The flavor text on the cards are actually haiku, spread across the 3 levels of the card. Individually they'll look weird, but put together it's pretty clever.
If you don't like the leveling up during each turn, because it interrupts the flow of the game, why don't you make a separate discard pile for the card that have been played played. Then after the round ends you can take the time to level up those 6 cards all at once. Seems like a nice moment to reminisce about what happened last round and taunt your enemy with what you will do to them next round, with the leveled up card(s).
MtG actually had a similar idea with a product. Jump start are boosters that contain half a deck. You get two boosters, shuffle them together and play - of course against an other jump start deck "generated" with the same method
I personally like the look of the cards, I think it's subjective, I find pokemon, new mtg , dbz ' too foily and flashy. I like the old school feel to the card design. Regarding the upgrading being fiddly, like all tcgs it's part of the game mechanics that you learn and becomes muscle memory the more you play. The games solid to play and love how you can play the same decks and get different feels to how it plays depending on what you upgrade and when. Give it a try!
One thing I love about this game is that while I know that this game is designed to end by turn 4 or 5; I still find it cool how with the combinations I came up with, you can win by turn 2 or 3. Sometimes with only going up to level 2! 🙂👍👍
Interesting comments from the guys here. I follow board gaming as well as the CCG markets and from what I've seen there's a thirst from those that grew up in the 90s that played CCGs for these NEW CCGs to specifically have that retro 90s look and feel (fiddly/clunky/art style). Why, when the gaming hobby has evolved after all these years? I think nostalgia is POWERFUL and those folks that were in their teens in the 90s and grew up with those CCGs now have disposable income and they want to feel that gaming experience again. I think this is why so many CCGs come through Kickstarter and make a TON of money even when they look less than modern. I also think this is partly why older dead CCGs that used to be almost worthless are selling for big money on eBay these days. My 2 cents, based on what I've seen in my travels. 😀
I played the original game I don't remember how many years ago in my pc. Excellent game I had all the cards sadly they didn't make enough money so the game died but it is still one of the best card games I've ever played.
What's up with the edges of the playmat being cut off? It's kinda irking me looking at the cards hanging over the edge XD did you guys get a lucky misprint?
Keyforge is coming back, and they are doing just that. There is a new format where you pick three house pods from different decks, and put them together to make one deck. They are still keeping the old format where you bring one deck, but it's cool that now more people can play for the ability of deck making.
FIDDLY? This is definitely not a fiddly game when compared to MTG, Keyforge or any other CCG. I keep the two half deck upgrades separate so you only have 10 maybe 20 cards to look through. Each deck only has 10 card with 3 levels each! So weird that you that that made it "fiddly". This game is an absolute home run for a card battling game. It is a brilliant design and I was truly blown away by the design. It is an incredible accomplishment and I truly hope others give it a try.
It’s fiddly because it’s very easy to forget to level a card like they said and then you have to remember what it was. That and you have to learn from a scrolling mobile screen......
@@TheBrokenMeeple ok but any new game has rules you forget. They literally said it was fiddly due to forgetting to upgrade. Upgrading is what makes this game unique, how can you forget to upgrade? My solution is, if you forget to upgrade then you are penalized. That will fix that quickly.
I love the game but leveling IS fiddly. I am okay with that because I feel that the fun and novelty of leveling is worth having to remember to grab the next card. It becomes muscle memory. But until you get used to doing that I can see it turning off some players.
@@TheBrokenMeeple the game is simple and the rules like any CCG will evolve over time so they were actually trying to ensure the rules remain relevant instead of outdated. Yes is saves money as well but I don't care.
One great thing I did not expect, since you can only play 2 cards from your hand you, you cannot keep what is in your hand, from round to round. This allows for mixing decks for that situational boost. So you can choose a faction that is your bread and butter then add the other half to pull off that one cool situational play you want to. This game allows for that more than Magic or KeyForge. all because your hand discards each turn. And the "set end game" keeps bad decks from dragging out too long. This was the lane combat I was hoping that the now defunct card game warhammer champions played out. We have mixed all our sets and we basically do a draft to play: 1 deck ban each (like a moba) , and then a catan like serpentine draft to play decks vs each other and it works out 1-2-2-1. Then banned decks cannot be banned when we next play. Yes the artwork is ugly.
