Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game is set in the Dresden Files universe, with characters and plot mechanics from the books becoming cards that work for or against you. Each book is its own set of obstacles, advantages, foes and cases that become the board that Dresden and his allies try to overcome.
If you are the kind of player that runs away from a challenge because of a bloody nose, Dresden Files is not for you. You will lose in the beginning, a lot. I know I did. To win takes elements of both skill and luck, like any other game with cards and dice. However, it seems the more I play, the luckier I get … hmm, that could be the skill factor of being able to recognize the better plays to make and better risks to take.
– Real player with 371.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Card Game Tabletop Games.
This is very much a Marmite game, you’ll either love it or hate it with equal measure. For me its a winner, a game I can turn on anytime I have a few minutes to kill and don’t want to be bogged down in something more involved. and if you’ve played this game in its real world form you’ll appreciate all the Automation this digital rendition brings.
Pros: Its nicely put together and contains all the characters a Harry Dresden fan could wish for the mechanics of the card battles are easy to learn but difficult to really master which makes each victory one to be savored.
– Real player with 192.8 hrs in game
Etherlords II
-RPG elements are quite light
-Campaign is fairly on the rails
-Actual card-game combat is quite solid and the AI pilots its decks surprisingly well given how dated the graphical presentation of everything is
-Experienced Magic players, especially experienced booster draft players, will find the deck construction somewhat simplistic. Many cards are quite obviously at suboptimal rates or provide effects that are clearly not worth 1 of your precious 16 card slots.
-Many of the enemy decks are quite extreme in their focus, varying wildly from hard aggro to pillow-fort control to voltron suit-ups and most fights are basically puzzles, figuring out the exact mechanics of the enemy deck and making sure you have a defense/solution to resolve it.
– Real player with 58.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Card Game Turn-Based Strategy Games.
I remember playing the demo for this game way back when it was released (and when demos were a foregone conclusion). Now I finally got to play the whole thing and it was just as good as I remember. There is a lot more story and voice acting in this game compared to Etherlords 1 and it’s as bad as I remember, but I like that. Bad voice acting is about the only bad thing in games that is still enjoyable.
It’s taken me more than 40 hours to beat the campaign, because the Etherlords games are slow. There is an option to speed up combat and summoning animations, but I never used that in either games, because I like to take my time when playing a game. The slowness is most felt in the battles, which are wars of attrition, where the one with the most creatures and/or the most HP usually wins. There are, however, plenty of ways to beat the odds and turn the tables, which is this franchise’s greatest strength. It’s a bit boring at first, but once you get more useful cards, you’ve got endless possibilites to experiment with deck builds.
– Real player with 43.7 hrs in game
Solar Settlers
I got into the beta test for this game after enjoying so many other BGG games in the past. Playing Solar Settlers gives you that trademark BGG feel that there’s always more to discover. The mechanics are simple at first glance. Move your space explorers around an unknown galaxy, collect cards and increasing your population and production, build up enough habitats, and settle enough people before the game ends in the sixth round. Succeed, and your rank goes up. Fail, and all your colonists perish in the abyss of space. More importantly, your rank goes down.
– Real player with 158.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Card Game Procedural Generation Games.
Compared to the previous games of BGG this is in my opinion the greatest of all. Axes and Acres has always been my no.1 but I think it finally has to step aside for this one. We’ll see what will get the most hours of play time. Only time will tell.
The game is surprisingly simple to grasp but has enormous depth. The tutorial is short and you immediately know how to play the game. This is very different to the previous games where the tutorials were quite hard to grasp (although this has been improved in updates).
– Real player with 97.8 hrs in game
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech
Makings of a Hero
SteamWorld is a franchise of vaguely connected games, each starring a friendly cast of robots. The latest entry – Hand of Gilgamech introduces a stark departure from the usual futuristic setting, venturing instead into the land of fantasy. Meet Armilly, an adventurer aspiring to at last become a member of the local heroes’ guild. Good heavens! The village has been invaded by an evil army and all of the heroes have been kidnapped. Such a tragedy, if only there was someone desperately longing for a worthy quest to finally prove themselves. It’s high time to gather your trusty companions and make this one count.
