Card City Nights 2
I was skeptical of buying this game because I don’t really like “casual” games, but I did enjoy the game despite it being filled with stuff that wouldn’t normally be to my taste.
The premise of the card system worked really well. The board positioning/countdown system sounded silly but was really interesting. There’s a careful balancing act between planning ahead for the space your going to need, crowding your opponent out, and getting down the powerful cards which are harder to hook to chains and make it harder to keep your chain momentum going. Unfortunately this is all scuddled by cards later in the game that are able to ignore all of this, and I haven’t seen a strategy that works better than spamming those cards over and over and I was able to cakewalk through the game once I figured that out.
– Real player with 37.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Deckbuilding Adventure Games.
Card City Nights 2 is unfortunately a much worse game in many ways than the first game.
The core gameplay is similar in many ways, with having to connect 3 cards together using the 8-way arrows on each cards. But the board is one large 6x3 board instead of each player having their own 3x3 board, and connecting the cards doesn’t immediately cause an action, but rather activates them, to do something in X number of turns.
There are definitely pros to the new game. Being able to place your cards directly in the way of the opponent is nice. The “spy” cards that have red arrows that connect to the opponent’s cards are very cool, and there’s some great balance with them (they often have powerful placement effects, but help your opponent create matches). There’s a lot of interesting possible combos you can do. Like powerful cards with no arrows, that have to be activated by other means. Or cards with great effects only WHILE active, which means you want to delay their turn timer as much as possible.
– Real player with 32.6 hrs in game
Card City Nights
If you enjoy an easy-going yet skill-based game, or if you enjoy the elements of both puzzles and trading card battles, I highly recommend ‘Card City Nights.’
In ‘Card City Nights’, you fast travel through an island city with a chill, evening atmosphere, talking to comical NPCs, and battling them in a TCG for booster packs. In the card game proper, each player has a 3x3 card grid, and seven Defense Points. The goal is either to fill up your opponent’s grid with occupied space, or decrease their Defense Points to zero.
– Real player with 23.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Deckbuilding Casual Games.
(Need a tl;dr? Just go buy the freaking game.)
I would like to start out by saying that I have a lot of experience with TCG’s. I played Magic: The Gathering for a while, and I liked it but I was never in love with it. The game that I really fell in love with was Yugioh- which, from about 2010 to early 2012, was the best card game of all time, no holds barred, perfect pacing, for most of those formats well balanced, all playstyles were represented, and most importantly a deep, deep, deep, DEEP card pool that constantly rewarded me for scrolling through lists of cards, pointing at a random one with weird subtext and saying “I’m gonna make a deck around that one!” But eventually, konami ruined everything, the game sped up until it was too fast, the power crept up until I couldn’t build a creative deck and survive against anyone competent for more than a turn or two, and the community got even worse. The state that it was in was much akin to the happy accidents of “Super Smash Bros. Melee” or “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” in that they probably didn’t actually think about how the things they added affected the meta game, but eventually it somehow turned out fantastic. I’m saying all of this because Card City Nights reminds me of this era of yugioh. Very different gameplay, yes, but I’m not talking about the gameplay. There are two very important things that this game gets very right and other digital tcg’s get very very wrong: card collection and deck building.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Coin Crypt
First off, this is my wife’s favorite game, even though she has never played it, entirely because of the opening theme music.
I would recommend this game as a fun, though sometimes challenging rogue-like romp, bringing together the constant threat of permanent death with a light-hearted playfulness.
The game attempts to present itself without tutorial or much explanation, evoking the enigmatic feeling of many games in the NES era, and does so mostly successfully. (I did do some wiki-ing about the gods after a few days, as this was somewhat opaque to me). The basic strategy of the game unfolds into a fairly rich and varied system as you unlock new classes and learn how to synergize class talents with the other elements of the game. While some classes can be made into powerhouses quite easily, others seem destined for failure. Though at first I felt the obvious imbalances of the classes was a flaw in the design, I now feel like this helps lend the game its particular charm.
– Real player with 133.5 hrs in game
EDIT:
I got super tired of reading so many complaints of people saying that the game is too hard and confusing, so I wrote a guide for beginners. This should clear up any questions you might have about the game, and if you still don’t like it afterwards, then I guess it isn’t for you. This review is also specifically focused on the base game and does not include any info on the DLC expansion.
Also, this was Slay the Spire before Slay the Spire.
