Post by Deinonychus on Mar 30, 2018 23:24:03 GMT -5
Now here's something I'm curious about. Of course I know that many of us play video games, but what about games that are a little more low-tech?
Several years back I stumbled upon Living Card Games. Imagine a Collectable or Trading Card Game, but instead of buying scores of booster packs stuffed with random common cards in hopes of getting good stuff for your deck, you instead buy expansion packs that have everything in them. You then design and build a deck as normal and play the game. There's a Star Wars LCG that was first released in 2012 and which will publish it's last expansion in a couple months. Cool thing about it is, since it started before the Disney acquisition, it was thick with Expanded Universe material and has actually kept on with it ever since. So now it's a weird amalgam of Rebellion Era Legends EU as well as new Cannon stuff like Rogue One and the Rebels cartoon.
Another type of card game type I've discovered are Deck Building games. Here you start with a hand of low-powered cards and use them to buy or draft more powerful cards from a pool until you have a deck powerful enough to defeat your opponent or confront some adversary that is a mechanic of the game. One of the best things about these types of games is that many of them can be played solo, so if you don't have friends or family who are into such things, or if you aren't that keen on going down to your local game shop and getting into pick-up games with weird randos in a room that smells like stale pizza and BO, then deckbuilders may be for you. I've got...quite a few of these.
LEGENDARY - This is a fully cross-compatible gaming system that has several different versions. Some of the games have different play mechanics, but the character decks can all be swapped and combined between the different themes. There's Marvel (with it's many expansions) as well as Alien, Predator, Firefly, Big Trouble in Little China, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've got them all except for Big Trouble. The Marvel and Buffy games are the most fun, but the Alien and Predator are the most challenging and intense. And few things beat assembling a tam of Marvel heroes and villains to try and defeat a rapidly escalating Xenomorph menace!
CERBERUS - This is another cross-compatible game system that has different versions; DC Superheroes, Street Fighter, Naruto, Lord of the Rings, Cartoon Network, Rick and Morty, and even NHL Hockey. The DC version has expansions that create a brutal game mode called Crisis which can take up to 6 hours of play to complete. I've got all the DC and the NHL sets of the Cerberus engine. It's kinda fun to face a universe-ending Crisis with a team of superheroes led by Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.
SMASH-UP - I'm noticing a theme here. In Smash-up you choose two factions and smash them up into a deck which you then play against other players to conquer base cards. Sounds simple, but the factions are where the fun is with different factions having different specialties or perks. That, and the awesome combos. Factions include dinosaurs, robots, pirates, steampunks, ninjas, elder things, super spies, werewolves, cute cats, dragons, superheroes, Changerbots (a thinly veiled Transformers parody), grannies, teddy bears, kaiju, disco dancers, etc etc. I'm particularly fond of the power combo of Dinosaurs and Bear Cavalry.
BARBAROSSA / EL ALAMEIN - Where to begin? This is a pair of card games where you take charge of German panzer regiments advancing across the battlefields of WWII to capture cities and objectives that the Nazis never could. And all the Nazis are represented by underage anime girls. And they're all barley dressed. And they're posed very suggestively. (Google is NSFW) It's an extremely fun game with some good mechanics. FORTUNATELY, there are historical photo limited editions of both games. These are the ones I've got, so while it doesn't erase the alternate Nazi-victory stink, it at least keeps me from looking like a perv whenever I've got it laid-out across the table (phrasing). I do hold out hope for a version where you play the USSR, US, or UK though.
STAR REALMS - A lot of the games I've laid out require a little investment to get the core sets ($30-$60) in addition to the copious pricey expansions, but Star Realms has two main sets which retail for around $15 each with expansions coming in mix-and-mach packs for about $5 each. This is a real simple and fast deckbuilder with super-easy rules and awesome card art. The goal here is to build a deck with the biggest or best fleet of starships, bases, and fighters and to crush your opponent or single-player adversary. This is probably my favorite game to just pick up and play, and it even has a digital version in playable through an app. There is a sword and sorcery version called Hero Realms if you're more into that.
APEX - This is a punishing game where you take on the role of an apex predator in the time of the dinosaurs and try to...well...survival is usually a good goal, but if you can defeat the boss dinosaur you become the Apex predator and win the game. Gorgeous art and a fun game engine. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter for the second iteration of this game ran into some problems in the fulfillment phase and the publisher went under. But copies can still be found floating around here and there. And at least I got my custom designed card into one of the expansions.