I have the feeling that this game should've been re-evaluated, ended as is, and a new successor made instead of stretching the ¿franchise?. Of course they had high hopes for this, I've seen advertisements leaflets for what would become this since the days of Ascension Year 5. At some point they had an app and it was ... regular? I think. And the "unique deck thing" was tried in Keyforge and you can see how it ended. The gameplay was alright, but some decks were vastly superior even on the first edition. the most unique way to have fun on these was to play "worst of the worst", where you picked your worst Keyforge deck, brought it to a tournament ... and your opponent had 5 minutes to learn it and win with it. So, in the end, if you won the tournament it meant your deck made your opponents lose more than theirs did to you. Also, the kickstarter being NA only gave me weird weird weird vibes. Why not secure a contract with a big publisher... oh wait, that's what Asmodee did with Keyforge. I could get over the ugly art, and even to some degree the "novice" UI and details. But I won't risk investing into another "keyforge" , knowing it could've been great as a simple LCG or even a TCG. Maybe i'm being too sceptic, but the Card Game market is very tight and resource consuming :(
This was a GREAT PC game because it automated the "Leveling Up" part in a flash. I could easily see how doing this by hand sucks and lengthens the game - that was, in fact, a selling point on the OG in 2012, that it was supposedly something you HAD to do virtually, that was addictive and WOULDN'T work on paper. Skip.
Totally. Also when it was on PC u can have effects that can only be done by computer. Such as, i remember there were card that when played, level a random card in the discard pile. Or card that give random buff or dmg unit on board. Or one creature card Stormbringer (?) that at start of the round will move on its own randomly to a space on the board n then dmg opposite side... Of course these can be done manually....but it is definitely more fiddly. I really miss the og solforge game
The artwork ranges from gorgeous (like the Everflame Phoenix) to just outright bad or extremely amateur. And yes, most if not all the art is pull from the old digital game. Graphic design is similar (card back looks dreadful). Most is serviceable, but it doesn't look great. My assumption is they were cost cutting measures, similar to the average card stock, no rulebook, and no tokens or dice.
It is a horrible thing is the rules are online only. The rules layout and descriptions are not good either, especially the "level up" a core component of the game is hard to find when to do such in the rules. Thank goodness I played a demo, else learning the rules from the online ruelset would have been a chore.
As they mentioned in the video, there are no rules included in MtG. And Keyforge starter sets only had a portion of the rules. So it's kind of par for the course for this game space.
I don’t CARE if it’s “ part of the game space” to not include rules and tokens in your game. It’s still dumb, stupid, cheap and lazy and I don’t want this to be a norm in my games. Learning this game ended up being a chore because of having to read a poorly laid out set of rules with next to no imagery on a phone screen. In a starter box. Unacceptable.
I backed this in Kickstarter because Ascension is one my favorite deck building games. I’m sorry that I did. The box was cheap cardboard. There was no rule book. Complained. Was called a Karen. I will never back a Stone Blade product again.
Between the very clumsy looking upgrade mechanic and the fact that you can't plan your turn because you discard your whole hand every round, this feels like an easy pass to me. The former seems really clumsy while the latter is just increasing the randomness in an already very random format.
Having played the game, it's fine. If people can't build in a process to upgrade a card when they play a card, I don't know what to tell them. It does take a little getting used to. The randomness within decks feels a bit like sealed or draft format. Draw 5 play 2 x3 provides enough draw opportunity to mitigate the random elements while providing options to build a decent board. The reduced available decision points gives choices more weight.
If they wanted Keyfoge meets Smash-up, they should have simply have made precon decks (like keyforge) that you could split apart (cards with "A" and cards with "B") and recombine with cards from other precons. (All "A" cards from deck 1 with all "B" cards from deck 2) Not add in this fiddly level up mechanic.
