While at Gen Con, I was able to take part in one of the many demonstrations of the DC Comics Deck Building Game. I am a fan of “game in a box” designs, and my rule is the simpler the better. Resident Evil and Fruits Basket have good gameplay, but are really hindered by meticulous board set up in the pre-game phase. Especially Resident Evil, though while I really enjoyed the first set, I felt that the expansions just got more complicated and bizarre. So when I saw that the DC game only had about three different stacks of cards in the play area, I was quite relieved.
While not following any set event, continuity or team in terms of gameplay or design, the game does seem to put an emphasis on the New 52 Justice League. Many of the villains included seem to be more from Batman’s rogues gallery than any other, with the likes of Bane, The Riddler and The Joker popping up a bunch, but I don’t mind this since I like those villains the most. Other familiar faces like Lex Luthor, the Suicide Squad and Deathstroke also rear their heads. You get to play as one of seven heroes, each with their own unique abilities that will affect your playstyle as you buy cards and construct your deck. The heroes are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and, uh… Cyborg.
Thanks to Cyborg, Aquaman isn’t the lamest playable character.
Gameplay is simple. Purchase cards with “Power”, build your deck and fight villains. There’s a row of four cards that you can purchase from, which replaces itself with a random card from the draw deck. Heroes, equipment, superpowers and villains can appear from the deck, as well as a few other card types. Play ends once a certain number of “major villains” from the villain deck are defeated, and the hero with the most victory points is declared the winner. Play went really fast during the demo, even when we had to read every new card that came up, so I’m betting after a few games our play would’ve been seamless. I’m a big fan of fast, simple games with little set-up needed, so this definitely appealed to me.
A Bane that’s easy to understand.
Overall, the game looks good and plays way. It’s not complex, but with the many different ways to play with each different hero, I can imagine how each game will vary greatly from character to character. The biggest downside for the game is its $40 price tag listed on the Cryptozoic website. I’d definitely be a buyer at $25-$30, but $40 is really pushing it when all you get are cards and no special game pieces. At that price, I start considering if I might be happier with a video game over a deck building game. Hopefully that price will come down before next Gen Con, then I’ll happily pick up a copy for myself. Later, BroZ
The demo was good, and I am pretty sure myself or another person I usually play games with will pick it up when it releases. While the game was fun and the super heroes made it more interesting to me than some other deck building games, this is probably the most shallow deck building game I have ever played. You talk about simplicity being good, but I thought it was too simple, there was almost no thought involved. Every turn you just dump your hand and buy the best card available, if you had enough power to defeat the major villain, you did that. The fact that power is used for both buying things and defeating the major villains is probably the lead factor for that simplicity. At least in a game like Ascension you have separate buying and attacking resources so you have to pick and choose what you want to go for, rather than “let me put my 5 cards on the table, add up the power, then buy/defeat the biggest card I can”. The best part is the super hero you control, so at least that will make playing it multiple times slightly different, batman going for equipment cards, superman going for super powers, flash going for all the card draw, etc
I would love to see the game add another layer of difficulty in future sets, maybe new mechanics, otherwise I can see it being pretty bland and not that fun to re-play that often.
I like the simplicity because it’s easier to get new players to join in games. It’s easy to get obliterated in Resident Evil when there’s a player who knows what he is doing and everyone else is new. I even got that lesson when I played Chippy in one of the expansions that he had played a bunch and I hadn’t tried yet.
I guess I like complexity in more competitive games like TCGs, but not so much in “game-in-a-boxes”.