Game Review: Super Auto Pets Card Battle

Super Auto Pets is a fun little online game of strategically buying and placing pets then pitting them against another player's lineup in an auto-battler until someone runs out of pets. Between fights you can upgrade and swap pets to create a stronger batch of contenders and come out on top. Each pet has abilities that activate together creating combinations that affect your attack, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Can it be adapted onto the table? Plaid Hat Games took a shot at it with Super Auto Pets Card Battle, a tabletop version of the online game, with some adaptations to make it work. It features the same pet and item artwork as the original and the cards are stylized in the same way including graphics that are unique to the card game.

Two players try to win the most trophies over six rounds. Each round consists of a buy phase and a battle phase. In the buy phase players start wit three coins take turns buying cards from a common market for one coin or selling them to get an apple to add to a pet. In lieu of leveling up, one can discard three cards with the same hat to get a card from the next level.

After both players pass they then order their cards into a deck for battle. Players play cards from their deck until a pet appears in the battlefield, then both pets simultaneously attack each other and any damage settled. If any pets faint the next ones are drawn on the next turn, this continues until at least someone runs out of pets, whoever still has pets wins the round and gets a trophy, with the last round worth two trophies.

Pets start battle with equal health and power, indicated by the number on their card, they also have abilities that take effect at certain times, such as buffing the next pets, being able to throw rocks and deal damage before actually attacking. 

Previous knowledge of the original Super Auto Pets isn't needed to appreciate this game but those who have played the online version might find some differences that need getting used to. Even with such changes gameplay is close to the computer experience especially the ensuing chaos of battle.

It's a short game, but you'll find yourself cycling through cards in those six rounds, making every round unpredictable. The first round may seem a bit slow, then the pace picks up by round two, where tripling really comes into play and improving your lineup becomes more urgent as leveling up pets doesn't exist in the card game and tripling isn't a perfect analog for it.

What an auto-battler needs to do is find a way to handle the sense of determinism that comes with the genre, and Card Battle does this by letting players adjust their lineup just like in the original, even more so with how items don't just stick to a pet like they do in the online game. Access to the next round's cards adds unpredictability and you'll never be too sure what you're up against.

Rocks as adapted in the card game still deal damage outside of an attack, but with no way to attack any other pet it takes on a different form: you roll dice and deal damage equal to the number of rocks that appear. This takes place once a pet enters battle before attacking, adding just that extra bit of unpredictability of whether your pet will survive to fight or not.

Some causes for confusion include in tallying power and health and timing. Because both power and health are defined by the same number while damage is marked separately, mistaking a pet's current health to its current strength is a common oversight. When the number gets big enough there is no further need to calculate. Attacks happen simultaneously but for card effects the first player during the buying phase gets priority, this doesn't affect the flow of gameplay that much as most two-way play can be settled at the same time.

A quick game that's strategic but always surprising, Super Auto Pets Card Battle might have its differences with the PC version but is just as fun and chaotic.

A Sorta Overdue Review of The Vale of Eternity

My first experience with Vale of Eternity was back in May 2025 where in preparation for my volunteer coaching at All Aboard Expo, I went to the nearest Gaming Library store to get the hang of things. One of the games to be featured was indeed Vale and upon first game it was an immediate hit for me. A game totally outside of my radar instantly became a must-get for me.

So did a lot of people. There were tons of preorders that there weren't enough copies for sale on the event itself and couldn't count for any sales records because of it even though it sold out. I finally acquired my copy by August, which ironically came later than its first expansion.

Vale of Eternity is a bit hard to pin down genre-wise. The way I described it during the convention was that it's a game where you summon creatures and get the most points doing so. That statement is a very rough summary, but the newbie doesn't know what "engine-building" is.

The game goes either up to ten rounds or after someone crosses 60 points, whichever goes first. Each round consists of a hunting phase, an action phase and a resolution phase. 

In the hunting phase creatures are dealt up and players take turns drafting two of them to use in the action phase. The action phase is where drafted cards are sold or tamed, it's also where summoning happens. Summoning costs stones which you can acquire through selling creatures or card effects, without these stones you really can't do much on your turn.

