While the Entity Sleeps: Three Moves Ahead pt 7

[Abilio Carvalho]

I guess Tom will post the official thread later, but in the meantime here's the link to the latest Three Moves Ahead podcast:

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/04/07/three-moves-ahead-episode-7-collectible-card-games/

CCGs this week, and this really made me want to investigate star chamber and the Warcry thingy (I have a PSP already). Anyone know if the newer versions of Star Chamber are significantly different from what Tom & Bruce played years ago?

[Dreamshadow]

I guess Tom will post the official thread later, but in the meantime here's the link to the latest Three Moves Ahead podcast:

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/04/07/three-moves-ahead-episode-7-collectible-card-games/

CCGs this week, and this really made me want to investigate star chamber and the Warcry thingy (I have a PSP already). Anyone know if the newer versions of Star Chamber are significantly different from what Tom & Bruce played years ago?

I bought Warcry because of the CCG and Warhammer theme.. I regretted it. The gameplay bored me to tears. It also looked horrid, like they had compressed the assets poorly. I sold it a week after I bought it.

[Cubit]

tom gently touches people for this abilio...

[Angrycoder]

Warhammer: Battle for Altoona

[Lizard_King]

tom gently touches people for this abilio...

Are you suggesting Tom should ban himself (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=51418)?

[Staff Sergeant]

I'm not really sure what cubit is talking about. Tom has posted/stickied all of the TMA podcasts so far, so it's not like posting it is not allowed, and I (and others) have started new threads about things involving Tom without being banned. Then there's the fact that this thread got stickied rather than closed/OP banned.

[Wader]

Speaking of CCG's which have multiple victory conditions, did anyone else ever play the Babyon 5 CCG? I think the designers and marketers had completely different ideas of what that game was supposed to be. It was marketed as a traditional magic style CCG for two players, and as that type of game was a complete disaster.

However, in groups of 4 or more, it became a fantastic game of negotiation, favors, and betrayal. Some of my best gaming memories came from having groups of 6 friends playing that game. We only got into it about 5 years after the game stopped production, and we were able to purchase something on the order of 20 boxes of unopened card packs as a group for $5 a box. We ended up with more than 15 different decks, all strategically different. Decks based on starting wars, preventing wars, diplomatic power, alliances, and espionage.

When they were describing Jyhad in the podcast, it reminded me a lot of the type of game Babylon 5 was.

[Cubit]

I'm not really sure what cubit is talking about. Tom has posted/stickied all of the TMA podcasts so far, so it's not like posting it is not allowed, and I (and others) have started new threads about things involving Tom without being banned. Then there's the fact that this thread got stickied rather than closed/OP banned.

sorry, i was making a lame attempt at a joke. tom bans people for beating him to the punch...nm

[routlaw]

Bruce sort of hit on a point with his comment that they didn't want to make a game that plays like a CCG. It seems pretty clear to me (after a week or so of play) that what they wanted was the sort of metagame that a CCG has-where there are some common competitive deck archetypes played and then someone comes up with a new archetype that smacks most or all of them and the others have to compensate or become obsolete.

The problem with Battleforge is that their card base just isn't quite balanced enough to get there quite yet. The game is basically constrained to just the second tier of units in a vast majority of competitive games, so it's mostly people playing the same six or seven cards against each other. Even at that, there are few actual deck archetypes due to some card imbalances making other cards fall under the line of competitiveness.

I don't think the RTS side to the game is all that basic for the genre, especially given the way that the genre is going in general towards more basic designs. Freshly summoned units away from a power node are extremely vulnerable to any form of splash or area instant damage since they come in with half health (but full casting cost), so there is a tradeoff there (but there is a bigger problem that structures, much more resilient and especially so with cheap combos, also work the same way).

What the game honestly needs is some core rules changes (orb upgrade costs past tier 2), an expansion card set, and then a "revised" version of the original set to fix some of the most glaringly broken cards. The goal there is to increase the diversity of competitive decks in the metagame through more numerous card options and rules that don't encourage tier 2 card spam over everything else. This is all an opinion from playing the game through about 40-50 ranked games where I got a pretty high PvP level before getting sidetracked by RL issues.

[rabbit]

Mea culpa,

It looks like the potentially forthcoming MTG game for XBLA will be MUCH more like the Sid Meier game, and not feature buying packages of virtual cards and whatnot. Which both makes me an idiot and much more excited for the game.

