A Green Mushroom

Guys... Duelyst is really good. I wrote about it awhile ago and said that it had potential but I would have to wait for the official release to see how it panned out. Well, it's been out for a few months and it's really good.  It's somewhere between Hearthstone and Hero Academy, two games that I loved.  I highly recommend it if you're interested in turn based strategy or new card game mechanics or even just good online competition. Duelyst has come a long way and it's completely free to play (unless you want to spend money).  Seriously, go check it out if you haven't.

I've had it on my list for a long time to actually get some table time with certain tabletop games that have been sitting on my shelf either unopened or underplayed.  Race for the Galaxy is the first one of these. Unfortunately, as soon as I cracked open the rule book I remembered why.  Despite Race for the Galaxy being held up as a superb card game by many people and many rating systems online it's just impenetrable for newbies.  There are so many different circumstances, phases, and symbols on the cards that it's impossible for new players to play without constantly referring to the reference charts and the manual. Race for the Galaxy might be a good game, but after multiple attempts to get into it I think I just need to set it down and give up on it for now.  It's either a game I should trade away or one where I should find a veteran player to sit down with and actually learn the game from a person instead of a booklet.

The Whispers of the Old Gods expansion is out for Hearthstone!  The new cards are fun, but the thing I'm most excited about is actually not the cards. Right around the time they launched this expansion they put out a new "Standard" and "Wild" format for Hearthstone.  Wild is what we had before, where all cards ever released are available but standard format only allows cards from the past few expansions plus the core cards from the very base game of Hearthstone.  This means the designers can finally redesign the game for balance regularly while keeping a few cards from dominating every deck. Long term the move to a standard format is a great move for Hearthstone. They also put pre-constructed decks in the game for each class.  You have to own the cards to create the deck, but if you do it only takes one click in the deck creation screen to have one of their pre-made theme decks. Personally, this had gotten me to play the game a ton more.  I love pilo...

Acquisitions Incorporated is my absolute favorite live D&D game to watch.  They just partnered up with the Card Hunter team to release a Card Hunter expansion starring their characters. I jumped back into Card Hunter just to play it, and while I loved the story and pre-made decks of the Acquisitions Inc campaign I was very quickly reminded why I stopped playing this game. Namely, it's often just too hard to make progress and it's unclear what to do differently to get better.  If there was some progress being made or some skill being learned that I could get better at and see improvement then Card Hunter would be a game with a lot of legs. But, for me, it's just not.  I love the core gameplay but hate the progression system and the lack of player messaging when it comes to progressing. Card Hunter got me back for a couple days to play the Acquisitions Inc content, but now I've bounced off it again. At this point I'm just going to keep an eye on this...

I played a bunch of Duelyst and it's a fun mix of strategy, turn based games, and deck building.   I really like the potential here. The battle system has a general who can use abilities and summon monsters from your deck.  You draw new abilities and monsters every turn so your options are constantly changing and evolving.  Instead of these being cards they turn into actual characters that go on a board.  The game mixes current digital card games with turn based strategy games on a grid based field.  It's a really fun combination. It honestly reminds me of a fresh modern version of Hero Academy which I loved when it came out.  Except with Duelyst the battles happen much faster because it's not asynchronous. Duelyst is still early access but it's obvious that this game has lots of potential.  I played enough to know that I like it and that I'll want to play it when it actually releases.  But, I don't like pouring a lot of time into ea...

I'll admit it... I've been netdecking. "What is netdecking?" you might ask.  Well, netdecking is when you don't want to go through the pain of trial and error in deck construction for a card game, so you go online and look up some of the best decks.  Then you recreate them! I'm talking about Hearthstone at the moment, but netdecking applies to any card game with deck building. Since I've been trying to get back into ranked play I'm finding myself needing to netdeck to get anywhere at all.  This game used to be newbie friendly, even in ranked play, but it's not as much anymore.  Once you get to rank 20 or less (lower numbers are better in Hearthstone) the opponents start to get really good and if you don't have a modern deck with good cards you don't stand much of a chance. I used to be able to get really far in the ranked mode, even with the standard starter decks.  I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who is com...

