game has really opened my eyes that Magikarp is not a weak Pokemon but a strong Pokemon trying it’s best to win battles.”

“From tricky life choices to a plethora of potentially catastrophic decisions, this game has excited and entertained the karp out of me!”

Just fucking amazing, right?

Speaking of catastrophic decisions: Voltorb, and to a lesser extent Pidgeotto, are a couple of assholes. The game triggers random events, such as one where I’m positive this kid is giving my trainer weed, and evidently you sell the “nugget” he hands you for money, because you’re definitely a drug mule now.

Other events give players a choice to put Magikarp at some varying level of risk with the benefit of increased jump points, diamonds or coins on either branch of the proverbial decision tree. One such event features a tree full of delicious fruit that Magikarp might leap in the air to eat, which frequently results in a Pidgeotto swooping out of the air to steal your fish away. Another event, the one my glorious FABIKARP fell victim to, features a mysterious Pokeball fake-out in which a Voltorb zaps your Magikarp, forcing you to get a new one.

Now, let’s clarify something here: Any given Magikarp you own can be “retired,” either manually or by reaching their maximum level and losing in a league jumping battle (the max level dictated by your trainer’s level, which actually sounds unnecessarily convoluted now that I typed it out). Those “retired” Pokemon drift through your Magikarp pond like the ghosts of your fish-training past, ever-present as you move on to the next fish, and the next fish, and so on.

But those victims? You’ll never see them again, ever. The game doesn’t explicitly say it, this is a Pokemon offshoot after all, but they are most certainly dead as hell. A fucking Voltorb definitely *killed* my golden beauty. My scaly, sun-kissed child. My gorgeous, mouth-breathing, aquatic idiot, literally electrocuted to death as the result of mere curiosity. Voltorb is a dirty fuck.

In some ways, particularly after learning over time which events are more likely to result in complete and breathless fatality, Magikarp Jump rewards playing it safe a little too much, which is probably the worst thing a chance-filled video game can do. I’m able to sit back, safely raise my ‘karp, never spend a dime of this game and get by just fine. Even by free-to-play standards, there are some pretty lackluster design decisions going on here.

In truth, and this is reinforced as I read more glowing user reviews, Magikarp Jump is considered good by the grace of its own existence. It’s good because we have it. Because we are able to open it and play it, so it is a good thing. It’s enjoyable because it’s Magikarp, and kind of dang cute. By real-ass video game merits, it’s the turd in the punch bowl that we’re all happily scooping our way around. In some ways, I want to shout “no, don’t drink the Kool-aid,” but it’s equally fun to kick back and enjoy the show for a while, even embrace the chaos. I enjoy this crappy game, even though I shouldn’t.

Where do we go from here? Well shit, I think it’s been sufficiently proven that Nintendo can now effectively dump out any crummy game on iOS with a treasured brand attached and backstroke in the depths of our starving nostalgia. To kick-start this inevitable process, here’s a couple ideas:

A Metroid game, except instead you buy outfits and dress up Samus and don’t fucking play actual Metroid at all, what would you even expect.

Yoshi’s Cookie, except you’re just feeding Yoshi cookies every few hours to get it to lay and hatch eggs with the option to buy packs of cookies using in-game currency that you purchase with real money (the valuation of each being intentionally staggered to encourage you to buy more, like hot dogs and hot dog buns in Father of the Bride Part 2).

F-Zero “endless” racer where you purchase parts for your hovercraft using in-game currency that you purchase with real money (the valuation of each being intentionally staggered to encourage you to buy more blah blah blah).

Literally the exact same thing as Magikarp Jump, but with Zubat or some shit.

There is no good reason for you to download Magikarp Jump, but here’s a link to its listing on iTunes so you can do exactly that. You can get Gyarados in this game after “cracking” your karp’s Everstone by tapping on it repeatedly:

Some folks are already waxing poetic about that, but ultimately Gyarados’ appearance isn’t very special and is more of a missed opportunity than anything else. Let’s not shit ourselves, this isn’t a good game. It’s just not! But it actually super is, and everyone should download it to push one stupid button and catch a Magikarp themselves.

If I were forced to grade this game, fuck it, I’d give it five stars. Let’s lean in to this madness.