– Real player with 41.6 hrs in game
On my first playthrough I went with the Legend difficulty and I was not disappointed… Mostly. Also, quick note, I got the game half off so my thoughts are based around what I got for that price.
Starting with things I liked/loved:
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The Art is beautiful.
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The Characters are simple but lovable.
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The Music I find to be very pleasant to listen to.
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I love the opening and ending sequences, I wish there were more of these.
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The Ending Song, while short, made me smile. I love it.
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The card game mechanic is pretty solid. Deck-Building is fast and easy, chaining cards together for combos or allowing for an additional helpful card to be played is really fun, and while I didn’t use a lot of other cards, I can definitely see some ideas on how to use them for other play styles so I like that there is multiple options on how to play.
– Real player with 38.5 hrs in game
Wingspan
First, I love this game. I love the cardboard version, and I love playing the digital one.
Second, the visuals are just lovely, though I don’t really understand some of the design choices (why would anyone choose to view just their Forest?), and I’d like to be able to watch the other players or AIs take their turns.
That doesn’t mean this version isn’t without it’s problems, which isn’t surprising so shortly after launch. I’m not sure what the rationale was for giving so many viewing options, but I only use the “full board” view (rather than viewing each of the environments), which requires a click to view powers of birds that have been played. The interface is very click-heavy to avoid making mistakes and to fix misclicks, which I appreciate, but if you have more than a couple birds in your hand (say 5+ total cards), selecting and playing birds from your hand is SUPER clunky and finicky. Since the game is a bit pricey, none in my gaming group have bought it yet, so I’ve only played the AI, which is pretty easy (no Hard AI has been implemented yet), but still very fun. In my last game I won 115-71-61-51, so it was a rout against the regular AI, but that was my biggest win to date.
– Real player with 3321.3 hrs in game
I am a big fan of Wingspan. I’ve been playing the physical board game for a couple of years and the digital version for about a year. I currently have 158.4 hours into the digital version of it as of this writing.
There are plenty of videos out there showcasing what Wingspan is. I recommend you check them out. I will spare everyone the details here and focus more on my own pros/cons.
The big pros of the digital version for me:
-It eliminates all of the set up and tear down of the physical version. My wife only wants to play digitally now for this reason alone.
– Real player with 214.1 hrs in game
Ring of Pain
3.5/5 : Card battler heavy on the modern “roguelike”: you die a lot, over and over, but your deck improves slowly (I’m going to start calling them neo-roguelike since rogue had no such advancement). Very pretty and novel UI. Weird story. I’ve played it all the way through and I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to get.
The worst part of the game and the reason for the low score: YOU CANNOT STOP PLAYING without losing the run. It’s the worst no-save game I’ve seen in a decade.
Full playthroughs take hours, but if you need to stop, you have to leave the game running or you lose all your progress. Not only no save, but no saved position. I have had to leave the game running for days because I had a great run going but then had silly things come up like work, sleep, cleaning, or making dinner. Perhaps the RING OF PAIN name is supposed to reference how terrible this designed defect is?
– Real player with 511.8 hrs in game
Alright, I’ll do my best to keep this review neat and concise. I will preface by saying that I tried the closed beta of this game.
Ring of Pain is a Dungeon Crawler Card Game where the player chooses to go left or right and attack monsters. You have stats and manage item slots with items found across dungeons, progressing deeper and deeper into this “ring” until you reach the end. You have Attack and Defense, Speed to determine whether you or the monster attacks first, and Clarity, which manages how much healing you get from potions, Curse chances, and additional Souls (currency) is acquired per monster kill. Item slots are individualized, meaning if you find a weapon, it goes in the weapon slot and if you find a new weapon, you have to make a choice of either chucking your old one for the new one or keeping the old one.