To summon a card you pay the price listed on the card and play the card on your area. Cards feature various creatures with unique effects. Some happen instantly at once, while others either permanently affect your area or resolve after the action phase. These creature effects are where game points will come from, though some effects can also next extra stones or cards/summons.

That is a rough summary of Vale of Eternity's gameplay. It may be a bit rough for some who have some experience playing as the language in the rules and card effects are as precise as a trading card game. There's no room for ambiguity in a game like this where a lot of effects have conditions to fulfil.

There are five families of cards in Vale, which define more than its sell value; families revolve around some theme that make them work when played together. Each family has its strategy and cards of different families can still synergize well so while you don't need to stick to a family to have a working strategy, a setup based on the same family will have a better dynamic. 

Cards are effective based on what part of the game it is, giving room for tough decisions on whether to dispose of a card or hold on to it for later use; whether to play the card now or later and sequencing actions to great effect. Passive gains are just as important as the instant gains from instantaneous effects, in fact every part of the card is nontrivial. Cost and even what type of effect a card has can come into play in some cards. This means that there are more connections between cards and synergies pop up in unexpected ways.

What makes the game fun is the chaining of moves in both the action and resolution phases. You can chain moves for points in either phase or even use the resolution phase to fuel the next round's moves. Of course chaining is expected in games with an engine-building aspect but the free rein in the order of actions and activations is another feature of Vale's gameplay.

Resource management comes up when doing such combinations, as you can only hold so many stones and have so many summoned cards. This also means that order matters in your play, some moves will open up or close your options and will depend on your style. 

The way it plays is like a combat TCG but without direct combat and a common randomized selection of draft picks, so depriving your opponents possible combos in the hunting phase is as important as playing yours during the action phase, though not a lot of interaction between players happens during gameplay otherwise.

A game that's easy to pick up that even with the same bunch of cards never feels the same with every play, it's more skillful than it seems at first glance. Thank goodness I crossed paths with Eternity cause I cannot recommend enough, only when the store runs out of stock.

Game Review: Against the Clock

Against the Clock is a solitaire race where you race against yourself in a rally course complete with time bonuses and penalties, it takes as much skill and favorable circumstances as an actual drive.

The track is split into three parts, and the path is a line of cards. Along the track you try to go as close as possible to the value of each card on the way with the cards in your arsenal, representing your controls. Three piles for three gears with separate boosts and brakes comprise your car's gearbox that you play on the track, boosts and brakes letting you add or subtract your running total by one. You can opt to move to the next card even if you're short of matching the number, though this does incur some penalties.

Matching the current card's value lets you go to the next one unscathed; matching it with one card earns a time bonus. If you have less than the current card and decide to move on, the difference becomes a time penalty, using more than three cards gives you an extra penalty, 16 penalties lead to a DSQ. If you ever bust you get damaged and also incur a penalty, three damages and it's a DNF. 

If you complete the first part of the track, the other two parts have shorter tracks but you have fewer brakes and boosts available for you. If you manage to complete the track your score is your time bonuses minus your penalties.

Like most push your luck games this is best played at a fast pace but with the amount of strategy involved you can't go too fast, rather fitting for a rally. Your cards are limited but so is any room for error, the main tradeoff being between pushing your luck or cutting your losses cause in a way it's better to take penalties than get into another wreck.

Note the types of cards that make up the track as in later parts you'll have more high cards on hand than what the track has while generally the other two piles have about the same number of cards on them. Some card counting is useful but it's mostly a matter of not ending up in a situation where you have no choice but to bust.

A fast-paced and thrilling solitaire for those who like to risk it on every turn.

Game review: Swamp

Swamp is a quick puzzle game for the 2025 traditional deck contest that is akin to peg solitaire with cards. The grid of cards in play represents a swamp of animals that feed on each other, and as one animal gets eaten in this ecosystem another appears (you draw a card onto the layout), with the goal of finishing off the deck without causing ecological failure.

Clubs represent bears, Spades represent hippos and Hearts represent hogs, the three predators that eat not only each other but also the prey: ducks in the form of face-down cards (diamonds when drawn are placed face down.) On each turn you move a card one space to eat it, then place a new card on the space. Clubs only move vertically and eat spades, spades only move horizontally and eat hearts, hearts move in any direction and eat clubs but only if next to another heart before moving. All three animals mentioned eat ducks. If three clubs appear in a row horizontally, three spades vertically you lose, you also lose if you run out of legal moves.