#pokemon #Magikarp #magikarp jump #ios #review #iphone #ipad #iphone games #games #videogames #video games #gaming #gyarados #voltorb #Nintendo

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deniscollins · 5 years ago

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Can Someone Be Fired for Being Gay? The Supreme Court Will Decide

In more than half the states, someone can still be fired for being gay under the assumption that the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning sexual discrimination does not apply to gays, only male/female distinction. What would you do if you were a manager and another manager said s/he was going to fire someone because s/he didn’t like gays: (1) nothing, (2) intervene on behalf of the gay employee (if so, how?)? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

The Supreme Court has delivered a remarkable series of victories to the gay rights movement over the last two decades, culminating in a ruling that established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. But in more than half the states, someone can still be fired for being gay.

Early in its new term, on Oct. 8, the court will consider whether an existing federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, guarantees nationwide protection from workplace discrimination to gay and transgender people, even in states that offer no protections right now.

It will be the court’s first case on L.G.B.T. rights since the retirement last year of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinions in all four of the court’s major gay rights decisions. And without Justice Kennedy, who joined four liberals in the 5-to-4 ruling in the marriage case, the workers who sued their employers in the three cases before the court may face an uphill fight.

“Now that we don’t have Kennedy on the court, it would be a stretch to find a fifth vote in favor of any of these claims that are coming to the court,” said Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia and the author of “Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality.”

She added that lawyers working to expand gay rights might have focused too narrowly on the right to marry. “The gay rights movement became the marriage rights movement,” she said, “and we lost sight of the larger dynamics and structures of homophobia.”

Other experts said the court should have little trouble ruling for the plaintiffs.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans continue to face widespread job discrimination because of their same-sex attraction or sex identities,” said William N. Eskridge Jr., a law professor at Yale and the author of an article in The Yale Law Journal on Title VII’s statutory history. “If the justices take seriously the text of Title VII and their own precedents, L.G.B.T. Americans will enjoy the same job protections as other groups.”

The Supreme Court’s earlier gay rights rulings were grounded in constitutional law. Romer v. Evans, in 1996, struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that had banned laws protecting gay men and lesbians. Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003, struck down laws making gay sex a crime. United States v. Windsor, in 2013, overturned a ban on federal benefits for married same-sex couples.

And Obergefell v. Hodges, in 2015, struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, ruling that the Constitution guarantees a right to such unions.

The new cases, by contrast, concern statutory interpretation, not constitutional law.

The question for the justices is whether the landmark 1964 law’s prohibition of sex discrimination encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Lawyers for the gay and transgender plaintiffs say it does. Lawyers for the defendants and the Trump administration, which has filed briefs supporting the employers, say it does not.

The common understanding of sex discrimination in 1964 was bias against women or men, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco wrote. It did not encompass discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“The ordinary meaning of ‘sex’ is biologically male or female,” he wrote. “It does not include sexual orientation.”

In response, lawyers for one of the plaintiffs, Gerald Bostock, wrote that “a person’s sexual orientation is a sex-based classification because it cannot be defined without reference to his sex.”

Mr. Bostock, who spent a decade building a government program to help neglected and abused children in Clayton County, Ga., just south of Atlanta, said his story illustrated the gaps in protection for gay workers.

“Everything was going amazingly,” he said in an interview in his home. “Then I decided to join a gay recreational softball league.”

He played catcher and first base for his team, the Honey Badgers, in the Hotlanta Softball League. A few months later, the county fired him for “conduct unbecoming a county employee.”

Mr. Bostock’s case is at an early stage, and the reason for his dismissal is contested. His former employer has said it fired him after an audit indicated he had misused county funds, which Mr. Bostock denies.

In an email, Jack R. Hancock, a lawyer for the county, said, “Mr. Bostock’s sexual orientation had nothing to do with his termination.”

The justices will decide whether Mr. Bostock is entitled to try to make his case to a jury. The county insists that Title VII allows it to fire workers for being gay, meaning that the case should be dismissed at the outset.

“When Congress prohibited sex discrimination in employment approximately 55 years ago,” Mr. Hancock wrote in a brief, “it did not simultaneously prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Mr. Bostock, 55, grew up in southern Georgia, where he said he “learned the three F’s very quickly: family, faith and football.” But he found his own calling, he said, when he was assigned to recruit volunteers to represent children from troubled homes in juvenile court.