– Real player with 78.6 hrs in game
The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game - Definitive Edition
Ever since the online emergence of Magic: The Gathering (sadly not available on Steam anymore), many developers tried to copy the formula and release their own version of a turn-based card game either for mobile phones or PC. A flux of these came in 2015, when even major companies put heavy emphasis on releasing entries of this genre expecting huge income. Many actually became more successful than the original, mainly more and more people began playing games on their smartphones and due to the simpler rules used compared to MTG.
– Real player with 134.9 hrs in game
How much you’ll enjoy this game partially depends on your expectations beforehand. If, like many others, you’re a huge fan of the physical card game you might walk away disappointed, as it changes quite a few mechanics.
That being said, looking at the product objectively as a whole, it’s pretty solid. Personally, I think they improved on the game quite a bit. Granted, I find the physical card game it’s based on to be pretty mediocre. It’s probably one of my least favorite card games from fantasy flight. Whereas the physical version felt a little stale and slow, the digital version feels a lot snappier, interactive, and overall more intriguing than the physical version.
– Real player with 107.7 hrs in game
Blood Card 2: Dark Mist
I planned to give Red Mist two hours of stream time and ended up continuing on for five and a half. Then I clocked another ten hours off stream. If you still need to hear more, watch my gameplay footage or read on below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MYIZPQJEs8
You build your deck, and your cards are your life. Enemies will steal them from you as they damage you, and you’ll face three or four foes at once with more waiting in the wings. If you’re a casual player, you’ll love this like I did. If this isn’t your first rodeo, then you’ll find each character (deck archetype) has a few ways to create an infinite loop. But even the infinite loop isn’t a guarantee of victory: the real trick is understanding the effects enemies will have on you.
– Real player with 290.8 hrs in game
3.9/5 (B plus) : Good card battler with a unique mechanism (cards as life points) and interestingly different characters. Art is good enough. Weaknesses are mostly in the lack of advancement. The difficulty levels add no new fun or functionality, just increase the difficulty, which does increase the challenge with each successful replay, but almost nothing else.
A very good element of the game design is similar to Slay the Spire, having very different play styles, cards, and mechanisms for the different characters. Really appreciate how different they are and there are six.
– Real player with 195.1 hrs in game
Golf Peaks
(edited to mention world 10 with 12 new levels.)
an excellent puzzle game where you’re given a bunch of cards representing various movement options (number of squares, swing type), and not surprisingly in a golf-themed game, your goal is to lead the ball to the hole. beautiful visuals, music that doesn’t get on your nerves after 5 minutes (except in world 7), separate volume settings, unlimited undo, and post-release support with additional levels, mechanics and music.
– Real player with 11.2 hrs in game
Good casual puzzle game
This is definitely one of the easier puzzle games I’ve played, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well-designed. The mechanics, while not groundbreaking (it is a golf-themed game), are interesting enough and fairly well-executed. I really liked the ‘shot card system’. You start with a fixed hand of cards for each level, each card representing a type of shot (length of shot, chip/ straight shot, etc.). The shots can be hit in any of the four main directions, and each card can only be used once. This means there is a limited number of moves you can use per level, which makes the game simpler and more accessible for inexperienced puzzlers. There are also 120+ levels in the game, which adds some meat to the game, otherwise the game would feel too short as the puzzles are relatively easy to solve.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Gremlins, Inc.
I saw adverts of this game while it was still in beta stage. The peculiar character of the graphics made the whole intriguing but I suspended with the purchase till Gremlins, Inc. left pre-release state. Watched some gameplay videos but without sufficient knowledge of the rules I could only tell that the game has really strong influence on the players. In fact only the description of available achievements made me realize the depth of the Gremlins, Inc. and convinced me to add it to my Winter Sale basket.
– Real player with 3910.4 hrs in game
This is a virtual board game with a strong focus on strategy in a non-deterministic setting, requiring probabilistic reasoning (think of poker).
The game is set in a steampunk society of (genderless) gremlins that see the purpose of their existance in grabbing power and profit by tricking and cheating each other. The design of the game material is in a hand-drawn cartoonesque style and visually appealing. Also the available music kits (to be won as prices in free-to-open chests) are a nice feature.
– Real player with 1076.9 hrs in game