However, I stand behind my belief that it's unfair to paint Magic as a "bad game design" simply because the game has gone on so long and changed so many times. The business model may be horribly anti-consumer, but the core gameplay I will defend until I'm blue in the face. A small community (based around a store, usually) with 20 dedicated players playing draft a few nights a week is about as strategic and intense as gaming gets.

[Tom Chick]

Magic is just too simple for my taste in CCGs. I realize you can have a lot of "fun" with a sealed deck tournaments, but that's to me more a failing of the game system than any sort of testament to its quality. The core gameplay mechanics are so simplistic, based around exceptions to the core rules rather than smart core rules. Magic was great for its time, but that was, like, twenty years ago!

Also, I dug up my copy of Warhammer: Battle for Atluma for the PSP because I got myself all psyched about it! Go, me! Falling for my own hype!

Man, that's not an easy game system to learn, or even re-learn. But the PSP version is a straight-up port of the tabletop War Cry CCG. I read through the (horrible) manual before remembering that you really need some outside help to figure out what's going on. The rules used to be available online, but since the analog games is dead for intents and purposes (bought and scuttled by Fantasy Flight Games), I can't find the rules anywhere. The Wikipedia page is a good overview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarCry_(game)), but nothing you can't get in the manual.

Still, it's a great CCG system and its got tons of great Warhammer flavor, nicely realized in the gameplay.

-Tom

[Wader]

Tom, just for the sake of information, besides Jyhad, what would you consider to be well designed CCG's?

[notatiger]

Tom, just for the sake of information, besides Jyhad, what would you consider to be well designed CCG's?

Ah, Jyhad. What a great failed game. Netrunner was also a neat take on a ccg.

I think Magic was a very solid game for a while, but eventually simply overwhelmed itself with new cards. Through 4th or 5th edition at least.

[Merakon]

Another great podcast, guys.

This one was particularly cool for me (not just because my name was mentioned!) because I've been involved with the craft of these kinds of games over the last several years, from Star Chamber to Legends of Norrath to the upcoming Free Realms TCG.

I think Julian and Tom's separate three point presentations about why these kinds of games are compelling hit virtually all the notes that I would have suggested, although I would actually expand upon the "control your own order of battle" point.

What I always found compelling about deck construction was that to some extent a player of this kind of game becomes a game designer; the game simply provides building blocks and the players have a tremendous amount of creativity to play the game their own way via their deck designs. While a TCG's system is certainly not quite as open and customizable as, say, a tabletop roleplaying game where the game master can bring to life just about anything he can imagine, the benefits of the TCG are that it provides a global foundation of rules that everyone plays with, so everyone has to be creative within fair limits. Also building a deck is about 50 times faster and easier than crafting a custom RPG adventure.

Of course, offering up hundreds or thousands of foundational building blocks can unfortunately be a double-edged sword: with so many building blocks out there, in-house balance-testing of all permutations is impossible, so it is extremely hard to design and develop balanced card pools where no factions/colors/what have you are clearly on the top or on the bottom. I'm happy to report that the state of faction balance in Star Chamber after six card sets is as healthy as it has ever been.

As for Battleforge, I had similar concerns about not drawing random cards during the game, feeling that that is part of the core coolness of a TCG. On the other hand, I can certainly see how their design team might have felt that reacting to a dynamic hand of cards during a real-time conflict was too much complexity. But with the way they ended up going, it seemed to me that their conflict mechanisms weren't particularly interesting. I would have thought that if they took away the complexity of reacting to a dynamic hand, they could have infused some more complexity into the cards and conflict mechanics.

Anyway, thanks Bruce for calling out Star Chamber and thanks to Tom for pointing out that Bruce's reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated.

My next project will be to create a compelling, visceral, immersive, and fun deckbuilding interface that can compare to the experience of building parties for Icewind Dale.

[JonC]

Pox Nora was mentioned in the discussion (and linked to). I tried to download and install it but it freezes on start up on my PC.

Anyone else tried it and, if so, what do you think of it? Is it worth trying to get it to work?

[Mordrak]

I have to say I'm really enjoying the podcast. I like podcasts that can talk about game design coherently especially since I can't. At the end though, you guys were over thinking what makes a CCG (or defines its experience). Earlier, someone (Julian?) made the excellent point that a card game has these kind of narrative like turnabouts. Card games play out their narrative in a very easy to follow back and forth narrative of the game. It's so easy, I can even follow them. Heh. But in other games (particularly strategy games I've played, which have mostly been old stuff like MOO, MOO2, SMAC, and older versions of CIV) you have to wade through layers of abstraction to build that narrative with your opponent. There can even be long stagnate periods where you're not even aware of your opponent.