Mobility is key; cards aren't as mobile as you think and it's easy to become restricted as the small field combined with movement restrictions can cause gridlock where you least expect it. Managing the number of animals in play matters when an imbalance either means not enough cards of a type to eat (and move cards to) or a bigger risk of losing through a three-in-a-row.

Mildly puzzling yet surprisingly chaotic, it's a real jungle out there.

Game Review: Cardbury

Planning a city is hard, building a place to fit the needs of a community takes forethought and resources, then once it's done you have to keep the dang thing from falling on itself. Many games have been made to simulate the activity and management of these things, from the family all the way to a civilization.

Cardbury isn't asking for much, just that you build four buildings with your cards, but getting there is in no way as simple as Klondike. The goal is to build a skyline of four ascending stacks of cards in four different suits in an exact 5-4-3-2 shape, with other things getting in the way of achieving this.

A move consists of drawing two cards and playing a card onto a foundation. You lose if your draw deck runs out, but your time is more limited than that. If upon drawing you have three or more cards of a suit you discard that into a pile; if you make six of these piles or run your hand out you lose. If instead you have one card of each suit and some extras, you make another pile from discarding your draw deck and if this one reaches 13 cards it's also game over.

You must play a card even if it means removing played cards to make way, this means you can only do so on one building per turn. Cards discarded this way do not affect your progress. An empty hand after playing a card onto a stack does not end the game for you if you can draw without running the deck out.

Gameplay is really a reaction to what happens beforehand, with foresight of what you don't want to lose next draw. Every incident costs cards for your stacks, but how you start a stack will also affect your play, best not to need to lose too many cards rebuilding. Only being able to play one card at a time your hand will build up in a way that will cost you time and important cards, so you better start counting.

Deceptively simple, Cardbury efficiently squeezes resource-management gaming into a small game.

Game Review: Voleur

Poker cribbage. Not the most accurate way to describe Voleur, but you are forgiven for thinking it looks like it. It's mechanistically a last-trick-only piquet but with scoring based on poker-like hands.

Two players are dealt six cards and discards two each. Then a card is placed face-up for trump. Eldest hand leads and players must follow suit, if they can't they must trump otherwise may play any card, highest trump card or card of suit led wins the trick. Tricks aren't collected and are placed before the players. 

The winner of the last trick wins the value of his hand. You only score for one combination of cards but you can replace a card with the trump indicator to make a better combination. A basic combination scores while a special combination steals the points from your opponent (scores can't go lower than zero). First to 40 points wins. Unusually the deal continues with the remainder of the deck until it runs out, only then is the whole deck reshuffled.

Cribbage comparisons are thin, but strategy in discarding (albeit less consequential) and skillful card play remain. Should you discard for a high-scoring hand or a likely winner? After all, a high-value hand is nothing if it can't win even a trick.

Playing to win the last trick requires an approach different from simply winning a majority of them. Most last-trick games are luck-heavy and this is no different, the four tricks offset by only having two players.

A fine mix of games resulting in its own thing, though it does need to raise its stakes some more.

Game Review: Digging Graves

An interesting find in the 2024 traditional deck contest, a vying game with an unusual mechanic. In Digging Graves you bet on having the highest single card in your hand. Players ante, cards are dealt, then two betting rounds where betting consists of discarding a card first then staking. Highest card wins, ties broken by suit so the pot is never split. Whenever you discard a spade you are given another card.

How can you make a single card showdown interesting? The same way poker did: having more cards available for each player. Unlike most forms of poker in this game hand sizes can get uneven though having more cards isn't doesn't matter in the showdown. More cards does mean more bluffing power in the betting, so do the discards you make.

Discards are open information so you can do even more bluffing with what you discard, not just using it to get rid of low cards. The adding up of information for each round doesn't take a lot from betting, remember that the cards do not lie but the player can.

If you need a quick betting game for dealer's choice, this one works great for three rounds of betting.

A couple of variations are given, one is by comparing pairs and the other is where if you discard a spade you must keep discarding until your discard is no longer a spade. These give way different approaches to betting.