– Real player with 111.2 hrs in game
Monster Monpiece
Monster Monpiece is a highly flawed card game that still manages to be enjoyable.
The core gameplay is pretty solid. You get 3 Mana every turn, and you can use this Mana to play one of the cards in your hand (all creature cards) each round, placing it onto a small board. The goal of each battle is to get your monster girls across the board and into the enemy HQ, which will cause the unit to be lost but the enemy to take one point of damage. Typically, three points of damage will defeat your opponent. The enemy AI is extremely stupid and quite predictable, so the game usually compensates for that by giving it superior cards.
– Real player with 82.7 hrs in game
Monster Monpiece, or as I’ve come to call it, maybe another month’ll do it because this game can’t be played all at once without losing your sanity. That’s a bit of a mouthful though, so we’ll shorten it to “unless you really like card games and monster girls, you can skip this one.”
Alright, that wasn’t much better, but my point is this game drags on for way too long for how little depth there is to it. After the first few battles you have basically mastered the game, from there the only thing that changes is getting new cards that do new things that the old cards might not have done, or they do better, or etc etc card game mechanics until you realize two things. Nothing matters but the main stat which is used to summon a card, and that skipping the first few turns has 0 downside and lets you stack your hand to summon whatever you want anyway. Unfortunate first hand draw, didn’t get a 3 mana monster, doesn’t really matter cause next turn you can draw one of those 4, 5, 6 cards anyway. To help you understand, this would be like Yugi summoning Dark Magician on his second turn, it’s really dumb, and it’s how the game is actually played. The second thing you learn that makes almost any other card in the game irrelevant, is that some cards get a + mana bonus, in particular, they tend to give mana when you summon them, and when they are destroyed. Whenever you first get access to a card with this (Nekomata), the game completely changes because you skip your first turn, summon nekomata, she casts her ability to give 3 mana, instantly dies to whatever monster you put her in front of, on your 3rd turn now you have basically 3x as much mana as you would have in any other battle up until this point. From there you stack your deck with Nekomatas, and congrats you have beaten the game. Also don’t bother with healers or buffers, they are just dead weight in comparison to putting another combat ready card on the map that can stand on it’s own, seriously, you might think that’s just a min-max kind of statement, but no really, it just works out like that with how the game is built.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
Crystal Soul Chambers
ABOUT THIS GAME
Crystal Soul chambers is a roguelike card game where you must create a group of 3 characters, each one with his own unique card set. Each of the characters has their own abilities related to their personality!
FEATURES
Dynamic Deck Building: Choose your cards wisely for each member of the group! You must find synergies and measure the cards for each one of the group members
Select cards that work together to efficiently dispatch foes and reach the top.
An Ever-changing Chambers: Whenever you embark on a journey to rescue one of the characters or liberate it, the layout differs each time. Each game mode has his own unique way in which you can create or discover the way taking into account your best strategy.
Crystal Soul Chambers comes with:
3 different game modes, all of them with roguelike and exploration elements: Rescue, Liberation and Rankings
Classic JRPG Battle Themes fully orchestrated
Anime Style JRPG graphics
24 characters that each have their own unique set of cards.
300+ fully implemented cards.
200+ different items to be found.
50+ unique combat encounters.
Frost
Frost: A solo deck-building PC game
(This was originally posted on my blog, GoPlayListen . It is largely aimed at tabletop gamers, but hopefully others will find the review useful too)
I’m pretty wary of computer games that mimic ideas from the board and card game world. It’s very rare they manage to capture the subtlety required to make a truly great tactical or strategic game, focusing more on visual bells and whistles and (usually) adding too many luck elements to hold the interest for long. Unless they’re a direct port from an existing tabletop game, they rarely seem designed for gamers.
– Real player with 17.2 hrs in game
Certainly not a game for everyone, but if you’re intrigued by the theme or the thought of pushing your luck in a hostile card-driven affair, then Frost is a pretty cool pick.
Aside from being chromatically challenged, Frost is notable for being a solitaire experience inspired by real world deck-building card games such as Dominion and its subsequent imitators including World of Tanks: Rush and Resident Evil.