“It was my passion,” he said. “My employer loved the job I was doing. I got favorable performance reviews. We had great success.”

Things took a turn, he said, when he became more open about his sexual orientation.

“When I joined the gay softball league in January of 2013, that’s when my life changed,” he said. “Within months of that, there were negative comments about my sexual orientation.” In particular, he said, he was criticized for recruiting volunteers for the program from the gay community in Atlanta.

Mr. Bostock said he would attend the Supreme Court arguments in his case, Bostock v. Clayton County, No. 17-1618. “I hope they give me the right to have my day in court, to come back to Georgia and clear my name and have the truth come out,” he said.

The justices will also hear a companion case, Altitude Express v. Zarda, No. 17-1623. It was brought by a skydiving instructor, Donald Zarda, who said he was fired because he was gay. His dismissal followed a complaint from a female customer who had expressed concerns about being strapped to Mr. Zarda during a tandem dive. Mr. Zarda, hoping to reassure the customer, told her that he was “100 percent gay.”

Mr. Zarda sued under Title VII and lost the initial rounds. He died in a 2014 skydiving accident, and his estate pursued his case. His lawyers told the justices that the case could be decided “without ever using the term ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gay.’”

“The claim could accurately be framed entirely in terms of sex and nothing else: Zarda was fired for being a man attracted to men,” they wrote. “That is sex discrimination pure and simple.”

Most federal appeals courts have interpreted Title VII to exclude sexual orientation discrimination. But two of them, in New York and Chicago, have ruled that discrimination against gay men and lesbians is a form of sex discrimination.

Last year, a divided 13-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, allowed Mr. Zarda’s lawsuit to proceed. Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann concluded that “sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.”

Mr. Hancock, in his brief for Clayton County in Mr. Bostock’s case, urged the justices to be wary of what he called a novel interpretation of an old law. “One would expect that, if Congress intended to enact a statute of such magnitude — socially, culturally, politically and policy-wise — as one prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” he wrote, “Congress specifically would have so stated in the text of Title VII.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is race discrimination to fire a worker for being a member of an interracial couple. Lawyers for Mr. Zarda said the same principle should apply to same-sex couples.

“Just as firing a white employee for being married to an African-American person constitutes discrimination because of race,” they wrote, “so firing a male employee for being married to another man constitutes sex discrimination.”

Mr. Francisco, in his brief for the administration, wrote that the analogy did not hold.

“An employer who refuses to hire an applicant in an interracial relationship would rightly be branded a racist,” he wrote. “But no ordinary speaker of English would call an employer who refuses to hire an applicant in a same-sex relationship a sexist.”

At bottom, the cases may turn on whether the justices focus on the words of the statute or their sense of what the lawmakers who voted for it in 1964 understood they were doing. In a 1998 decision in a Title VII case, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that it was the words that matter.

“Statutory prohibitions,” he wrote, “often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed.”

If nothing else, Professor Franke said, the cases will explore divisive and difficult issues. “Sex,” she said, “is a confounding term in our culture, in our language and certainly in the law.”

#Civil Rights #Discrimination

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waynekelton · 5 years ago

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The Best Card Games on Android & iOS

Modern digital card games combine the cerebral appeal of tactical play with the adrenaline rush of random loot and top-decking. It might seem like they’re dime-a-dozen, but the games detailed below are all absolutely worthwhile, judged on their own terms.

No luck of the draw? Perhaps some quality strategy games you can play without internet instead!

Some are cutthroat tests of supremacy, others bucolic come-as-you-may types, but all are thoughtful and ingenious in sundry ways. There's two flavours of card games that currently dominate the niche - highly competitive TCG/CCG multiplayer battlers derived from Hearthstone, and more cerebral or casual affairs, often translated from physical card games that already exist. We've woven the two types together into one supreme list.

Recent Releases

Not everything release gets to claim a top spot, either because there's no room for it or we weren't fans of it at review - maybe we haven't reviewed it at all yet. Still, it's worth letting you make up your own minds so here's a summary of card games released recently:

Fluxx Digital

Age of Rivals (Review)

Developer: Roboto Games Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $1.99

How we forgot about this one for so long is anybody's guess, but we've fixed it now. Released in 2017, this strategy card game takes a lot of inspiration from physical design but is very much a digital game. It's more drafting than deck-building, with five phases repeated across four rounds and a game can last as little as ten minutes.