I thought there was an embargo but I guess not.........The game itself is fine, but it suffers so much from the poor usuability issues and dated look. The art is dull and it looks like a 90s TCG. The rules being online only is unforgivable and makes learning the game a chore let alone rules referencing during a game. No tokens to track life, so what, I need to find a ton of dice or a notepad and pencil, I mean what am I exactly paying money for in this box? These things get in the way of what is arguably a fine enough card game even if it’s basically a Keyforge ripoff.......who even plays Keyforge any more?
It's so sad, the actual game that I own on steam was sooo good, but was discontinued, I was looking forward to this card game, but it looks way to fiddly. And what Zee and Tom are complaining about is handled so well in the game. I really am sad that they didn't at least allow the game to still work as a single player game or even a local multiplayer game. They just closed the server and nothing works anymore, damn shame really.
The flavor text on the cards are actually haiku, spread across the 3 levels of the card. Individually they'll look weird, but put together it's pretty clever.
If you don't like the leveling up during each turn, because it interrupts the flow of the game, why don't you make a separate discard pile for the card that have been played played. Then after the round ends you can take the time to level up those 6 cards all at once.
Seems like a nice moment to reminisce about what happened last round and taunt your enemy with what you will do to them next round, with the leveled up card(s).
Wouldn't work. Some of the cards are still on the board, but not all cards on the board need levelled.
MtG actually had a similar idea with a product. Jump start are boosters that contain half a deck. You get two boosters, shuffle them together and play - of course against an other jump start deck "generated" with the same method
Before that was Smash Up, which ironically was developed by a former employee of Wizards of the Coast.
Very excited for this game. Release is supposed to be later this month-can't wait.
I personally like the look of the cards, I think it's subjective, I find pokemon, new mtg , dbz ' too foily and flashy. I like the old school feel to the card design. Regarding the upgrading being fiddly, like all tcgs it's part of the game mechanics that you learn and becomes muscle memory the more you play. The games solid to play and love how you can play the same decks and get different feels to how it plays depending on what you upgrade and when. Give it a try!
One thing I love about this game is that while I know that this game is designed to end by turn 4 or 5; I still find it cool how with the combinations I came up with, you can win by turn 2 or 3. Sometimes with only going up to level 2! 🙂👍👍
Interesting comments from the guys here. I follow board gaming as well as the CCG markets and from what I've seen there's a thirst from those that grew up in the 90s that played CCGs for these NEW CCGs to specifically have that retro 90s look and feel (fiddly/clunky/art style). Why, when the gaming hobby has evolved after all these years? I think nostalgia is POWERFUL and those folks that were in their teens in the 90s and grew up with those CCGs now have disposable income and they want to feel that gaming experience again. I think this is why so many CCGs come through Kickstarter and make a TON of money even when they look less than modern. I also think this is partly why older dead CCGs that used to be almost worthless are selling for big money on eBay these days. My 2 cents, based on what I've seen in my travels. 😀
Explains why people like MetaZoo's watercolor art, which evokes base set pokemon.
I played the original game I don't remember how many years ago in my pc. Excellent game I had all the cards sadly they didn't make enough money so the game died but it is still one of the best card games I've ever played.
Hearthstone doesn't have lanes I don't think
Y'all are forgetting, smash up. A card game where you put 2 with 20 cards each for a deck of 40.
As a basic concept, true. But I think they stated this in the scope of TCG/CCG.
i have 12 half decks on release next week im buying 16 more
What's up with the edges of the playmat being cut off? It's kinda irking me looking at the cards hanging over the edge XD did you guys get a lucky misprint?
Leveling gives the progression you normally get from a resource system.
what cards get worse as they upgrade? I have never seen that in all of my decks.
I remember in old solforge digital there was a unit that was overstated lvl1, average lvl2 and understated lvl3.
Keyforge would be awesome with the ability to choose your three factions!
Keyforge is coming back, and they are doing just that. There is a new format where you pick three house pods from different decks, and put them together to make one deck. They are still keeping the old format where you bring one deck, but it's cool that now more people can play for the ability of deck making.