CCGs aren't alone in this, but the closest I think in its narrative simplicity is probably death match or capture the flag like FPS matches or perhaps fighting games before you either get good or other players begin to just shut you down because you're not good enough. That doesn't mean CCGs can't have a bunch of abstractions that make resolving the rules and plays get in the way of the basic back and forth, rather that core structure and the intimate nature of playing cards facilitates those kinds of narratives.

Edit: Now look at that, talk about thinking too much and--not surprisingly--incoherently! I'm guilty as charged. : /

[Mordrak]

Magic is just too simple for my taste in CCGs. I realize you can have a lot of "fun" with a sealed deck tournaments, but that's to me more a failing of the game system than any sort of testament to its quality. The core gameplay mechanics are so simplistic, based around exceptions to the core rules rather than smart core rules. Magic was great for its time, but that was, like, twenty years ago!


What the hell? Game design 101: Initiate the player into a set of rules and then proceed to let the player break them in interesting ways. Heck, you even praised Escape From Butcher Bay for that and derided Bioshock for both not doing it effectively and too much at the same time!

[Abilio Carvalho]

the *player* isn't breaking them, your expansion designers are :D

My favorite CCG is Legend of the Five Rings. 9 factions, all pretty balanced, and tons of different ways to win (over the history of the game, there's been like 15). Just an awesome design.

[Tom Chick]

Tom, just for the sake of information, besides Jyhad, what would you consider to be well designed CCG's?

Wader, I've been out of the analog CCG loop for a long time. But when I bailed and eBayed all my cards, the two sets of cards I kept were Jyhad and the original Star Wars CCG by Decipher. Before it got bogged down with a bunch of stupid expansions, Star Wars was an elegant and unique system, with great rules for the Force, land battles, space battles, "geography", characters, droids, equipment, and more. It did a great job of using the lore, too. It also had a nifty little mechanic where your deck was your hit points! The weaker you got, the fewer choices you had. Man, I loved that game.

Although now that Abilio mentions it, I do regret getting rid of my Legend of the Five Rings cards. :(

I only know the War Cry Warhammer CCG through the PSP game I talked about on the podcast, but since it's a direct port, I'm comfortable going on record saying I'd include that among the tabletop CCGs I really like.

-Tom

[Tom Chick]

What I always found compelling about deck construction was that to some extent a player of this kind of game becomes a game designer; the game simply provides building blocks and the players have a tremendous amount of creativity to play the game their own way via their deck designs.

Well put, Paul!

And it actually ties in with Mordrak's emphasis on narrative: the player of this kind of game becomes a storyteller as well. Even though there's a heavy layer of abstraction to a CCG, it's always got some kind of lore featured prominently, constantly looking up at you. In one sense, a CCG is a comic book where you arrange the panels through gameplay!

-Tom

[Tom Chick]

What the hell? Game design 101: Initiate the player into a set of rules and then proceed to let the player break them in interesting ways. Heck, you even praised Escape From Butcher Bay for that and derided Bioshock for both not doing it effectively and too much at the same time!

Abilio partly addressed this, but as with any game design principle, there are good ways to do it and bad ways to do it. Magic is a bad way to do it. It effectively sits two people across the table from each other and forces them into a battle of wildly breaking rules in lieu of good game design. He whose rules best break the other players broken rules wins. Or something like that.

Have you played Magic? Do you know how simple the basic gameplay is? How on earth are you going to build a multimillion dollar empire around constantly selling and reselling bits of a game that simplistic without jerking players around? Magic serves the word "collectible" to the extreme detriment of the word "game".

-Tom

[Mordrak]

Abilio partly addressed this, but as with any game design principle, there are good ways to do it and bad ways to do it. Magic is a bad way to do it. It effectively sits two people across the table from each other and forces them into a battle of wildly breaking rules in lieu of good game design. He whose rules best break the other players broken rules wins. Or something like that.


So kind of like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTN0L92HAwg)? It sounds like a Magic game to me. =P In all seriousness (rather than just partial seriousness) you make a good point. In high school my friends and I spent half our time arguing about resolving the rules which eventually resulted in fisticuffs among some of us. If the rules were written well enough (or smartly enough) that wouldn't have been a problem.

I've come back to the game occasionally (but only from brief stints) and the last time was years ago, but it seemed like they improved over time. I started in fourth edition. I'm kind of impressed at the creativity of the sheer number of ways they've broken the rules (or created new ones) for only God and WotC knows how many expansions.



