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clickbliss · 7 years ago

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Card City Nights 2 is a charming and surprisingly deep card game

by Omar (@siegarettes)

Card City Nights 2

Developer- Ludosity

Publisher- Ludosity

PC (Steam)

It’s been a year of surprises. I never expected to get into fighting games. Or to see a strategy game that I could enjoy. And I definitely didn’t expect to have a game that got me into deck building, let alone two of them. But thanks to Card City Nights 2, here I am.

The first Card City Nights drew me in with its charming art. The colorful, playful character designs paired well with the card art drawing from Ludosity’s previous games (Ittle Dew, Muri, Princess Pitch etc). It gave off a lighthearted vibe and felt like a good alternative to more serious card games that often aim for something more epic and expansive. The same is true for Card City Nights 2, but set upon a dysfunctional space station, giving them room to bring in even more bizarre designs and plenty of fantastic monster girls.

The surprisingly deep card game from the original returns as well, this time expanded to support more interesting interactions between players. The first used a simple system where you had to connect three cards on a 3x3 board to activate them and perform various effects. Each card was limited by arrows marked on its borders that denoted what it could connect to, with more powerful cards being more limited in options. It was inviting, but gradually built into something more complex than it seemed.

Card City Nights 2 expands on this, keeping the connection based system, but expanding the board and having both players play in the same space. On top of that activating a card sets it into a countdown rather than activating it immediately. It gives the game more chances to interact with the opponent, and allows long chains of actions, and more chances to counter them. It’s initially slightly overwhelming when compared to the first game, but once I understood the basic flow I quickly began to grasp what my options were. Which is good, because they started to open up real fast.

Not only could I chain moves doing multiple damage together, but I could block the connections of my opponent’s cards, disable their effects before the happened, turn them to my side, or even use special spy cards to connect theirs to mine. It’s incredible how much Ludosity has done with the structure of the original game here, all while still feeling less taxing than contemporaries like Hearthstone or Gwent. There’s a good campaign to back it up as well, with absurd writing and situations, and the lighthearted tone that kept me smiling throughout. There’s a smooth ramp to the challenge, and if I ever felt that an encounter was beyond my level there was always someone else to play on the space station. It even managed to get me to dive into the deck building system, and to experiment with certain builds to see if I could make a particular set of cards work for me.

For the most part, I was content simply to unlock new parts of the station and talk to the cast of characters. There’s so much charm here that just wanting to see something new pushed me through. As you go on you’ll casually stroll into some pretty strange situations, like a group of demon girls obsessed with a certain bag of snack foods. There’s plenty of humor both in the writing and in visual gags, and while each area of the space station is generally static, it’s full of little details to take in. You can even click around them to pick up some extra currency for card packs, hidden picture style.

Oh, and did I mention? The soundtrack is a JAM. There’s a great chill vibe to the electronic soundtrack, and I was bopping my head both during battle and when clicking around the station. As I write this I’m listening to it and getting distracted by their sweet sound.

Card City Nights 2, put simply, is a warm and inviting game that manages to bring its own take on card collecting games. It amuses and charms in equal measure, and I rarely felt frustrated with it, even when losing. It has this wonderful playful momentum that kept me curious and engaged. Above all, Card City Nights 2 is a game I walked away from smiling.That’s worthwhile by itself.

#review #ludosity #card city nights #card city nights 2 #ccg

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swampgallows · 7 years ago

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salt, etc.

way to take something i was praising for being cute and innocent and immediately sully it. like, really, i can’t have fuckin anything lmfao. like obviously i’m not gonna get miffed over orc p/rn or whatever the fuck every time i see it; i know it’s not for me and i dont take offense at it existing. but this isnt p-rn and it doesnt feature an adult; the child was the focus of the entire cinematic and she is still the focus in that screenshot. the context of the screenshot was that the normally enraged and violent orc could still play fair so as not to hurt the child. to make hearthstone a welcoming atmosphere for children and adults alike. the entire point of me being like “reasons to live” is that the orc is not hurting the child and she is not threatened by him, that they can get along. it’s extremely cute and innocent and i felt personally so very specifically protected by that imagery. NOT to mention it very legitimately helped to pull me out of a deep suicidal episode. that sounds like SUCH a fucking “tumblr fandom” thing to say but hey, it’s the truth! I wanted to fucking kill myself the day before and couldnt get out of bed and then i woke up to something so charming and uplifting that I actually got energy to get out of bed and to be productive.