Although it wasn't explicitly in my gaming to-do list I've been playing Hearthstone PVE content.  I've owned both of the Solo Adventure's since they released but I never got around to finishing them. I'm trying to remedy that now. Both of them reward unique cards for defeating the bosses the first time.  I really want those cards for deckbuilding since one of my goals was to get back into ranked play in Hearthstone.  More cards means more options for ranked play. The content is actually really fun.  I don't know why I didn't stick with it the first time.  Each boss offers a challenge that breaks the game in interesting ways.  They have unique spells, minions, and hero abilities.  It's been a ton of fun seeing what each one has to offer. In a way, I wish the cards weren't locked behind a content wall but at the same time I truly am enjoying my time with the Solo Adventures. If you're playing Hearthstone and haven't tried them yet...

Hearthstone is now available on phones!  As a result I've played it more in the last few weeks than I have in the last year. It's a great fit on phones.  They already have the touch controls perfected from the tablet versions of the game, they just had to make some minor adjustments for smaller screen sizes and the game is good to go.  I actually think the phone version may be the best version of the game since it can always be in your pocket. My problem now is that I'm really struggling with not having modern decks.  I don't have any of the expansion content and most of my good decks from when I initially played the game  just suck now. It's frustrating because I really want to get into it again, but I either need to spend a ton of time earning gold to unlock cards or drop a bunch of real world money on the same thing.  If there were a core pack of cards that I could buy for a flat fee to catch back up I would do it.  But I can't really just...

Card Crawl is a diamond in the rough.  By rough... I mean the Apple App store and by diamond... I mean a good game. Card Crawl is kind of like playing through a tactical solo dungeon crawl... with cards.  It's also a little bit like solitaire?  I feel like I'm not doing a good job here.  Stick with me, the game is good. What happens is you are dealt a hand of four cards and you have to manage them.  They're in the middle area which represents the dungeon.  There are six types of cards in the dungeon and a few ways to deal with them.  The card types are shield, sword, coin, potion, special ability, and monster.  All of the card types can be dragged down into the section around your character, but the catch is that you only have two hands and one backpack.  This means only three items can fit on your character at any time.  Monsters, on the other hand, can be attacked with swords, get hit by special abilities, be defended against wi...

I'm still playing Final Fantasy XIV and I'm still trying to get my head around everything the endgame has to offer.  But, I wanted to mention how impressed I am with their patches. Patch 2.51 just released last week.  In terms of Final Fantasy XIV patches it's a "minor" one.  A minor patch in any other MMO I've ever played would include some bug fixes and small balance tweaks.  This patch in FFXIV added the Gold Saucer.  It's an entirely new area of the game that is completely visually unique and has a bunch of new activities.  They added Triple Triad, a complete digital card game, along with things like Chocobo Racing and mini games scattered throughout the area.  This patch really impressed me.  It might be what convinces me to subscribe to this game. I mean, they just add so much content per patch.  Every "major" patch has added new storyline quests as well as 3 or more new dungeons or encounters to run.  They make other MMOs l...

One of the coolest parts of being a parent is watching your kids turn into fully functional human beings.  I guess what I mean by that is watching them grow up. For so long you're stuck in state of constantly taking care of their every need.  And they need a lot.  But then, eventually, they start to do some things for themselves. They get better and better at doing things and then one day they are basically a fully functional, but little, human being. I bring this up to say that my daughter is four and it's awesome!  She plays games with me on iPad and Wii U all the time.  We just got her first console (that she's in charge of) for Christmas when we got her a 2DS.  And now she's starting to play tabletop games! Yesterday I got home and was greeted with her asking, "Daddy, will you play Go Fish with me?" I'm trying to raise little gamers, so whenever she asks to play something I always say yes.  And it was a blast!  I love watching her...

Solforge This is a game that I kickstarted a long time ago.  I played it for a while in beta and thought it still needed work.  This is my first time revisiting it since its full release. The game doesn't feel much different than beta.  It's a lane based digital card game.  There is no mana, instead you get to play two cards every turn no matter what.  You start the game with all level 1 cards and each time you use a level 1 card it is replaced in your deck with a level 2 version of the card.  If you use a level 2 version it gets replaced by a level 3. The game becomes about balancing which cards you want to play.  Should you play the cards that are good for your current situation or should you play cards that are weak now but will cause awesome upper level cards to get into your deck for later use?  It's an interesting balance. Although I like the game and I helped kickstart it, I'm deleting it off my hard drive.  If I want to pl...