Have you played Magic? Do you know how simple the basic gameplay is? How on earth are you going to build a multimillion dollar empire around constantly selling and reselling bits of a game that simplistic without jerking players around? Magic serves the word "collectible" to the extreme detriment of the word "game".

-Tom

I appreciated the singular focus--the wizards' duel--that'd play out in my mind, but simple minds like simple pleasures. :) Your point is well taken though.

[Mordrak]

the *player* isn't breaking them, your expansion designers are :D


Well, I think that's technically the case of any CCG or board game. You need the rules clearly stated so even when players are breaking the dynamics of a given session, they know how to resolve the new combination/dynamic. But between you and Tom, I get where you're coming from.

I've tried other CCGs, but only really at the time I was into Magic, so I didn't give stuff like Jihad enough of a shot. One thing I do like about magic is games take between 10 and 30 minutes generally. However, I do (well did) prefer to play draft, sealed deck, concept decks or funky scenarios like when we all pulled cards from one giant 5 color deck. Shuffling was a pain. Heh. :)

[Feety]

You failed to mention Agricola. For shame.

Apart from that, another great podcast. Thanks!

[Merakon]

Anyone know if the newer versions of Star Chamber are significantly different from what Tom & Bruce played years ago?

Sorry, forgot to answer this earlier.

The biggest differences are:

1) The addition of single-player campaigns, along with the focus on more concrete storytelling. There are four single-player campaigns that tell the story of the "Harbinger Saga" (the second trilogy of cards).
2) 3 and 4-player multiplayer
3) A new UI and some jazzier graphics
4) Draft tournament support

[Abilio Carvalho]

wow, so Sony only brought *positive* changes to a game they bought? Which was already awesome as per threemovers? When the hell did this happen, and why isn't this game uberpopular?

[Troy S Goodfellow]

why isn't this game uberpopular?

Magic aside, CCGs in general are marginal. CCGs on the computer are probably doubly so.

Troy

[Quaro]

I played Star Chamber during a beta period, I think it was when they were launching an expansion. You had unlimited cards so you could just make any deck you wanted -- it was truly a fantastically balanced game.

One thing you guys didn't talk about was that it has simultaneous turns, much like Dominions. So there's lots of: this is the obvious move with the best payoff, but my opponent knows this and can screw me if he consolidates all troops at that point, so I should do this lesser move which will go unheaded sine he'll move to the obvious planet, but he knows I know that so maybe he'll defend against this lesser move instead which means I should go for the original move, or maybe I could hedge and split my troops which will work as long as he doesn't do the same...' etc. Similar mechanics play out in the voting as well.

I bought a starter but just couldn't get into collecting digital cards using real money so never went beyond that.

[Mordrak]

Magic aside, CCGs in general are marginal. CCGs on the computer are probably doubly so.

Troy

Marginal compared to what? I knew a guy that ran a comic shop and card games (and miniatures like Heroclix) beat out rpgs, board games and even comics.

[beloved one]

Marginal compared to what? I knew a guy that ran a comic shop and card games (and miniatures like Heroclix) beat out rpgs, board games and even comics.

Probably compared to media that is sold in the kind of stores that aren't continually going out of business...

[Mordrak]

Probably compared to media that is sold in the kind of stores that aren't continually going out of business...

Yeah. I guess, when I think of card games, the barometer for success gets shifted to where I tend to see card games, which is at comic and gaming enthusiast shops. But heck, at least I still see card games sold at seven elevens and drug stores (generally only magic or some kids licensed stuff). If you compare them to, I don't know, big budget video games, music, or movies, sure they're marginal. But this came up on a podcast dedicated to strategy games in which they reference board games decades old.

If you want to talk about marginal... heh.

[Kelly Wand]

Regarding Tom's outrageous gripes about the greatest strategy game ever made, Culdcept Saga, seeing your opponent's hand subliminally every once in a while is supposed to be your Culdcept mage peering into the thoughts of his opponent in brief flashes of cosmic insight.

Not to be confused with the spell card "Flash."

[metta]

Regarding Tom's outrageous gripes about the greatest strategy game ever made, Culdcept Saga, seeing your opponent's hand subliminally every once in a while is supposed to be your Culdcept mage peering into the thoughts of his opponent in brief flashes of cosmic insight.


I agree and wish Culdcept SAGA had been a greater success and that they'd make more of them. I don't mind seeing into my opponents hand, it means four of us can gather around the Xbox and play together instead of having to rely on LIVE.