i know im salty about this but i really dont care. what, you gonna tell me i’m being “too emotional” over explicit sex acts mentioned on a picture of a child???????

my blog is not child-safe by any means, nor could i even argue that it is worksafe, but it it most definitely intended to be a safe place for fellow csa survivors. and not that id expect anybody 500 notes deep to know me or my personal preferences but im [bi] asexual, i was raped as a kid, i was raped as a teen, and i was raped as an adult, anybody who’s read my blog for more than like ten minutes knows that i look to thrall and jaina as parental figures and my love for orcs is nonsexual. that doesn’t mean im gonna shit on people who love orcs sexually; i dont blame anyone for it existing. but if you were to send SPECIFICALLY me p*rn of thrall (KNOWING MY ADORATION OF HIM AS A PARENTAL FIGURE) in hopes that i would “enjoy” it, i would be extremely fucking disgusted. i dont care if people make porn of thrall or that they want to fuck him or whatever, i am not offended by that notion at all. i dont even care about seeing it on my dash. BUT I DONT NEED IT BROUGHT TO MY INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION. that’s also why i blocked that anon and disabled anons altogether when i made it explicitly clear that i dont want some fucking stranger filling my inbox with their sexual fantasies about wow characters, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE TWO ARE FATHER AND SON, and they SENT ME MORE ANONS ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!

there are literally thousands of other pictures of orcs with their big-ass muscle hands that they can reblog and vomit their stupid fisting bullshit on instead of the one picture in existence of an orc holding hands with a child. EARLIER TODAY i reblogged a post about garrosh’s big muscley hands dunking you like a basketball and breaking all your bones, like that post was very clearly asking for that kind of attention instead.

part of the reason im deterred from posting any art of he who is urnj is because im scared of what people will do to him. they’ll fetishize him or draw p()rn of him or kin ID as him or some shit if he got popular enough, and he’s just too personal of a character for me to throw to the public. people will do what they do and i know i cant stop that, but considering he was my coping mechanism while i was being raped as a child and is extremely fucking personal to me as a symbol of safety and comfort and protection and strength (as orcs are too, but nowhere near to this degree) id rather keep him in my head than risk him being ruined (AGAIN). my ex gf pulled him too far out of me and he ended up being something i didnt recognize, something that might have wounded him and his identity personally, and it will take a lot of healing for me to see him the way he used to be. if that’s even possible. it’s another reason why im not sure if it’s safe to go back to him yet, or if it ever will be again. he’s been attacked so many times. every man who learned about him felt threatened by him, and the women perverted him, sexually and metaphorically, forcing him into a role he never had.

i dont have a therapist so my blog will have to do lmao and i couldnt talk to a professional about this shit anyway. ive tried, and they told me to kill him. im scared he’s already dead.

i do not know where i am in life any more and i do not know if i am capable of advancing.

#blathering

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ruwinhimself-blog · 5 years ago

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Day 27 - Slay the Spire (long)

So today I wanted to talk specifically about Slay the Spire. Most notably, its new player experience and what its gameplay loop achieves really well. We might be edging on the side of UX/UI design here but a lot of those systems are a part of the regular game design process so they will be helpful to review.

Main menu, pretty straight forward. We have a hierarchy of information here. The most commonly element that is interacted with is ‘Play’ here, so naturally it should be at the top. I’d actually wager it deserves even more visual priority.

Something like this. Once we click into play we’re greeted with the modes screen.

It has been some time since I first played the game so it is possible that some of my settings or menu elements have updated or become available since I have nearly 90 hours in. I think the menu again is fairly minimalistic-- not too much text. The most commonly interacted with element is furthest to the left so it is most likely to be noticed. The only change I would make here is probably to push the ‘Daily Climb’ and ‘Custom’ options back even further. We want to be as aware of cognitive load as possible and giving the player too many options or information right away might overwhelm them (Again, daily climb may be locked on an account that hasn’t beat the game-- so this may be somewhat irrelevant). I’d probably present the starting mode menu like this.

Not much different, but obviously quartering off the unimportant or potentially overwhelming information for new players. On the next screen we have our character select.

