Spectromancer

[zespri]

Hello all,

this is quite different genre, but something I liked a lot: http://spectromancer.com/

Basically it's a card game with very simple mechanics. MTG fans usually say it's too simplistic, but for those who feels that it's MTG that is too complex this game can be very appealing.

The main difference (and the biggest gripe of MTG fun) is that you can't build your deck. Each deal is random (according to certain balancing rules). If you don't know that there are balancing rules and that deals are not completely random it can take some times for to spot this, and this is a good thing. The whole random deal simplifies things for developers as the balancing cards are simpler - you can't rely on combos consistently, you use them when you are dealt them.

The premises are simple. Two people (or you and AI) are dealt 20 cards each - 4 in each of four standard schools of magic (fire, air, ears, water) and 4 in a special school that you can choose before the game. Each card has a cost in power points to play. There is no two cards in a school that has the same cost, so may players refer to cards as to "Earth 1" for example. Cars are either spells or creatures. Spells are played for an effect and creatures go to the play field.

When you play a card it doesn't disappear from your hand. You always have your 20 cards you started with.

You have some power points in each school of magic to start with and every turn you earn one additional point in each school. You expend the points by playing cards to pay for their cost. You need to pay 1 earth power point for "Earth 1" and so on.

The playfield consists of two rows (one for each player) with 6 cards in each. The playfield mechanics is pretty standard: each unit has attack and life values, and each player has a life value. Each turn each unit attack the unit in front of them. If the slot in front of them is empty the attack is applied to player instead. Attack reduces the life of the target by the attack value. When Players life becomes 0 or less the player loses.

http://www.spectromancer.com/img/screens/combat.jpg

And this is about it. Of course many units and spells have some abilities that alter base rules, but this is what one expects from the game like this.
This setup is very simple and yet the game is quite challenging. Many of my friends was struggling against computer even on Normal further down the campaign. And playing against a human is a lot of fun as well.

What puzzles me is that I can't "figure out" the game, it seems to be much simpler than many other games, and still I'm not always sure what the opponent is doing that helps him win and how I can prevent this.

If you are into card games, give it a try, if you already tried it, let me know what you think about the game and how you win!

Andrew.

[AlexV]

Played it a while back, and did enjoy it. Not quite enough to shell out for the expansion, though. There is certainly skill to it, and the AI at higher levels will generally stomp on you, so you don't *need* to find a human opponent to get a good game.

In the end, it turns out that deck building is one of the things I enjoy most about card games of this sort. Or of the sort that this game isn't, to be more accurate.

[zespri]

An expansion has come out. Called "Truth and Beauty.

- 3 new magical classes: Goblin Chieftain, Mad Hermit and Chronomancer
- editable decks
- draft tournaments
- ability to observe duels in the online league
- many fixes and improvements

[Wingflier]

One of the things I liked most about magic was the counter-spell ability, or a card that can be played instantly to shut down an opponent's action. I'm not talking about destroying things that are already on the board, that's boring, predictable, and has been done to death. Does this card game have anything like that?

[Cyborg]

Magic the gathering was a great concept, but it was ruined by the fact that you could purchase really expensive cards that would make you overpowered. In real life. And then, in the most recent computer game, you have to keep up with all the expansions. It really gets to be a money sink. If you have a lot of friends that play, it's great, but if not, it's just too much.

The game spectromancer looks much more interesting in that sense.

[Nalgas]

Magic the gathering was a great concept, but it was ruined by the fact that you could purchase really expensive cards that would make you overpowered.

That can definitely be a problem (although less so than in something like YuGiOh...bleargh), but there are several ways to work around it.  One is to use "proxy" cards that represent the expensive ones that you don't actually want to pay for, which lets you play with any arbitrarily expensive tournament level decks in a casual setting if you want.

Something that I always preferred to that and found more fun was playing drafts, though.  A bunch of people get together, and they each contribute a few booster packs.  Everyone opens one, looks at it, chooses one card, and passes the rest to their left.  Then choose one of what you just were handed, pass it on, and so on, until you run out, and then repeat with the next pack.  Fill in the remains of your deck with basic lands.

Congratulations.  You now all have fairly even decks.  Play with them until you're bored.  When you do get bored, the rares from the packs you opened have a reasonably good chance of being valuable enough that you can sell them for a new booster for each of them, and you can repeat the cycle at a pretty low cost (or you can hang onto ones you particularly like for whatever reason).

It does require reasonably good familiarity with the current expansion (or whichever you're using) to be able to draft a playable/good deck, but I actually find it more fun in some ways than the traditional format because of the skills it emphasizes (building a deck out of what appears to sometimes be random crap, observing your opponents' card choices while drafting cards based on limited information to try to deduce what type of deck they're aiming for and denying them cards that would benefit them, etc.).