FIDDLY? This is definitely not a fiddly game when compared to MTG, Keyforge or any other CCG. I keep the two half deck upgrades separate so you only have 10 maybe 20 cards to look through. Each deck only has 10 card with 3 levels each! So weird that you that that made it "fiddly". This game is an absolute home run for a card battling game. It is a brilliant design and I was truly blown away by the design. It is an incredible accomplishment and I truly hope others give it a try.
It’s fiddly because it’s very easy to forget to level a card like they said and then you have to remember what it was. That and you have to learn from a scrolling mobile screen......
@@TheBrokenMeeple ok but any new game has rules you forget. They literally said it was fiddly due to forgetting to upgrade. Upgrading is what makes this game unique, how can you forget to upgrade? My solution is, if you forget to upgrade then you are penalized. That will fix that quickly.
it would be easier to remember if they actually included an actual rulebook.....
I love the game but leveling IS fiddly. I am okay with that because I feel that the fun and novelty of leveling is worth having to remember to grab the next card. It becomes muscle memory. But until you get used to doing that I can see it turning off some players.
@@TheBrokenMeeple the game is simple and the rules like any CCG will evolve over time so they were actually trying to ensure the rules remain relevant instead of outdated. Yes is saves money as well but I don't care.
Personally, I like the old-school feel of the graphic design.
When you 1st started talking about the gameplay, I immediately thought it was Hearthstone in real life.
Would it be easier to remove the 5 cards left from at the end of round one from the level 2 deck?
The 5 cards you don't draw go back into your discard pile and carry over to the next round.
One great thing I did not expect, since you can only play 2 cards from your hand you, you cannot keep what is in your hand, from round to round. This allows for mixing decks for that situational boost. So you can choose a faction that is your bread and butter then add the other half to pull off that one cool situational play you want to. This game allows for that more than Magic or KeyForge. all because your hand discards each turn. And the "set end game" keeps bad decks from dragging out too long.
This was the lane combat I was hoping that the now defunct card game warhammer champions played out.
We have mixed all our sets and we basically do a draft to play: 1 deck ban each (like a moba) , and then a catan like serpentine draft to play decks vs each other and it works out 1-2-2-1. Then banned decks cannot be banned when we next play.
Yes the artwork is ugly.
Hearthstone does not have lanes.
Right right. I play it enough, I should know!
Pulling out a specific card from the deck for every one you play? That's not fiddley. That's the entire string section.
I’d kinda like to see a Pokémon licensed version of this.
This looked pretty fiddly to me which is why I didn’t pursue it. Your review makes me think I made the right choice.
I have the feeling that this game should've been re-evaluated, ended as is, and a new successor made instead of stretching the ¿franchise?.
Of course they had high hopes for this, I've seen advertisements leaflets for what would become this since the days of Ascension Year 5.
At some point they had an app and it was ... regular? I think.
And the "unique deck thing" was tried in Keyforge and you can see how it ended. The gameplay was alright, but some decks were vastly superior even on the first edition.
the most unique way to have fun on these was to play "worst of the worst", where you picked your worst Keyforge deck, brought it to a tournament ... and your opponent had 5 minutes to learn it and win with it. So, in the end, if you won the tournament it meant your deck made your opponents lose more than theirs did to you.
Also, the kickstarter being NA only gave me weird weird weird vibes. Why not secure a contract with a big publisher... oh wait, that's what Asmodee did with Keyforge.
I could get over the ugly art, and even to some degree the "novice" UI and details.
But I won't risk investing into another "keyforge" , knowing it could've been great as a simple LCG or even a TCG.
Maybe i'm being too sceptic, but the Card Game market is very tight and resource consuming :(
I think Shards of Infinity did it better.
This was a GREAT PC game because it automated the "Leveling Up" part in a flash. I could easily see how doing this by hand sucks and lengthens the game - that was, in fact, a selling point on the OG in 2012, that it was supposedly something you HAD to do virtually, that was addictive and WOULDN'T work on paper. Skip.