Again, fairly minimalistic character select. The nice thing here is that you have a sequential motion from left to right. You enter from the left (where you can also go back), select your character in the middle and begin the game on the right. This is some nice menu stepping which gives the player a bit of navigational orientation. If they want to go back, they look towards the left of their screen, if they want to go forward, they make their way towards the right. After embarking, you have clicked 4 times. From main menu to play, 4 clicks isn’t a lot to ask for the level of customization the game is offering you. Once you are in the run-- if it is not your first time playing you are greeted by some sort of whale creature.

Side note: The amount of clicks required to play the game should absolutely be reduced to a minimum.

This system is interesting as it offers some variation per run. This system exists in other games as well, like Dead Cells where at the beginning you get some agency over your starting weapon. This little bit of player choice can impact the run quite a lot and hopefully offer a bit of a jump start for the player’s preferred playstyle. As an interesting aside, the amount and quality of the options increase based on how far you made it in the previous run (this is to discourage a dynamic where players chain restart to get their preferred opener). It was smart of them to do this, as much of the charm and allure of roguelikes comes from making do with the tools that you are given. Side note: Sometimes players will want the easy way out, or shortcuts to the finish. It is occasionally our jobs as designers to step in and say... “you’ll enjoy the success much more if the journey was epic.” And the sub-system element here is doing. We don’t want you to trivialize your own achievements! Have an epic win with a rough start and it will be that much more memorable.

Side note: The tone of the post prior to this has been positive critique but that is about to change. At this point of the post I will start getting a bit praise-y (For the record... I think Slay the Spire is a near perfect game. There are very few things I would change about it, if anything).

After selecting your starting buff, you are greeted with the map. The first thing to note is that your available encounters are pulsing, while unavailable ones are not.

Side note: Remember we are mostly considering the game from a new player perspective.

This is very subtle but it grabs attention and very quickly alludes to the structure of progression. You start at the bottom and work your way up, and you can’t select an encounter that isn’t pulsing. You also have a very clearly defined goal one minute into the game. So much is communicated in this simplicity.

There’s also a legend for quick reference if you are new, or forgot what encounters the icons represent.

As a new player, you are greeted by cards whose contents are unknown. Before we get into the actual reading, though, we already know that they are calling your attention. The frame has an emanation to it. The player is probably thinking, “I must be able to interact with this.” Upon hovering over it they will see its text as well as its energy cost.

Players may or may not notice this, or even know they have an energy resource to manage, but they will learn quickly. Perhaps even in one turn. You’ll also notice that its visual is very similar-- a green swirling circle inside of a bulging triangle. This is undoubtedly on purpose. These design/theme considerations will make a big difference in the player’s ability to understand the rules and objects in the world (at least at less of a cognitive cost if this consistency is carried throughout). So when you run out of energy what happens?

Intelligently, your energy icon goes dim and is no longer animated. Cards that cannot be used are denoted by a red cost and no longer have their border emanation. Part of what makes the game so incredible for new players is that it not only allows the player to experience the core gameplay loop immediately, it also teaches them the rules quickly and intuitively.

Strike... pretty straight forward. It’s probably it attack. It has a dagger in motion. It immediately calls to that functionality. Defend.. it has the characters cloak turned to what looks like bullet fire. The cloak appears to be defecting that fire. You don’t even have to read the cards-- and some players won’t. Or at least have some sort of consistent theme (be it of objects within the image, color schemes, etc) carried throughout the cards. For example, if it’s a card that does damage, try to make sure there are always weapons in their frame. If it’s a card that doesn’t do damage, it should have no weapons in the frame.

With neutralize, because it does damage, I probably would’ve represented this by having a hand pushing down on a sword (It’s also worth taking into account art scope. A scale is likely much easier to render than a hand over a blade). This alludes to the fact that it’s an attack, and... the hand appears to be deflecting the blade, which alludes to the ‘Weak’ ailment (which reduces the damage that enemies do). It also checks out flavor-wise, as The Silent is a stealthy, acrobatic assassin. Being able to intercept a blade seems entirely possible. Just a slight critique, though this is very nitpick-y.

So how about attacking enemies?

When you drag a card, it will have a pointer that is clearly communicating ‘At What?’ I have a hard time imagining that playtesters found the usage of cards unintuitive.

The change in color to red and the border around the targeted enemy act as feedback to your input. There is little left to misinterpretation. Again, teaching the player how to play and how the rules in your little world operate is absolutely critical. The sooner they understand the actions behind their decisions, the sooner they can make meaningful ones. When players are making deliberate decisions and not just bopping flashing lights on a console, they will be engaged and they will be learning. The learning process is what makes roguelikes great. The.. “a-ha” moment. The “okay.. so if I do this..” moment. It’s extremely difficult to put down a game that you are actively improving at.