Review: Base of Spades

Base of Spades is Gregg Jewell's puzzler disguised with a theme for the 2024 traditional playing card contest, where you rearrange a row of cards to match them and score within a range. 

To bring down the defenses of the tyrannical Ace of Spades (whose only appearance is to take part in the pun), you must rally your nine even-numbered cards (kingdoms) by matching them with nine odd-numbered cards (champions) by suit. Every turn a commander dictates how a champion of a suit can move on the line, after a move another commander takes charge.

Once you match all cards by suit, you then make an attack based on how many matches total seven. You flip down the card that equals this total if it's still face up. Commanders can give champions optional movement range adjustments depending on how many defenses are down.

Taking down three cards of the defense is a win, a bigger win if it's one of each row of the pyramid. Once the deck of commanders is used up you shuffle it again, retiring a random card. If you use up all your turns this way without hitting three you lose.

Doing all this in 21 turns seems daunting, but matching suits is rather easy if you think of the other cards that shift to make room of your move. The extra moves you get whenever you take down a card means fewer moves thanks to additional options and thus finer moves

The goal is not to make as many sevens as possible, but you can't just match suits willy-nilly. If you have seen any skill-based arcade game that counts for example the number of spins a ball rolls around a circuit this game sort of works like that, overshoot or undershoot this six-number range and you've wasted moves.

There is a reference sheet for commander movements, the only real external piece of equipment. The gameplay is simple and works as a puzzle.

Game Review: River Rats

Poker games where you play solo are banking games where ultimately it's only you against the banker, the other people around the table are there not there to play with you and in most cases that sounds illegal. Can poker even be a cooperative game?

In River Rats you take on two of them either alone or as a team like on a casino table where the goal is to have a higher hand, but there are no bets and actual card play is involved; there are even abilities each side can use.

Each player takes an ace that gives them an ability they can activate, or if you play a card of your suit you can use that power instead, the enemy also has a king up their sleeve and rats' suits also give them an ability that affects the table.

Players draw a card from the deck or a face-up market and play cards to form a hand. Once the river is laid down, it's showdown time, and all cards are shown. Whoever wins places the other team in debt, any side that gets 5 debt is out of the game. When you beat an enemy rat you get an extra advantage.

To make gameplay more than just playing for the best possible hand, the value on a debt card signifies the hand you need to make to acquire a joker, which you can use as a true wild card.

Interestingly, solitaire play doesn't require any different preparations from the multiplayer game and yet the gameplay can differ depending on the number of players, with co-op being a coordinating of powers while solitaire play is more tactical with only one available set of abilities in play to use against another. Solo play is just drawing and playing the five best cards you can make while making best use of your abilities. In co-op no one is allowed to divulge card information and with more abilities in play the team must reach their goal together as soon as their hand is made.

The risk in acquiring jokers is akin to a platformer: is it worth risking a wrong move to get a bonus? For higher debts the difficulty of the hand is itself the risk, for lower debts it's possibly losing the round (The lowest debts require a straight, though the requirement has to match exactly).

Beating the first enemy means a boon on the second round, though the second enemy is otherwise the same save for a different ability. Would it be better if the second enemy has a stronger fight for a level 2 is not something I'm ready to answer, as it is there are enough abilities to have to check.

At least it's more than simply playing out cards to make a hand, and already things are happening on the table that aren't beyond your control, just by that alone it's way more involved than any game at the casino that isn't outright poker.

Review: Checkmate in Your Pocket

Cards and chess, two game forms so different from each other yet every now end then someone tries to make a synthesis of a game. The results of mixing luckless chess and literally-associated-with-gambling playing cards have varied, but you cannot have one without the other. 

Checkmate in Your Pocket is surprisingly a solitaire, but your goal is still to checkmate the opposing king on a 1-dimensional board of eight cards. Cards move and capture each turn, new ones appearing until finally the kings pop up for the last standoff. Each card moves and captures a certain way that is as close to chess as a linear board allows. Each turn you move a piece, your opponent moves a piece then you capture. A piece capturing a piece worth four points more lets that side discard a card from the reserve.

As this is a solitaire game, the enemy's moves are predetermined generally by which piece is furthest ahead and which capture is most valuable, overridden by a priority to avoid or escape check. Pawns reaching the end of the board don't become another piece, but a passed pawn in your favor lets you make two turns while two enemy passed pawns is a loss.