It's minimalist, but with a touch of flair as you try and draft along specific themes and build your board up as the game progresses. While it was in a bit a state when it first launched, the years since release has seen this one mature into an excellent game worth checking out if you want a break from deck-building, but still like that creativity that comes from making the best of what you draw.

Shards of Infinity (Review)

Developer: Temple Gates Games Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $7.99

Ascension is a house name in deck-building card games, especially on mobile. While Playdek were responsible to bring that light into our world, Temple Gates Games have the honour of bringing the spiritual successor to Ascension to mobile - and it's one of the best card games we've played to date. The game itself is slick, well designed, and has some very interesting twists on the deck-building formula. This isn't Ascension with a new skin, but a new game in its own right.

As for the app, Temple Gates have done a brilliant job. The game is colourful and brought to life with very few technically concerns. Everything is cross-platform and multiplayer is competently designed. If you're looking for a new card game to occupy you in 2019, look no further.

You might also like...

TinyTouchTales have done plenty of great card games, from Card Thief and Card Crawl, to Potion Explosion.

Meteorfall: Journey (Review) (GOTY 2018)

Developer: Slothwerks Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $2.99

Challenging and Stimulating: In the happier sessions, Meteorfall ends with a successful final showdown against the aptly-named Uberlich. Working backwards from that ultimate battle to the four starting characters is much more challenging than the squidy art and breezy interface might suggest.

This is a game that's been wonderfully supported post-release, with several major content expansions at the time of writing. What's better, it's all been given away for free! There's a reason this won our Reader's Choice Game of the Year award, you know.

Reigns: Game of Thrones (Review)

Developer: Devolver Digital Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $3.99

The Pinnacle: The meme/phrase "living your best life" is not often one you hear applied to a videogame, but we can think of no title that's more applicable than Nerial's licensed Game of Thrones version of their hit card/monarch simulator Reigns. As Brittany mentions in her review, this is hands-down the best version of the Reigns formula, and it helps that it involves and engaging and popular IP.

The typical Tinder-style swiping mechanics coupled with the usual medieval hilarity and tough choices is coupled with some subtle new twists, where players get to try and rule the Seven Kingdoms as one of nine iconic characters from the show (which are unlocked over time). All this is enabled through the guise of Melisandre - you're essentially playing out her visions of how these characters might get on sitting atop the Iron Throne. Licensed games often get a bad rap, but they can now look to this game to wash away all their sins. This is how you do it, folks.

Hearthstone

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free (IAPs)

The Gold Standard: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a rogue, a priest and a warrior walk into the bar. Players struggle to reduce the opponent life to zero as players get more mana (read: energy) to fuel stronger minions and more devastating spells. The power curve and rarity drop rate are a little punishing, but later expansions and patches have remedied this somewhat. Hearthstone’s card battles unfold on a tavern table, in the middle of the hub-bub and merriment of a chaotic Warcraft scene, usually narrated in a dwarven brogue.

Yes, the card game itself is solid and as stripped-down as it can be without being simplistic, but Hearthstone flashes of creative genius and setting go well beyond the card base. The animations and sound design have been polished to a mirror sheen, and the gameplay, love it or hate it, is the standard because of its sterling quality and undeniable fun factor. Just don’t sweat the meta or top-tier competition, because then the grind will eat up your life.

Exploding Kittens

Developer: Exploding Kittens Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $1.99

Outrageous fun: A game of hot potato with a nitroglycerine-infused feline escalates until every player save one has met their maker. Fiery kitty death and simple humor belie a take-that game which puts everyone immediately at each other’s throats. Hostility and sabotage are the name of the game, because each player has only one life to live, and one defuse card to keep that hairball from becoming a fireball.

The game is a childish, cartoonish pastiche of obvious joke made too hard too often, but despite the unapologetic unrefined everything, it remains one of the best guilty mindless pleasures around. If you ever need a reason to froth at the mouth and fling spittle at your fellow humans over fictionally threatening cats, look no further: Exploding Kittens is simply an excuse to have a good time, a cheeky pretext. Irksome, shameless and perfect it its base way.

Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes

Developer: Electronic Arts Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free (IAPs)

Food for thought: This franchise has reinvented itself several times since the original’s premier success. The sequel to the tower defense titan dallied with free-to-play energy timers and premium unlocks, then the series experimented with the FPS arena shooter, releasing Garden Warfare. Along the way, some of the magic and charm was lost. Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is an inspired and refreshing late entry into the game series, translating the original tower defense themes to a CCG with some nifty changes. Perhaps the coolest single defining feature of PvZ: Heroes is the asymmetry: one player represents the zombies shuffling forward for a quick bite while the other coordinated the plants fighting to repel the undead.

The power dynamic between the two sides is unusual and distinct, recalling Netrunner more than Magic or Hearthstone. The flow of new cards into eager players hot little hands, the balance between card strengths and their relative availability as well as the overall strategic robustness of the game are all top-notch. This core gameplay shines along with the visual polish and jazzy flair the series has come to be known for. Plants vs. Zombies Heroes is a fun late entry that deserves more love.

Frost (Review)

Developer: Jerome Bodin Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $3.99, $4.49

An evergreen choice: This one stands out from the other members of this list on two fronts. Firstly, for its palette, which is as frigid as monochrome as you’d expect. Secondly, because its gameplay is survival-based, not just thematically but actually. Gathering supplies, fending off nasties and keeping the elements at bay take every possible trick the cards will give you. Better performance will net you better tools, but unlike other games, Frost’s best rewards are a sense of security and temporary respite. In other words, the game won’t see you chasing exhilarating high score or excitement, but rather staving off the undesirable. Loss aversion, the fear of breaking a fragile equilibrium, the game daring you to take only appropriate risks when the phrase is a hollow oxymoron. The game rewards you with the chance to keep playing, keep exploring its stark dangers and bag of tricks.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends (Review)

Developer: Bethesda Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free

Devastating combos: Bethesda’s entry into online card battling has the normal variety of twists on the race-to-zero archetype that most card battlers end up parroting to some extend or another. It has two lanes, one of which is a ‘shadow’ lane granting cover to units slotted there. The other change is truly radical though, and alters the core idea of card advantage. Players who lose a large chunk of life in a single turn get extra draws as compensation the next turn.

This acts as a huge counterbalance and means that showy and impressive turns in some cases actually become victims of their own success. Getting the most bang from your buck from each and every card still matters, of course, but the card-draw granted from life loss is a devious catch-up mechanism, especially when combined with the ‘Prophecy’ keyword.. Standard, with not much else to distinguish it from the crowd aside from the setting and its tweaks to the formula, but a worthwhile entry with intelligent design and classic appeal for Skyrim fans.

Card City Nights

Developer: Ludosity Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $0.99

Solo-play stalwart: The characters are idiosyncratic, the game-within-a-game conceit a little cheeky but still refreshing, the consistent tone humor-ish, deadpan. Beating certain keystone characters unlocks their signature, ultra-powerful cards whose effects even jive with that character’s personality. In other words, there is a correspondence between writing, characterization and deck archetypes between. Never quite a rollicking good time or agonizing head-scratcher, the deckbuilding and collecting (yes, there are boosters, no nothing is truly ultra-rare) of Card City Nights makes for an easily enjoyed and easily binged experience.

Star Realms (Review)

Developer: White Wizard Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free, with content parcelled out as IAP ($4.99 for the full set)

Interstellar Deck-Building: This game marries the level of expansion and customization of a TCG with the bite-sized crunchy decision-making of a deckbuilder. Its combat elements and faction-specific combos make for a serious nostalgia trip for those looking to revisit memory lane without first collecting, collating and crafting a custom deck just for the occasion. Star Realms’ many expansions, rapid-fire gameplay and clear iconography make it a compelling addition to the game enthusiast’s roster and an easy must-have.

Hall of Fame

We're keeping the list pretty tight at the moment, but there's way more than ten excellent card games to celebrate, with more on the way all the time. Every now and then we'll rotate games out for other games, but we don't want those past greats to be forgotten. Below is a list of previous members of this list, lest we forget:

Knights of the Card Table

Race for the Galaxy

Calculords

Card Thief

Ascension

Lost Portal CCG

Pathfinder Adventures

Solitairica

Flipflop Solitaire

Guild of Dungeoneering

Lost Cities

Eternal Card Game

Pokemon TCG

Reigns: Her Majesty

Shadowverse CCG

What would your list of the best card games look like? Let us know in the comments!

