A couple of interesting games...
Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:17 am
Okay, I've got two games that I wanted to mention here, so I thought I migth as well put them both in the same thread. First of all, something which may be of interest to anyone who played the original Elite or its sequel, Frontier. The creator of those games, David Braben, is making a new Frontier game! It's called "Elite: Dangerous" and from what I gather it's a new, better-graphics version of Frontier but with the ability to play it multi-player. Yes, you can invite friends into your game and explore the galaxy together! This game is currently backable on Kickstarter - needs a lot of money to get it going but the deadline isn't till January some time. I expect I shall be making a pledge at some point 'cause I still play Frontier even now, in DOSBox .
The other game I wanted to mention isn't a computer game, but a card game. It's called Sentinels of the Multiverse and is a co-operative card game with a superhero theme. Note, these aren't already-existing superheroes (such as Superman, Spiderman, etc) but ones created entirely for the game, along with their own setting and backstories, etc. Each hero has their own deck of cards consisting of a character card (showing how many hp that hero has, as well as a basic, innate power they can use) and a variety of abilities and equipment and stuff that they can access. When you play a game, everyone chooses which hero they want to be, and uses only that hero's deck when playing the game. You're supposed to play with between three and five players but you can play with only two, or even solo, though the mechanics of the game are balanced for between three and five.
But what is the object of this game? Well, as mentioned, it's a co-operative game. So the idea is to play with everyone else, helping each other out in various ways. The object is to defeat a villain. As with the heroes, each villain has their own deck. They also have their own mechanics, various abilities and things they can do depending on certain things that might happen (such as having certain cards in play, being hit for a certain amount of damage, etc). No-one plays as the villain - instructions for what they do during their turn are written on their cards, and all you need to do is follow them. You win the game when the villain is dead, unless something on their card specifies otherwise (for example, one villain is basically a giant uber-robot thingy, and has mechanical components and robotic drones which work for it - you don't win until there are no drones or components in play, even if you've killed the main boss).
To add a bit more flavour into each game, there are also a number of Environment decks. That is, the place in which you're fighting the villain. The environment gets a turn (after the villain and the heroes have had theirs) and draws cards which come into play and may affect the heroes, the villain, or everyone. It might be a creature which attacks the target with the lowest hp, or an atmospheric conflagration which burns everyone each turn, or even a weird wibbly distortion thing which turns all your equipment into targetable things with hp (yes, there is such a card). The environment can help you out or mess you up, depending on where you are and which cards come up - some environments have nicer (for the heroes) cards than others. Sometimes you can be doing fine against a villain and have the environment throw something at you which causes you to lose.
That's a point - if your hero drops to 0hp, you're dead and you can't do anything more so must sit and watch everyone else play, right? Nope! If your hero is defeated, all their cards are removed from play except their character card. This is flipped over, showing an image of your defeated hero. It also shows a list of three possible actions you can perform. You can perform one of these actions on your turn, instead of playing cards etc which you would normally do. So you might be able to destroy an annoying villain card, or let another player draw or play a card, or take one from their trash and put it into their hand, etc. If all the heroes become incapacitated, then you lose. And then you can try again another time, maybe with different heroes, or in a different environment, or with the same setup as before and hope that you get better cards out this time. Some heroes with better with certain heroes than others, but you can play as any combination of heroes against any villain in any environment. Someone on the forum worked out that the total number of possible combinations (versus every villain and in every environment, with teams of three, four, and five heroes) is something like 1.5 million! That's a lot of games .
Currently available is the core version of the game, also available in Enhanced Edition which features some tweaked mechanics and I think different artwork on some of the cards. It has, I think, ten heroes, four villains, and four environments. Then there are two expansions - Rook City and Infernal Relics, each including an extra two heroes, four villains, and two environments each. There are also two promo decks - one hero and one villain. And then there's another expansion on the way, Shattered Timelines, which currently has about ten days left on its Kickstarter. The target was $20,000. They made that in four hours! So far they've made over $90k, with loads of stretch rewards already reached and more to go (including a new, mega-expansion which will be able to be released by next October if they can reach the stretch goal for it).