For a chess-themed game, the game doesn't feel like chess even considering the liberties needed to make a chess-like one-dimensional game. For one, the pawn promotion mechanic works differently, pawns sort of stick around at the end of the line, pushed back whenever a card enters the board. The move sequence takes a bit to understand, but a turn must end in a capture. Considering the board can only shrink once the kings arrive, checkmate is inevitable if you haven't lost before that.

Card values are similar to chess, if a pawn captures a rook or any other piece captures a queen you get to discard an extra card, a hard thing to pull off when higher-scoring cards are more slippery, add the enemy algorithm's preference to capture this way and high-level sacrifices are riskier.

We're still a ways until we find that perfect mix of cards and chess, but you can't say this game didn't try to be unique. I'd argue the mechanics make 2-player play possible, with pawn promotion the only sore spot.

Game Review: Seat and Eat

You guys remember Diner Dash?

Seat and Eat tasks you with optimally seating customers in your restaurant across four tables. There's no need to worry about diners impatiently waiting for a table; you score points based on complete table arrangements, each card scoring based on seating and table conditions. Draw a card and place it on an empty seat. Once a table is full you immediately score, then the table is cleared for the other guests, and this goes on until the end of the shift (the whole deck). Partial tables score half in total. The goal is to score at least 120 points.

Simple enough to play, but as with most games that have self-referential scoring conditions, you have many factors to consider with each play even if there are optimal arrangements. A card scoring might prevent another from scoring, and it's a matter of decisions given the non-zero nature of the scoring dynamics.

The layout is also another dynamic to this. There are three positional relationships that score: being adjacent to a card, being across a card and being in the same table as a card independent of whether either of the first two are true. Each card scores based on only one of these relationships and one card scores based solely on where it sits, though it scores decently enough to be a consideration. Every table is a set of cards mutually connected to each other, and there's four of them working independent of each other. Card placement has its consequences even if it doesn't affect the whole board; a card has effect once it's placed.

The quick points/long term gains dilemma happens at the same time given the way the game works, there is no rush to complete a table but you can't just delay until the right card comes. As for counting cards, what matters is what can no longer score so you safely make a play without interference.

The game requires a large play area but it's simple to get the hang of and is just like arranging real tables.

Game Review: The Devil (solitaire)

If you think, based on the name of this game, that I would start with some treatise on the battle good and evil and whether or not you can fight devils corporeally, you will be mistaken. So let us continue.

The Devil is the latest in D. Teuber's series of solitaires based on a 78-card tarot deck, where you try to defeat the titular devil card (15) who has corrupted a court's worth of powers. Before you can confront the tempter though you have to free all 16 court cards through intercession by playing cards of a matching suit from your hand (trumps take on any suit but you cannot mix suits) and matching the card's value, playing out suited cards and exchanging them for a trump card is also possible.

Of course the fallen angel has brought his own bunch of trump cards: if you draw a disaster, you will lose your cards to martyrdom (used cards in a successful intercession are discarded and out of the game). Their deaths are not in vain for you can call upon the help of the martyrs whenever you free the court of a suit, letting you draw any martyred card into your hand.

The disasters consist of the four aces affecting all cards in hand an in play of the suit drawn, Death (13) affecting all cards in your hand, the Tower (16) affecting all played card, Judgement (20) affecting all card and the Fool the brings back a freed court back in the Devil's grasp, martyring any unmatched cards below it. A disaster is discarded after taking effect and any newly drawn disasters also take effect. If you draw two or more disasters all your cards become martyrs.

You can also make a deal with the devil in the game, though not recommended in real life. Discarding at least 15 points' worth of cards lets you see the next five cards on the draw pile and discard one of them (Judgement is sent to the bottom of the deck instead).

The goal is to free the courts before the draw deck runs out, then battle it out against the prince of evil himself in a version of War. If you have cards that sum exactly to 15 you win, bringing peace to the land, if not then he will be back to wreak havoc once more.

Theming the game to fighting the devil with nary a fistfight in it is interesting given the theme concept. The way combat works where it isn't a series of one-on-one battles while not allowing multiple targets per attack balances out the pace for a game with 53 usable cards.