[Cyborg]

That can definitely be a problem (although less so than in something like YuGiOh...bleargh), but there are several ways to work around it.  One is to use "proxy" cards that represent the expensive ones that you don't actually want to pay for, which lets you play with any arbitrarily expensive tournament level decks in a casual setting if you want.

Something that I always preferred to that and found more fun was playing drafts, though.  A bunch of people get together, and they each contribute a few booster packs.  

I wish that the school lunch table had been that organized back in the day.

Anyone else familiar with "The Geeks' Table?"

[zespri]

I don't really like that everyone compare any card game to MTG. I mean, I do understand hard-core MTG fans, in their eyes everything pales in comparison with one and mighty MTG. MTG is a fine game. I never got into it (although some of my friends did) because I firmly believe, that if the game designers have to keep printing out new cards to keep the game interesting, it's not really the game I want to get into. I have nothing against occasional expansions. But with MTG type of games, they print out new  cards on schedule, it's never stopping process. There is already zillion different cards printed and you still have to buy new ones to keep up. And what about the old ones? They get "retired" and no one wants to play them any more because they are old and un-cool. Money sink indeed.

With games like spectromancer its different. There is quite limited well defined rules, not 200 pages document but something you can actually understand as you start playing. And there is limited set of cards as well, so you pretty much know what to expect. Sorry for very worn-out comparison to chess, the game with full information, but this is what comes to mind.

In addition, to simplicity, the game seems to be balanced very good. At least to date, no one has found an obvious winning strategy and the developers, didn't have to issue countless patches, to keep the balance in check.

I really like this game, this is one of these games I keep returning to for quite a long time.

Speaking of MTG, I also tried WoW TCG some times ago, and I can tell you, even though in core these two are the same idea, I somehow liked WoW better. Yes, the same thing with keeping up and new sets, etc, and that's why I was not and am not playing it on regular basis, but the rule set was more in sync with myself, than MTG's. And then this license shenanigan happened, when the license was revoked from UDE and I stopped following.

[Nalgas]

I don't really like that everyone compare any card game to MTG.

It's somewhat inevitable, given that it was the first CCG, is still the most popular, and is still successful and widely played all these years later.  Also, you made the comparison yourself all the way back in your second paragraph in the first post of this thread.  It's just such a fundamental part of the genre that it's pretty hard to avoid, even when you're saying that you like a game because it's not like it.

[zespri]

I don't really like that everyone compare any card game to MTG.

It's somewhat inevitable, given that it was the first CCG, is still the most popular, and is still successful and widely played all these years later.  Also, you made the comparison yourself all the way back in your second paragraph in the first post of this thread.  It's just such a fundamental part of the genre that it's pretty hard to avoid, even when you're saying that you like a game because it's not like it.

You are right and I can see that, but this is kind of unfair. There are a lot of games and different games. If you going to take MTG as the pinnacle of card games then all the comparisons are going to be unfair by definition =)

[Nalgas]

If you going to take MTG as the pinnacle of card games then all the comparisons are going to be unfair by definition =)

It's totally unfair, and all the other smaller games have to fight against it, but that's just how it goes.  Same with something like AI War getting the inevitable comparisons to StarCraft or SupCom or whatever other major RTSes when trying to describe it to anyone.

[zespri]

Now Spectromancer is available for iPad in HD and for iPhone on normal 'D'. Could not resist, bought it on my iPhone and last two days I found myself staring at the screen alot =)  Of course it's the same game, the only change I can see is that they buffed cards in the campaign only by making them upgradable (they are still old same in single games), but I stil find it very enjoyable anyway.

I'm not going to argue 'But it's not MTG' again, - this game has very clean and limited ruleset. Nothing as mind boggling as MTG, but sometimes you do want something simple to get into.

[Mánagarmr]

My problem with most cardgames is that they tend to get out of hand really fast. In order to stay alive they have to get expansions and new cards out there, and eventually, it gets impossible for a new player to break into the community due to every deck requiring 20 500 cards to be competitive, or on the flip side, decks have to be 30 cards to get a proper draw, and there's a bajillion cards to choose from, thus making it impossible to build a competitive deck unless you already own every card in the whole game, gathered over the years (with about half a bajillion spares).

[zespri]

My problem with most cardgames is that they tend to get out of hand really fast. In order to stay alive they have to get expansions and new cards out there, and eventually, it gets impossible for a new player to break into the community due to every deck requiring 20 500 cards to be competitive, or on the flip side, decks have to be 30 cards to get a proper draw, and there's a bajillion cards to choose from, thus making it impossible to build a competitive deck unless you already own every card in the whole game, gathered over the years (with about half a bajillion spares).

This one is not collectable. It has very limited card set.

[Mánagarmr]

Ah, I see. So everyone gets every card simply by participating? That makes more sense then.