Anyway, if anyone likes co-operative card games I can completely recommend this one! It's made in the US so if you live outside of there, the shipping cost is horrible. However, you can get it on Games Lore (and probably some other places too) - I did. Been playing it for hours every weekend with Ja'Ph' for erm, I dunno, maybe a month or so now. Big fun!
The other game I wanted to mention isn't a computer game, but a card game. It's called Sentinels of the Multiverse and is a co-operative card game with a superhero theme. Note, these aren't already-existing superheroes (such as Superman, Spiderman, etc) but ones created entirely for the game, along with their own setting and backstories, etc. Each hero has their own deck of cards consisting of a character card (showing how many hp that hero has, as well as a basic, innate power they can use) and a variety of abilities and equipment and stuff that they can access. When you play a game, everyone chooses which hero they want to be, and uses only that hero's deck when playing the game. You're supposed to play with between three and five players but you can play with only two, or even solo, though the mechanics of the game are balanced for between three and five.
But what is the object of this game? Well, as mentioned, it's a co-operative game. So the idea is to play with everyone else, helping each other out in various ways. The object is to defeat a villain. As with the heroes, each villain has their own deck. They also have their own mechanics, various abilities and things they can do depending on certain things that might happen (such as having certain cards in play, being hit for a certain amount of damage, etc). No-one plays as the villain - instructions for what they do during their turn are written on their cards, and all you need to do is follow them. You win the game when the villain is dead, unless something on their card specifies otherwise (for example, one villain is basically a giant uber-robot thingy, and has mechanical components and robotic drones which work for it - you don't win until there are no drones or components in play, even if you've killed the main boss).
To add a bit more flavour into each game, there are also a number of Environment decks. That is, the place in which you're fighting the villain. The environment gets a turn (after the villain and the heroes have had theirs) and draws cards which come into play and may affect the heroes, the villain, or everyone. It might be a creature which attacks the target with the lowest hp, or an atmospheric conflagration which burns everyone each turn, or even a weird wibbly distortion thing which turns all your equipment into targetable things with hp (yes, there is such a card). The environment can help you out or mess you up, depending on where you are and which cards come up - some environments have nicer (for the heroes) cards than others. Sometimes you can be doing fine against a villain and have the environment throw something at you which causes you to lose.
That's a point - if your hero drops to 0hp, you're dead and you can't do anything more so must sit and watch everyone else play, right? Nope! If your hero is defeated, all their cards are removed from play except their character card. This is flipped over, showing an image of your defeated hero. It also shows a list of three possible actions you can perform. You can perform one of these actions on your turn, instead of playing cards etc which you would normally do. So you might be able to destroy an annoying villain card, or let another player draw or play a card, or take one from their trash and put it into their hand, etc. If all the heroes become incapacitated, then you lose. And then you can try again another time, maybe with different heroes, or in a different environment, or with the same setup as before and hope that you get better cards out this time. Some heroes with better with certain heroes than others, but you can play as any combination of heroes against any villain in any environment. Someone on the forum worked out that the total number of possible combinations (versus every villain and in every environment, with teams of three, four, and five heroes) is something like 1.5 million! That's a lot of games .
Currently available is the core version of the game, also available in Enhanced Edition which features some tweaked mechanics and I think different artwork on some of the cards. It has, I think, ten heroes, four villains, and four environments. Then there are two expansions - Rook City and Infernal Relics, each including an extra two heroes, four villains, and two environments each. There are also two promo decks - one hero and one villain. And then there's another expansion on the way, Shattered Timelines, which currently has about ten days left on its Kickstarter. The target was $20,000. They made that in four hours! So far they've made over $90k, with loads of stretch rewards already reached and more to go (including a new, mega-expansion which will be able to be released by next October if they can reach the stretch goal for it).
Anyway, if anyone likes co-operative card games I can completely recommend this one! It's made in the US so if you live outside of there, the shipping cost is horrible. However, you can get it on Games Lore (and probably some other places too) - I did. Been playing it for hours every weekend with Ja'Ph' for erm, I dunno, maybe a month or so now. Big fun!