The Best Card Games on Android & iOS published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years ago

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Dalai Lama's touch upon refugee disaster illuminates what's on the coronary heart of anti-migrant sentiment

http://tinyurl.com/y6tef7qo Joining the Dots is a weekly column by writer and journalist Samrat through which he connects occasions to concepts, typically by evaluation, however often by satire *** The Dalai Lama has the uncommon distinction of being a spiritual chief who enjoys the respect of the secular, liberal public, however a recent interview he gave to the BBC has made a dent in his picture of serene knowledge transcending conservative worldviews. The Dalai Lama mentioned, amongst different issues, that European international locations ought to soak up refugees, shelter them and provides them coaching, however that the refugees ought to finally return residence. What in the event that they need to keep, the interviewer, Rajini Vaidyanathan, requested? “A restricted quantity is okay, however the entire of Europe finally develop into Muslim nation, African nation — unimaginable [sic],” he replied. This was not the primary time he was saying this. It has been his consistent position. Final 12 months, in Rotterdam within the Netherlands, after a public speech, he was requested by an viewers member to elucidate this stand of his. He mentioned there was plenty of struggling in these lands that the refugees have been escaping from. European international locations should present shelter to those refugees, however finally the refugees should return residence, to rebuild their very own international locations. He gave the instance of Tibet and his personal neighborhood, the Tibetans, and mentioned, that they had all the time needed to return. The thought he was working from appeared to be one directed alongside the Buddhist superb of compassion. The Dalai Lama was successfully saying that past saving themselves, the refugees have an obligation to attempt to assist the struggling folks within the lands that they had left behind. The place his assertion turns into extra controversial is when he says “Complete of Europe develop into Muslim nation, African nation – unimaginable”. What the Dalai Lama’s remark implies, is that migrants should not change the important character of the place they transfer to. REUTERS That is precisely the concern that each one the Proper-wings around the globe are expressing. Whether or not it’s Donald Trump in America together with his nice wall, or any of a clutch of Proper-wing leaders throughout Europe from Nigel Farage in England to Victor Orban in Hungary, the thought is identical: migrants should not change the important character of the place. The identical concept is and has lengthy been in operation in India too. Right here, the standard bogeyman is the Bangladeshi, and the states of Northeast India have a substantial historical past of ethnic violence in opposition to the minority Bengali communities throughout the area, Muslim in addition to Hindu. The present train of drawing up a National Register of Citizens in Assam, from which over 4 million folks discover their names lacking, is an try by the federal government of India and the Supreme Courtroom to attempt to weed out anybody who might need come after 1971, near 50 years in the past. There may be additionally a parallel means of detection of migrants by foreigners’ tribunals, by which persons are being locked up in detention camps. Trump, Orban and the remainder have plenty of catching as much as do to get to the place India is at; they’re nonetheless solely speaking about stopping additional migration, not about discovering anybody who might need come illegally within the final 50 years and placing them in “detention camps”. Lowering thousands and thousands of individuals, who in precise observe are sometimes discriminated in opposition to by floor degree workers on the premise of their non secular and linguistic identities, to statelessness, or placing them in camps, has been unthinkable in Europe for the reason that Holocaust. That anti-immigrant concepts are gaining foreign money around the globe once more owes one thing to what folks perceive by nation-state. There’s a clear notion that it’s a land that belongs to a selected folks. That is true of nations as totally different as Israel, Pakistan, Poland, China and more and more, even the extremely various India. It’s also the identical concept that the Dalai Lama, who has spent his life as an exile from Tibet in search of return, has advocated all alongside. If he didn’t assume Tibet rightfully belongs to Tibetans, and had no objection to the Han Chinese language taking on the land and turning it into part of China by a course of that features cultural colonisation, he wouldn’t have bothered opposing the Chinese language authorities all his life. Migration of individuals in giant numbers can and has modified the characters of locations prior to now. Australia’s aboriginals and New Zealand’s Maoris have been utterly marginalised by migrant settlers. The identical occurred to the American Indian tribes in North America. There may be actually a distinction between settler colonialism, the place the colonisers have superior firepower, and the migration of destitute refugees fleeing persecution — in some instances attributable to the overseas insurance policies of the international locations the refugees are fleeing