The rest of the cards form the “Center Deck”, 6 of which lie face up to form the “center row.” It’s here where all the interesting stuff happens. Defeating monster cards brings the game closer to the end.Įach player starts with a deck of the same 10 cards. Once the honor pool has been reduced to zero the game finishes. Defeating monsters gives honor directly from the honor pool to the player who defeated the monster. There are two main ways to score honor: by defeating monsters and collecting cards. This is usually 30 points per player. The aim of the game is to score as many honor points as possible. The more players you have, the longer the game takes.Īt the start of a game, an honor pool is set up. With more than one set it can be expanded to 6 players, though I’ve never done this. In case you’ve never played Ascension before here is a quick overview, before I explain how War of Shadows differs from the base set.Īscension is a game for 1-4 players. Once you have a few sets you seem to have millions of the blighters. Plastic gems that are used to keep track of your score. Though they are now more generic fantasy type illustrations, rather than the stylized, angular pen and ink of the earlier games. One of the best things about Ascension are the illustrations. This is nice, but the game is perfectly playable without it, especially if you’ve played before. The components of the game the same as previous iterations. The basic game remains the same, but this being a War of Shadows, whether it’s “day” or “night” plays an important part. The key to its success is a small, but fundamental, tweak to the rules, whilst adding a cohort of new cards into the fray. So, does Ascension: War of Shadows succeed? Mostly, yes. Those that just bring lots of new cards to spend your money on but barely alter the game or add anything to the playing experience. The flip-side of this coin are expansions that do very little. In some cases this can upset the balance of the game, or it can make games increasingly complicated, ruining the reason we enjoyed playing them in the first place. In order to combat this, publishers produce new cards which tweak the original ruleset. Games become routine as the same cards are pulled out over and over again. One of the biggest issues with a deck building game is that, eventually, with a finite number of cards, winning combinations become evident. So, how does version 10.0 compare? Well, the most apposite adage to describe the game is, “ If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I have the first three versions of the game, and have had the opportunity to try out the newly released, Ascension X: War of Shadows. Now, the Ascension series is in its tenth iteration. Roll on a few years, now my oldest two (7 & 10), can be heard playing against one another without any adult intervention (albeit with suspiciously one-sided results). Better yet, my son grasped it too, and we had great fun playing together. This led to many pleasing hands of an easy to learn, fun to master, deckbuilder. The original boxed game was difficult to track down in the UK but, eventually, I managed to do so. A bit of digging revealed that the game was based on a physical counterpart. It looked to be an interesting deck building game, but as I only owned an iPod touch at the time, the minuscule card text threatened to render me blind before I’d mastered the game. The game will launch first for iOS, and ports to other platforms (Android, PC, etc.) are planned too.A few years ago I stumbled upon a iOS app called Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer (available on iTunes and Google Play). It also features PvP modes with a variety of different formats to which you can challenge your friends. The game offers a single-player campaign, the results of which can directly impact the game world's storyline. This not only increases the cards' powers but also alters the artwork, something not possible to pull off with non-electronic games. The core mechanic that makes SolForge stand out is the way that cards can transform during the game, changing and leveling up during play. To get the game launched, the company is turning to Kickstarter for help the drive launched today, so you can go see for yourself! It's being published by Gary Games, the company of top Magic player Justin Gary, which already has a strong presence in online card games with its Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer game. Richard Garfield, the creator of the first and still best-selling collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering, has a new online CCG coming out called SolForge.
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