Star Realms - SPACE! Card Game

[Jaesun]

So on a whim, I was just browsing the Pathfinder Adventures App, on the store, and was looking at what other people were playing/purchasing. I noticed this game called Star Realms. And decided to give it a try (it is FREE, but there are purchases). You can get it also on STEAM or iPhone and Android as well.

STEAM http://store.steampowered.com/app/438140/

The game basically consists of you bringing your enemies health (Authority) down to 0.

You have cards that give you Trade (so you buy cards with that while playing a session).

You have cards that do damage.

And then you have cards that have abilities (like making your opponent discard a card, or stuff like scrapping, where you get rid of your lesser useful cards).

It also has this Base mechanic where the player needs to destroy that first before doing damage to them. You purchase these bases with your Trade cards.

I have only played a few minutes so far, but I am finding this actually fascinating, and actually enjoying this.

For the other card game junkies here like me, you might give this a try. The base game, campaign and duels with just the AI are FREE. If you want to play online, you have to then upgrade. It's only around 5$ or so, just for the online component. It also has mostly positive reviews so far on STEAM.

Anyways, going to play this a bit more and see what I think.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Played it. It's pretty much a Dominion clone. If you want Dominion in space, it's fine, I guess.

 

[spectre]

I remember being fascinated by the concept of a deck-building game (as in: each player buys cards and develops his deck over the course of the game).
It is not a very complex game and luck plays a significant role, but it's got charm - refining your random pile of cards into a fine tuned machine feels rewarding over the course of the game.

I bought the cardboard version, it works well with kids (rules are very simple and there's not a lot of text on the cards) and as a casual game that doesn't interrupt conversation.
There's quite a few expansions, but not all of them are good. Events and Gambits add too much randomness into an already random game, Heroes was actually a pretty nice addition that rounded up the game.
It's good to expand the card pool a bit with Bases and Battleships and Fleets and Fortresses - so that you don't get bored seeing the same cardboard every game, I also got Colony Wars, with intent of using it as a second coreset for multiplayer,
but I was a bit dissapointed - it's essentially the same thingas the base game but with slightly twaked numbers. As a result the game felt a bit too balanced and well-rounded, but didn't bring any new quality to the table.

Trying the game in "full powered mode", i.e. with all the cards thrown together felt clunky, it works best when you slowly expand the card pool until you hit the sweet spot.

The digital edition has its merits, especially given that it's free. You get a small campaign (they modify the base rules a bit) with challenges and easy AI to play with.
The campaigns are all right, but the best thing about playing AI is that it's infinitely patient and will submit itself to your engineered Star Empire deck that discards all its cards every turn without bitching.
And it's quite satisfying when you manage to build a deck that draws all the cards every turn without fail.

 

[Jacob]

well, just today I saw my friends playing the physical card version of this at the university cafetaria...

 

[Aqualung]

I've just got the card version. It's fantastic to play some rounds in the bar. I find it p entertaining and being portable as it is it's very convenient to play outdoors.
Highly recommended.