to — however the fundamental concept that migration in sufficiently giant numbers might flip Europe into an African or Muslim land will not be as absurd because it initially sounds. In line with a United Nations report titled ‘World Population Prospects‘ which was launched in revised and up to date type in 2017, the inhabitants of Africa is anticipated to double from 1.25 billion in 2017 to 2.52 billion in 2050. The inhabitants of Asia is projected to rise from 4.50 billion to five.25 billion. Europe’s inhabitants is projected to fall from 742 million to 716 million. From 2017 to 2050, the report anticipated half the world’s inhabitants development to come back from simply 9 international locations: India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, US, Uganda and Indonesia. In brief, the populations of Africa and Asia are anticipated to rise by over 2.5 billion, whereas the inhabitants of Europe is anticipated to say no. Many of the rise will are available in international locations that are comparatively poor in comparison with Western Europe. A Nationwide Migration Institute (INM) agent tries to relax a bunch of migrants dashing to enter the Siglo XXI migration facility in Tapachula, Mexico, in Might 2019. REUTERS The conservatives, and this clearly consists of even the Dalai Lama, are clear that they see cultures as rooted in sure geographies and carried by sure peoples. They don’t want different cultures and peoples to intrude excessively into their homelands. The liberals, globally, have failed to speak an equally clear imaginative and prescient, as a result of there appears to be lack of readability concerning the eventual concept of the world as they want it. Do they advocate free motion of individuals? Are they in favour of a world with out borders? Or are they solely attempting to make sure establishment, with fundamental human rights accorded to these fleeing persecution? If the battle is about guaranteeing establishment they don’t seem to be discussing a essentially totally different concept; they share basically the identical concept because the conservatives, only a kinder, gentler model of it. Additionally learn: Western theories of nationhood don’t capture India’s complex realities Motion of individuals is a truth of life, and the tempo and scale of this motion have accelerated like by no means earlier than prior to now 100 years. The method continues to be gathering tempo, and local weather change will add drive to it. The thought of the homeland shall be at stake. With out readability on the thought of what it’s a couple of tradition and a those who requires a homeland, thorny questions surrounding migration and identification will proceed to bother the world. One attainable reply might lie within the instance of the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, regardless of his place on the problem, has really proven throughout his lifetime that it’s attainable for a tradition and a folks to outlive, and certainly, to thrive, regardless of the absence of a homeland. Different persecuted peoples prior to now, notably the Jews and in a smaller manner the Parsis, equally preserved their cultures by centuries of exile. The guts of the exile might all the time search return, however as a rule, such return proves unimaginable. More and more, whether or not we prefer it or not, all of the world is our residence, and is in our houses. Samrat is an writer, journalist and former newspaper editor. He tweets as @mrsamratx Your information to the newest cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, studies, opinions, dwell updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Comply with us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates all through the continuing occasion in England and Wales. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); window.fbAsyncInit = function () { FB.init({appId: '1117108234997285', version: 2.4, xfbml: true}); // *** here is my code *** if (typeof facebookInit == 'function') { facebookInit(); } }; (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); function facebookInit() { console.log('Found FB: Loading comments.'); FB.XFBML.parse(); } Source link

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waynekelton · 5 years ago

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The Best Card Games on Android & iOS

No luck of the draw? Perhaps some quality strategy games you can play without internet instead!

Age of Rivals (Review)

Developer: Roboto Games Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $1.99

Cultist Simulator (Review)

Developer: Weather Factory Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $6.99

We were excited when we head that the indie hit card game Cultist Simulator was heading to mobile. While it's a niche proposition on PC, as a mobile game it's excellently suited to fit in with the on-the-go drop-in/drop-out playstyle of mobile gamers. Even in a market as arguable crowded as mobile card games, Cultist Simulator manages to slide right in and carve out its own little spot, offering a great combination of roguelike and narrative design elements, similar to what Reigns does but with more moving parts.

The mobile app is an excellent translation of the PC game, and works like a dream. Very replayable, you won't regret embarking on this particular quest to unlock the mysteries of the occult.

Shards of Infinity (Review)

Developer: Temple Gates Games Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $7.99