So what about combat? This is part of what makes Slay the Spire marvelous.

You have perfect information. You know exactly what the enemy is going to do.

And you know exactly what you can do. This largely leaves the success or failure of a turn or sequencing up to the player. Take as long or as little time as you need to contemplate your actions, and execute. If the player gets it wrong, they have no one to blame but themselves. If you want to reduce player frustration with your game, it is paramount that you reduce the amount of blaming that the player can place on the game. If the player makes a mistake, they can blame themselves for lack of execution and not the game for its lack of fairness. Another game that does this well is Cuphead. I died many, many times in Cuphead but it was rarely frustrating. I knew my deaths were largely due to my inability to execute. Each death brought me closer to an understanding of how to better approach a particular aspect of a fight. I was learning-- mastering, with each life.

There are, of course, elements of chance in StS. Just like any roguelike-- or any game meant to have high replayability. Variance adds excitement and good players know how to utilize their tools and reduce that inherent ‘RNG’ in any situation to give them the best odds of success.

So what about progression?

Akin to the solo adventures in Hearthstone, after completing an encounter, you are given a semi-random amount of gold, a chance at a potion and one of three cards to add to your deck.

This deck-build as you go design successfully achieves the signature roguelike ‘no two runs are the same’ dynamic. Having the agency to select one of three random cards, or none at all (which is sometimes the right call) gives you the freedom to pursue(with some luck) your preferred playstyle. At treasure rooms, you will find relics.

These relics will generally offer some type of gameplay altering effects that last for the entirety of the run.

Relics offer an additional layer of customization to each playthrough which is common in most roguelikes, like Binding of Isaac’s items.

In StS, just like in Isaac, you can create absurd combinations that break the game and create memorable player experiences. The nice thing about StS’s relics is that they are clearly defined in tooltips.

Unlike Isaac where item functionality is not described, but learned through experience. This is of course a design choice, but I generally side with providing the player as much information as possible.

Which brings me to my final point.

StS utilizes progressive disclosure. A design principle that aims to provide player information progressively, and as they need it.

Let’s take Poisoned Stab for instance. It deals 6 damage and applies 3 poison. The text is clean, concise and straightforward. No need to explain keyword functionality on the cards. Information is then progressive disclosed via tooltips if the player wants to educate themselves.

There are of course many elements which we did not cover. I set out to cover the most important and new player relevant mechanics and systems. Understanding this can help me design a game that is a fraction as easy to play and approach as this masterpiece.

Until next time!

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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.

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.

What are the best iOS & Android Card Games?

Gwent

Age of Rivals

Shards of Infinity

Miracle Merchant

Meteorfall: Journey

Reigns: Game of Thrones

Hearthstone

Exploding Kittens

Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes

Frost

Card City Nights

Star Realms

GWENT

Developer: CD Projekt S.A. Platforms: iOS, Android Price: Free-to-Play (IAPs)

It took its sweet time, but the official spin-off of the The Witcher 3 card game has finally made the jump from PC to mobile. It's quite different from what it was like at launch and it's gone through several updates and revisions, meaning that us mobile jockeys get a game that's tight and quite unique compared to some of its contemporaries. It's a power-struggle between two people, but it's less about pounding each other's cards into dust or attacking life-points - it's simply a best-out-of-three bout to have a bigger number than your opponent at the end of the round.

This simple concept can inspire a surprising about of cunning and card combos, with card advantage being a very important concept. As a free-to-play game there are IAPS and micro-transactions, but it's pretty tame for the most part and you can still get access to a lot of cards through gameplay. One potential draw-back is that the meta can shift quite a lot, so knowing which cards to purchase out-right may be problematic. Still, this is a pretty great card game and a wonderful breath of fresh air for the mobile CCG market. Check out our GWENT tips guide if you want to help with getting started.

Age of Rivals

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. Check out our Age of Rivals review for more.

Shards of Infinity

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, and our Shards of Infinity review can tell you why.

You might also like...

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

Meteorfall: Journey

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 2018 award, and our Meteorfall review can tell you why.

Reigns: Game of Thrones

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. Read our Reigns: Game of Thrones review for more.

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

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

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. Read our Frost review for more.

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

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.