So that's my overly long list of games I enjoy. You guys?
Several years back I stumbled upon Living Card Games. Imagine a Collectable or Trading Card Game, but instead of buying scores of booster packs stuffed with random common cards in hopes of getting good stuff for your deck, you instead buy expansion packs that have everything in them. You then design and build a deck as normal and play the game. There's a Star Wars LCG that was first released in 2012 and which will publish it's last expansion in a couple months. Cool thing about it is, since it started before the Disney acquisition, it was thick with Expanded Universe material and has actually kept on with it ever since. So now it's a weird amalgam of Rebellion Era Legends EU as well as new Cannon stuff like Rogue One and the Rebels cartoon.
Another type of card game type I've discovered are Deck Building games. Here you start with a hand of low-powered cards and use them to buy or draft more powerful cards from a pool until you have a deck powerful enough to defeat your opponent or confront some adversary that is a mechanic of the game. One of the best things about these types of games is that many of them can be played solo, so if you don't have friends or family who are into such things, or if you aren't that keen on going down to your local game shop and getting into pick-up games with weird randos in a room that smells like stale pizza and BO, then deckbuilders may be for you. I've got...quite a few of these.
LEGENDARY - This is a fully cross-compatible gaming system that has several different versions. Some of the games have different play mechanics, but the character decks can all be swapped and combined between the different themes. There's Marvel (with it's many expansions) as well as Alien, Predator, Firefly, Big Trouble in Little China, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I've got them all except for Big Trouble. The Marvel and Buffy games are the most fun, but the Alien and Predator are the most challenging and intense. And few things beat assembling a tam of Marvel heroes and villains to try and defeat a rapidly escalating Xenomorph menace!
CERBERUS - This is another cross-compatible game system that has different versions; DC Superheroes, Street Fighter, Naruto, Lord of the Rings, Cartoon Network, Rick and Morty, and even NHL Hockey. The DC version has expansions that create a brutal game mode called Crisis which can take up to 6 hours of play to complete. I've got all the DC and the NHL sets of the Cerberus engine. It's kinda fun to face a universe-ending Crisis with a team of superheroes led by Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.
SMASH-UP - I'm noticing a theme here. In Smash-up you choose two factions and smash them up into a deck which you then play against other players to conquer base cards. Sounds simple, but the factions are where the fun is with different factions having different specialties or perks. That, and the awesome combos. Factions include dinosaurs, robots, pirates, steampunks, ninjas, elder things, super spies, werewolves, cute cats, dragons, superheroes, Changerbots (a thinly veiled Transformers parody), grannies, teddy bears, kaiju, disco dancers, etc etc. I'm particularly fond of the power combo of Dinosaurs and Bear Cavalry.
BARBAROSSA / EL ALAMEIN - Where to begin? This is a pair of card games where you take charge of German panzer regiments advancing across the battlefields of WWII to capture cities and objectives that the Nazis never could. And all the Nazis are represented by underage anime girls. And they're all barley dressed. And they're posed very suggestively. (Google is NSFW) It's an extremely fun game with some good mechanics. FORTUNATELY, there are historical photo limited editions of both games. These are the ones I've got, so while it doesn't erase the alternate Nazi-victory stink, it at least keeps me from looking like a perv whenever I've got it laid-out across the table (phrasing). I do hold out hope for a version where you play the USSR, US, or UK though.
STAR REALMS - A lot of the games I've laid out require a little investment to get the core sets ($30-$60) in addition to the copious pricey expansions, but Star Realms has two main sets which retail for around $15 each with expansions coming in mix-and-mach packs for about $5 each. This is a real simple and fast deckbuilder with super-easy rules and awesome card art. The goal here is to build a deck with the biggest or best fleet of starships, bases, and fighters and to crush your opponent or single-player adversary. This is probably my favorite game to just pick up and play, and it even has a digital version in playable through an app. There is a sword and sorcery version called Hero Realms if you're more into that.
APEX - This is a punishing game where you take on the role of an apex predator in the time of the dinosaurs and try to...well...survival is usually a good goal, but if you can defeat the boss dinosaur you become the Apex predator and win the game. Gorgeous art and a fun game engine. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter for the second iteration of this game ran into some problems in the fulfillment phase and the publisher went under. But copies can still be found floating around here and there. And at least I got my custom designed card into one of the expansions.
So that's my overly long list of games I enjoy. You guys?