This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Card Wars
Publisher: Kung Fu Factory
Game Type: Card Game
# of Players: Single player or against other decks via tournaments
The physical Card Wars game is a card game based on the Adventure Time episode entitled “Card Wars” (episode 14 of season four). It was released on 2/19/14, three days after the release of the mobile app. I’ve not played the physical card game, so this review is mostly on the mobile app version.
General Mechanics: In the mobile app, you play against the computer using four lanes. The four lanes have types (swamp, corn, desert, & nice) which dictate what kind of creatures can dwell there. Players create decks using those 1-4 themes (you can play a deck with all 1 color, or a mix of the four). Each turn, the player spends points on playing creatures, spells, and buildings. Each player begins with 2 points and every turn thereafter, you gain more magic points to spend.
Some creatures, spells, and buildings are expensive to cost (5 points or more) while others are cheap to play (1-2 points). When you summon a creature, you choose which lane you want to place it in–keeping in mind that creatures are often limited to particular colors. (Example: You can’t place a Cornball in a swamp. It is limited to corn lanes only.)
Creatures also have FLOOP abilities aka special abilities. Some of these will do things like direct attacks on a creature, reducing the opponent’s hit points directly, giving creatures more attack and/or defense, etc. You and your opponent each have 25 hit points. If you have creatures in all four lanes, attacks from the opponent will usually do damage to your creatures, not you, which can save your bacon so to speak. Being able to attack a player directly is pretty powerful and can win you the game. If a creature’s hit points = 0, the creature dies.
You can also cast spells and buildings to help your creatures. Spells often heal creatures, reduce the amount of magic points an opponent has to use, or make it easier to cast expensive creatures. Buildings can do things like add attack and/or defense points to your creatures, heal your creatures, etc. What makes a healing building better than a healing spell is that the spell is a one time use item. The building will stay in the lane until the end of the game and thus, heal whatever creature is there and its replacements. The exception to this is the volcano card. If a player uses a volcano, it will destroy everything in that lane, on BOTH sides, including all creatures and buildings.
I like to think of it this game as a mix between Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon–just Adventure Time themed! There are daily chances to win better cards, rubies (which can be used to get more storage room for your creatures or purchase really rare cards), and hearts (yes, this game has the silly limited energy mechanic to play). You also have tournaments that allow you to win prizes as well.
How to Win/Lose: If you reduce your opponent’s hit points to 0, you win. (Note that you have to reduce the opponent’s hit points, not their creatures’.) If the opponent reduces your hit points to 0, you lose.
What I Liked: Tournaments!! Even though you’re playing against the computer, the computer is still playing another player’s deck. If you rank, you can gain certain rare prizes. The best I’ve done so far is 3rd place, which one me a gold card (really powerful and rare version of a card), 2 rubies, and a bunch of gold (which can be used to purchase cards).
What I Didn’t Like: The energy mechanic. Really? You want me to pay real world money to play more when I run out of hearts, a la Candy Crush? No thanks. (BTW, there is a hack for this, so don’t waste your money!)
Overall Rating/Impression: Overall, I’m really enjoying this game. It’s got a fun theme and the mechanics are decent. 8/10
(Images from game are used under Fair Use for review/criticism and educational purposes only.)