We have a Star Realms review if you want to know more.

Other iOS & Android Card Game Recommendations

We're keeping the list pretty tight at the moment, but there's way more than twelve 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:

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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actutrends · 5 years ago

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GamesBeat managing editor Jason Wilson’s favorite games of 2019

Each year, it gets harder to nail down my favorite games of the past season. Part of this is because there are just so many studios putting out fantastic games. The rise of live-service games plays a role here, too — each year, the living games I enjoy seem to get better and take up more of my life. I can’t think of a better time to enjoy games, and as my compatriots at GamesBeat have shown, this year has had such an amazing amount of quality — be it on PC (my favorite platform), consoles like the PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch (portable mode is a godsend for role-playing games), or my phone. Here’re my favorite games of 2019. Note: These aren’t the games I consider to be “the best.” The most important factor is how much I enjoy playing them (and, increasingly, how much my kids enjoy watching me play them). The Outer Worlds

The Outer Worlds can be gorgeous.

Obsidian Entertainment is one of my favorite studios. It’s made three of my most-played RPGs of the past 15 years — Neverwinter Nights 2 (and its expansions), and the two Pillars of Eternity games. The Outer Worlds is different than these. You’re running around a system of planets that are at the mercy of a group of greedy, power-hungry corporations. It’s a capitalist dystopia, but it’s a funny one. And it skewers a world in which plutocrats, not people, run things. It also comes with a good character-building system, and its loading screens show off fantastic pieces of art (some of which only shows up based on your decisions). It wears its Fallout influence on its power armor (its makers include some of that landmark RPG’s creators). The Outer Worlds will also leave an important legacy for Obsidian: a fantastic finish to its run as an independent game studio. Pokémon Shield

Dynamax Pokémon loom over the battlefield.

Image Credit: GamesBeat

Years ago, I wrote about how much I hated Pokémon when I tried Red, the then-new release for the Nintendo 3DS. But last year, Let’s Go: Pikachu captured my heart. I credit part of this to my children, who love the TV series and the cards. Yet the game has plenty to recommend it. It’s cheery, and the way so many of its characters are supportive of you and each other is touching in an age where so many people seek to just tear everyone and everything down. It’s also fun to find all these new Pokémon, use the Dynamaxx power to turn them into giant monsters, watch them evolve, and explore the world. My favorite part, though, had little to do with the gameplay. Every time we encountered a new Pokémon, my kids would look it up in their books, helping me find its vulnerabilities and plotting how I should set up my team. Pokémon’s better when we’re playing like this, together. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

There are fouler things than Imperial Stormtroopers in the deep places of the world.

Image Credit: Respawn

Respawn created new worlds and characters in Jedi: Fallen Order. It nailed how I’ve long thought a Jedi should feel in a game. Using your Jedi powers and lightsabers to smash through legions of stormtroopers just feels right. Mixing in metroidvania-like levels gives players plenty of places to explore, and I enjoyed going back to different worlds in key moments of the story (like your second time on Kashyyyk). But most important, it creates a compelling, sympathetic character in the Second Sister, showing that a servant of the Sith can be more than an evil person with a lightsaber. My only quibble: I wish Respawn’s easier modes made it, well, easier to deal with some of the challenging platforming sections, not just nerfing combat. Mistover This is a fantastic spin on Darkest Dungeon and Etrian Odyssey from Krafton, a small team inside the larger Krafton Game Union group. You start in a town, recruit a party, get quests, and outfit your crew. This is where it feels like Etrian Odyssey. But in town, you open up different buildings as you accomplish quests, the first of its many Darkest Dungeon influences. Food and light play a role in the exploration as well. Once you’re in a dungeon, moving around becomes more like a traditional roguelike. For every move you make, the monsters move as well. Combat is strategic as well, as your formations and the abilities you choose matter on the battlefield. It’s a fantastic take on roguelikes, and it’s worth playing. Grindstone

Grindstone is a clever puzzler in which you slay monsters by drawing lines for your buffed-up brawler.

Image Credit: Capy Games

Capy’ Games Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery are two of my all-time favorite mobile games. So when Grindstone hit Apple Arcade earlier this year, I had to check it out. And when it debuted, I spent about 2 hours playing it. It reminds me of Clash of Heroes in how you line up enemies to slay. It’s a puzzler. You draw a line from your warrior through groups of baddies. It’s simple enough that young children can understand it, but it gets complex enough that it becomes a real challenge to accomplish every map’s goal. It’s fantastic, and I think it’s the best game on Apple Arcade. Magic: The Gathering — Arena

The Brawl decks I’ve settled on during the final day of the event.