The action, such as it is, takes place in the sort of post-apocalyptic setting that author Kurt Vonnegut made popular in his seminal novel Cat’s Cradle; a freezing world where tribes must now band together for their very survival. In the game’s ‘Classic’ mode you become a leader who must collect the resources needed to traverse the land in search of a mythical place called the “Refuge” whilst also trying your best to outrun the titular snow storm that threatens to consume all.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition
GoD is a fun little rogue-like with a lot of character, but not a lot of content.
The card based gameplay is very straight forward compared to a traditional TCG, so the mechanics shouldn’t be a stumbling block for most players for very long. Each of the different character classes (13 in total, I believe) has their own starting decks. These decks are expanded in battle by collecting equipment dropped after each battle. As with most RPGs, the common drops are low quality, only granting you a single card or buff, while the rare and epic loot drops can grant you 5 powerful cards and multiple buffs. You can also equip your Dungeoneer with a special item or blessing before exploring a dungeon, and these can offer advantages like extra hit points, larger starting hand sizes, or increased damage.
– Real player with 137.0 hrs in game
Just finished the game at 15hrs. Interesting game with innovative system. Still, I had to consider really long whether to say I’d recommend this game or not. In the end, the positives won out.
Something very important you should know before buying the game: despite the misleading name and description, gameplay-wise this game is not a dungeon crawler, neither is it a RPG. It is more like a twist on deck-building card game. If you understand that before playing the game would be a lot easier to play.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
Artifact
Valve got greedy.
Apparently Valve forgot everything they learned from TF2, CS:GO and Dota2. Making fun games fully accessible to everyone. Online games without players and communities are destined to fail.
But… Nope. Valve decides to exclude 90% of the World.
-
Pay for the game.
-
Pay for cards to play the game, making the best cards the rarest and therefore most expensive. (when they said power level wouldn’t be related to rarity)
-
Pay to enter prize modes.
-
Take a % cut of prize mode entry fees.
– Real player with 102.0 hrs in game
Valve has literally abandoned the game…
Edit: 13/03/2021
This game was so hyped at the time, and for me, the gameplay lived up to it for me when it launched, it was so different from everything that I’ve tried before and I did not even know Dota 2 universe… But after years waiting for something, it’s finally Official, both versions of the game, Classic and Foundry, will not be in further development… Here is some of the main things that were impactful during all this time being a casual player.
– Real player with 64.7 hrs in game
GWENT: The Witcher Card Game
The best Card game on Steam!
This review does not contain any spoilers for any Witcher Games
Gameplay
When it comes to card games the most important thing is without a doubt gameplay and balancing. The gameplay of Gwent is quite simple and very familiar to anyone who has played Gwent in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Each player must play one card each turn from a deck of at least twenty-five cards. Each deck belongs to a faction that offers different play styles. Each faction has different “leaders” who each have individual abilities. As Gwent does not use a mana system like most traditional collectible card games, card advantage is often what wins the game.
– Real player with 3570.2 hrs in game
An incredibly unique, and fundamentally great card game, ruined by months of incompetence lasting since the release of the Way of the Witcher expansion.
A list of issues plaguing the game right now:
-The game was struggling with balance before, but the meta was never as annoying as it is right now. Ever since the release of WotW, even though diverse, the meta is incredibly binary in the sense that some decks just beat others on paper if luck of the draw doesn’t incredibly favor you. This makes for a really bad “rock-paper-scissors” kind of feel to the game’s matchups.
– Real player with 694.9 hrs in game
Haxity
One of my least favorite card games coming games like Hearthstone, Magic, Slay the Spire, Gwent, etc etc. Very low impact on deck building. Fun concept of having dueling players build decks to play specifically against one other person in a draft duel but the mechanics of the game make 90% of matches a rock paper scissors match of do you get to play your cards or does your opponent get to play theirs. No matter how cool of a deck you can build, either you win because you just did damage and the other player didn’t get to do anything to make the match interesting or your that player who doesn’t get to play. The only “close matches” I’ve played were mirror-like matches where both players just punched each other until the one with initiative gets the killing blow. I believe the game is still being developed while I’m writing this review so I’m sure they’re still tweaking and I hope the experience gets better but unfortunately for me that would require completely abandoning several key mechanics that I believe they want to define the game.
– Real player with 73.8 hrs in game
🌎 Overview 🌏
A unique card-based rougelike RPG that has great presentation. The cyberpunk themes are strong, but the game still needs a bit of polish and more content to become possibly one of the greats.
Score is at the bottom of the review, while you are down there, leave a like if you liked this review!
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game