Totally. Also when it was on PC u can have effects that can only be done by computer. Such as, i remember there were card that when played, level a random card in the discard pile. Or card that give random buff or dmg unit on board. Or one creature card Stormbringer (?) that at start of the round will move on its own randomly to a space on the board n then dmg opposite side... Of course these can be done manually....but it is definitely more fiddly. I really miss the og solforge game
The artwork ranges from gorgeous (like the Everflame Phoenix) to just outright bad or extremely amateur. And yes, most if not all the art is pull from the old digital game. Graphic design is similar (card back looks dreadful). Most is serviceable, but it doesn't look great. My assumption is they were cost cutting measures, similar to the average card stock, no rulebook, and no tokens or dice.
No rules in the starter set? Hard pas for me now.
It is a horrible thing is the rules are online only. The rules layout and descriptions are not good either, especially the "level up" a core component of the game is hard to find when to do such in the rules. Thank goodness I played a demo, else learning the rules from the online ruelset would have been a chore.
As they mentioned in the video, there are no rules included in MtG. And Keyforge starter sets only had a portion of the rules. So it's kind of par for the course for this game space.
I don’t CARE if it’s “ part of the game space” to not include rules and tokens in your game. It’s still dumb, stupid, cheap and lazy and I don’t want this to be a norm in my games. Learning this game ended up being a chore because of having to read a poorly laid out set of rules with next to no imagery on a phone screen. In a starter box. Unacceptable.
@@brian.croxall Aaaaactually when Magic came out in '93 it came with a rules booklet. All the other sets that came after are just expansions in a way.
I backed this in Kickstarter because Ascension is one my favorite deck building games.
I’m sorry that I did. The box was cheap cardboard. There was no rule book. Complained. Was called a Karen. I will never back a Stone Blade product again.
I wish the digital game just became open source because I loved it. This game sadly looks forgettable.
Between the very clumsy looking upgrade mechanic and the fact that you can't plan your turn because you discard your whole hand every round, this feels like an easy pass to me. The former seems really clumsy while the latter is just increasing the randomness in an already very random format.
Having played the game, it's fine. If people can't build in a process to upgrade a card when they play a card, I don't know what to tell them. It does take a little getting used to. The randomness within decks feels a bit like sealed or draft format. Draw 5 play 2 x3 provides enough draw opportunity to mitigate the random elements while providing options to build a decent board. The reduced available decision points gives choices more weight.
If they wanted Keyfoge meets Smash-up, they should have simply have made precon decks (like keyforge) that you could split apart (cards with "A" and cards with "B") and recombine with cards from other precons. (All "A" cards from deck 1 with all "B" cards from deck 2) Not add in this fiddly level up mechanic.
The level up mechanic is the heart and soul of the game. The smash-up part is very much secondary.
@@AceneDean Too bad it's the part I'm not intrested in. Upgrading is too fiddely in a paper version.
I thought there was an embargo but I guess not.........The game itself is fine, but it suffers so much from the poor usuability issues and dated look. The art is dull and it looks like a 90s TCG. The rules being online only is unforgivable and makes learning the game a chore let alone rules referencing during a game. No tokens to track life, so what, I need to find a ton of dice or a notepad and pencil, I mean what am I exactly paying money for in this box? These things get in the way of what is arguably a fine enough card game even if it’s basically a Keyforge ripoff.......who even plays Keyforge any more?
Aside from the no deck building and “forge” in the name the game feels very different from key forge. Seems like such an odd comparison to make
It's so sad, the actual game that I own on steam was sooo good, but was discontinued, I was looking forward to this card game, but it looks way to fiddly. And what Zee and Tom are complaining about is handled so well in the game. I really am sad that they didn't at least allow the game to still work as a single player game or even a local multiplayer game. They just closed the server and nothing works anymore, damn shame really.
I loveddddd the computer game. I wish I could listen to the music. It was so epic. If you find a way to play it, let me know how.
I really miss the OG solforge game. I remember playing weekend warrior draft game every week for hours on end lol