Image Credit: GamesBeat

Two years ago, I had no idea I’d love Magic. Now, I play it almost every day thanks to Arena. It’s a fantastic adaptation of the granddaddy of all collectible card games. I’ve learned to play every color, and I’ve even had success beating tuned netdecks with creations of my own. I’ve become a better-than-average draft player as well, and when publisher Wizards of the Coast introduced Brawl, I not only found myself making decks in Arena but with my growing cardboard-card collection as well. Earlier this year, Arena left its open-beta status. The game still has some problems. Most days, you’ll find someone on Reddit complaining about performance issues. Wizards’ monetization tactics are annoying — more than once now, it has introduced an idea (such as the 2-to-1 wild card crafting cost for Historic cards), then changed it after outcry from players. Right now, it’s charging 10,000 in-game gold for a month-long Brawl event, and while you do get one special card as a reward, it’s pretty much charging you to play what I and others consider to be Arena’s best format. That sucks, as Brawl should be a format we can play in a queue, not just in a friendly challenge, at any time. But despite these issues, Arena has proven to be the best way to play Magic when you can’t shuffle cards with your friends. And that’s pretty awesome. Hearthstone

There be dragons!

Image Credit: Blizzard

Year 5 of Blizzard Entertainment’s free-to-play collectible card game might be its best yet. Hearthstone’s development team has been more active this year than ever before, introducing a flurry of prompt card changes to fix problems, better in-game events, its first new mode in years (Battlegrounds, which is pretty dang good), and a willingness to try new things (like the recent Wild event or Arena rotations). It’s even telling better stories with its expansions. Like Magic, Blizzard has stumbled some this year. During its Wild event, it didn’t do anything to address the power of Evolve Shaman, which drove many players (like me) away from Standard and into other modes like Battlegrounds … or spending more time with other games. And its handling of the Hong Kong situation was clumsier than a newborn calf trying to stand up for the first time. But even with those problems, Hearthstone feels more vibrant now than any time since its first expansion. And that’s a good thing for Blizzard and its millions of players worldwide. Dragon Quest Builders 2

Even the quest lines have punny names in Dragon Quest Builders 2.

Image Credit: GamesBeat

I’ve never been able to get into Minecraft. I know it’s fabulous. My kids love it. But I like a little more direction, and I get this from Square Enix’s Dragon Quest Builders series. In the sequel, you’re building your way to defeating a great evil. It’s charming, and as you finish off quests, you open up more building materials and options. It has most of the fun of a Dragon Quest game, but with a sandbox openness. It’s neat, and it’s even more fun when you play with kids. Disco Elysium

Disco Elysium is like no other RPG that came out this year … or in any recent year.

Image Credit: ZA/UM

This might be the trippiest RPG I’ve ever played, and I dig it. You play a detective coming off a bender, trying to solve the mystery of a hanged man left on a tree. It doesn’t have combat, really. You face decisions in conversations you have with the characters around you (and in your head). The system revolves on skill checks in conversations and reactions to the words you and others use, not weapons, warriors, or wizards. It’s fascinating, and it developer ZA/UM delivers something I’ve rarely seen in my decades of gaming: an RPG where choice, not combat, matters the most. A Plague’s Tale: Innocence

A Plague’s Tale: Innocence is a fascinating game.

Image Credit: Asobo Studio

I’ve been fascinated with this game since seeing it at E3 in 2017. It’s from Asobo Studio in France, and it’s about a 15-year-old girl and her younger brother surviving during a horrible plague afflicting France. And rats. Swarms of rats. Millions and millions of rats. The pair must use stealth to escape an inquisition that’s after them … and may be at the center of the plague. It’s a terrific, terrifying story, and it has the bonus of capturing the repulsiveness rats and magnifying it into a game that both fascinates and disgusts. It’s unique. Honorable mentions Code Vein Etrian Odyssey: Nexus Iratus: Lord of the Dead Metro: Exodus MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries Path of Exile Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror Slay the Spire The Surge 2

The post GamesBeat managing editor Jason Wilson’s favorite games of 2019 appeared first on Actu Trends.

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serif-on-ice · 7 years ago

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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!

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

Shards of Infinity (Review)

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