I also want to write that the fatal flaw in the Warhammer CCG PSP G.A.M.E. is I have to turn my PSP sideways to read the text on the bloody cards. For me, the artwork and flavour text is part of the joy of a CCG and the mechanism to actually read the cards in this game is pooched.

[Abilio Carvalho]

Bought into Star Chamber, got all the sp campaigns and a few starters and boosters. Anyone else got carried away by Bruce's praise? I'm Astromarine, friend me and let's do some games.

Also, the game so far is *awesome*.

[Justin Fletcher]

[cross post from Flash of Steel; where am I supposed to be talking about these podcasts anyway?]

So I’m catching up on my TMAs, and, being a CCG freak, this was my favorite one yet.

CONTROLLED RANDOMNESS
I actually thought the same thing as LintMan (http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/04/07/three-moves-ahead-episode-7-collectible-card-games/comment-page-1/#comment-208379): the comparison of CCGs’ “controlled randomness” to a die roll actually made them sound like the same thing. Julian (in the podcast) and Thomas (in the FoS comments) already clarified somewhat by saying that you control what cards are in your hand, but I’d like to take the metaphor further.

Imagine that you have a die and a hand of six cards that each has a number on it. The difference between them is not just that you can choose what number can be on each of the cards (e.g. 4 8 15 16 23 42) while you’re stuck with 1-6 on the die. It’s that you can affect the probability of certain numbers coming up by including more instances (e.g. 1 1 2 3 6 6). Part of the strategy in CCGs comes from “controlling the die roll.”


CULDCEPT
Which speaks to one of Tom’s problems with the Culdcept games (pronounced “cul-de-cept” by the in-game voiceovers in Culdcept Saga). He rightfully acknowledges that the die roll adds another huge, sometimes overpowering, element of chance on a game already dealing with the controlled randomness of drawing cards. Which is why, in my opinion, most winning strategies in Culdcept rely on controlling the die roll with the Holy Word cards. These cards set the next die roll for either you or your opponent, allowing you to change capricious fate into a strategic ally. This is especially powerful due to the Magic-meets-Monopoly conceit of the game, in which territories have tolls that can be leveled up. Imagine being able to force someone to land on Boardwalk after you’ve built a hotel on it, and you’ve got the idea.

Building a die control deck must be balanced with creatures, items, and spells that allow you to capture and defend territory. Forcing rolls is also somewhat balanced by maps with branching paths that can be used by an opponent as an emergency detour. But die control is still one of the strongest paths to victory.

Tom’s second issue is also an annoyance of mine: the brief flashes of your opponent’s cards. This unbalances the game by giving an advantage to the player that can recognize these cards and can remember what each one does. The problem is magnified by the fact that you win cards by playing matches and that new cards appear in your winnings infrequently. Therefore, you are guaranteed to see cards in your opponent’s deck that you don’t recognize as you slowly collect a full set of Culdcept cards. However, an opponent who has unlocked more cards than you doesn’t have that problem and is more likely to recognize your cards. So while the brief flash of cards is ostensibly fair because it happens to all players, veterans have the upper hand. As I said in the Culdcept Saga thread, showing a card to a rookie who doesn’t recognize it is the same as not showing him a card at all.

Tom attributes this to laziness on the part of the developers when they addressed the issue of doing a video CCG with local multiplayer. I’m sure there’s some truth to that, but the flashes are also used as a battle mechanic. When two creatures face off, the defender is again shown a brief glimpse of the attacker’s cards. Based on that glimpse, the defender must decide how he should use any items in his hand to bolster his creature or disable the opponent’s. Sometimes this results in the waste of cards as the defender anticipates a card that the attacker doesn’t use.

What this *always* results in, though, is the number one problem with Culdcept, one that I’m shocked Tom didn’t mention: Deadly Slow Pacing. Due to this attack/defend cycle and the animations that must be shown to illustrate how cards interact and affect the outcome, battles in the game take up to 20-30 seconds a piece (longer with human players). This combined with the already leisurely pace of the boardgame aspect makes games on larger maps go on forever. I was amused when Julian mentioned Culdcept Saga as one of his favorite CCG games and then later described one of the strengths of CCGs being that they “last 20 minutes, not two hours.” Most Culdcept matches go on for at least 90 minutes, if not more. It’s heartbreaking that such a great game can be undone this way, and it’s infuriating that it was not addressed in any way between the original PS2 release of Culdcept and the 360’s sequel, Culdcept Saga.


COLLECTING
Collecting is definitely part of the appeal of CCGs; most videogame versions have a counter showing how many cards you lack in order to keep your motivation high. But it goes beyond the “gotta catch em all” factor. It’s more like getting new weapons in an action-RPG: “Wow, what can I do with THIS?”


FAVORITE CCGS
This has gone on too long as it is, so here’s a short shout out to some of my other favorites. I’m not down with booster buying, so I only play video/computer CCGs with all cards included (though genre progenitor, Chron X, came very close to separating me from large wads of cash).

As Tom mentioned, Yu-Gi-Oh is a great gateway drug into CCGs. The Marvel CCG is great, even for non-comics buffs, with two caveats: some of the cards are broken and the interface for the DS version is horrible (get the PSP version).

As for hybrids (like Culdcept), Armageddon Empires tops the list and deserves all of the accolades it has received. And then there’s Phantom Dust for the original Xbox, which may be the world’s only action-CCG. Instead of just playing cards, you have to aim and fire them at your opponent at various ranges in 3D, destructible, post-apocalyptic arenas. Despite wonky camera controls and the ease with which you could fall to your death, it’s highly recommended and backward compatible with the 360.

[Tom Chick]

Great post, Justin.


What this *always* results in, though, is the number one problem with Culdcept, one that I’m shocked Tom didn’t mention: Deadly Slow Pacing.

Yeah, those combat animations were pretty damn interminable. Also, it gets a bit tedious with four players waiting for everyone else to take his turn, but you really need to pay attention to how the board changes on each player's turn. Plus, with the crazy last-second reversals possible in that game, it was always pretty tense despite the pace.

-Tom

[Justin Fletcher]

Oh, absolutely. Especially when there are cards that get more powerful in the late game, like Sir Gawain and Aspidochelone. I'm never bored during Culdcept matches; it's just that I have to make an appointment with myself in order to carve out enough time to play an entire match.*

This was bad enough in the first game, but it killed all hope of success for Culdcept Saga's major innovation: online multiplayer. Within a month or two of release, online matches became slim pickings, and it's almost impossible to find a match today. For someone who could never convince his friends to learn the complexities of the game for local multiplayer, it was a bitter disappointment.




*ASIDE: You can save matches in progress, but this disqualifies the match from receiving medals (Culdcept) or achievements (Culdcept Saga) for meeting special conditions, like winning with an all fire creature deck. The medals in the first game were a great way to keep the collectors coming back for more even after they'd unlocked all the cards. I had hoped this restriction would be changed in the sequel, but it wasn't. I assume the rationale was to keep people from gaming the system by reloading saves, but they could have easily implemented a Fire Emblem-style quicksave that is deleted once loaded.

[Tom Chick]

Oh, god, yeah, I forgot about that save restriction. Lame. In the end, crap like that and the weird open hand conceit just killed Culdcept for me.

Justin, have you tried to Warhammer CCG on the PSP? I've been playing it again lately and it really is supersweet.

-Tom

[Justin Fletcher]

I just received it from Amazon today and hope to spend some time with it tomorrow. I ordered it after the mention on TMA and your recent (re?)posting of your Yahoo! review. I'm really looking forward to digging into it.

[merryprankster]

Just listened to this episode yesterday. I miss Jyhad, we used to have a weekly game with about 5 other guys in the mid 90's. I wonder if I still have my cards somewhere.

[Abilio Carvalho]

get into star chamber, bitches. it's lonely out there.

Also, Justin, I don't actually think Armageddon Empires is a good example of a videogame CCG. While the integration of the cards and the rest of the game is well made, I never felt like the card system itself was any good. Deckbuilding felt a bit too loose, balance was out of whack, and the whole system just felt designed by someone who didn't actually play CCGs that much. I can't explain it better, and this doesn't detract from my love of the game, but I wouldn't buy the AECCG if it came out for reals.

[Justin Fletcher]

I agree that the CCG element of Armageddon Empires wouldn't stand on it's own, but it's not meant to. AE is definitely a hybrid, with the CCG unit selection comprising an equal third with resource management and territory control. Rip out one of the parts and the patient wouldn't survive.

Though I certainly wouldn't mind a "pure" videogame CCG with a post-apocalyptic setting. One doesn't exist already, does it? I don't suppose that's the secret of Fallout: New Vegas?

I still have the demo for Star Chamber on my computer, though I never got around to trying it. Maybe I'll finally give it whirl.