Another balance is between using plain suits or trumps. Here are some things to consider: a plain suit just barely goes above what you need to clear a court; there are only five trump cards that are worth enough to match any court card alone; disasters take out viable cards only four of which you can recover.

I haven't found a need to make a deal with the devil, though the tradeoff of losing cards to avoid disaster works, in my case I haven't found a need to do so, even after a disaster wipes my progress.

Underwhelming the final confrontation may be, it's also a gauge of how well you played your cards, not only in finishing the game with cards to spare but also in what cards you have left, as it's not how many cards that determines your win, but which.

The layout isn't too large and card play is simple. If you're using a bourgeois deck you might need to memorize which trump numbers spell disaster.

Game Review: Merchant's Solitaire

An important element of playing cards is the rank, the number value, the thing that's on the corner that tells you whether or not you have a good hand or not. These numbers tell us how to play card games as much as the rules. The game in this article uses the less-known mechanic of totaling card values but it's more than just cribbage or 99.

Merchant's Solitaire has you playing the role of a merchant trading wares with all your customers, and the goal is to be able to trade with them with neither side getting screwed over; miss one and you're out of town.

Your clientele consists of twelve court cards each coming to you with an item in hand to offer. To make a successful trade you must be able to exchange the exact value(of court card and the item in hand, aces 11) in exactly three cards that you have available at your store. Cards that match the customer's item's suit become free while aces in your store are either worth 11 or 1 as a special offer. If you make a successful deal you restock your shop and handle the next customer, if you fail your lose the whole game; this isn't Diner Dash.

In a sense this game is almost a dungeon crawler, but instead of beating monsters with a higher card count you're obliged to match HP with three cards and nothing accumulates on your end, as there is really no need. With these restrictions you have a bona fide puzzle game with enough randomness to be a mobile app that but won't try to sell you power-ups you if you fail a level.

Do note the numbers you have to deal with: summing 13 to 24 using three cards ranging from 0 to 11 from a limited pool. The suits changing value is the main addition to what would be an addition minigame you would find in an educational CD-ROM. In one round a card is a versatile and in the next it's literally worthless, so keep your flexibility.

I have made two comparisons to mini games but this is not meant as a putdown, in fact Merchant's Solitaire is an example that a good modern solitaire need not be complicated. Game variations include the risk of shrinking your options if you draw a Joker in the line (Thieves!), having to deal with more zero-value items per round (Tough Negotiatiors) and a mode that adds a score system where you score for trading cards matching the suit of the customer (Favorite Items), you lose the matching cards, this putting a tradeoff on the negotiating table.

Game Review: The 12 Jurors

The legal world is no joke, the fate of people lies in the balance and truth and justice are at stake. But the profession is also the butt of jokes for a reason, all too familiar with unscrupulous slicksters with every trick under their sleeve to gain themselves a verdict no matter what.

So, for the consideration of the jury, I will now recount the events of the following game.

The 12 Jurors is a cooperative game for 1-5 people where you try to convince the jury one juror at a time, but this review is based on the solitaire version. The main game consists of 8 levels worth of 18 trials that you progress through. For each trial the goal is to land a guilty verdict by convincing every juror to a unanimous decision. You start with three jurors in play and in each turn you play a card of the same suit to a juror, the second card played on the same juror sets the direction of the sequence(ascending or descending) of numbers said row of cards must make. If you don't want to play a card you discard a card, if you can't play any card you replace your hand.

A juror is convinced if a certain number of matched cards is played to it, kings 4; queens 3 and jacks 2. Once a juror is convinced it is removed from the row of juries and another one is brought in, this continues on until either all jurors are convinced, a win, or your run out of cards to play, a loss. In subsequent levels you get extra actions to help you through the extra challenges of a new set of starting jurors and in two levels card play restrictions.

These additional actions include being able to play a card of the same color on a juror, swapping cards between jurors and even a wild card joker. The moveset expands when you level up and has no limits on use.

Foresight doesn't matter much in this game but you should keep open favorable card plays you don't want to skip. Holding cards is a terrible idea cause trying to wait for a good play will get you penalized with a short suit. Some actions allow you to open up possibilities so use them wisely to avoid bad forces. 

The solitaire version lets you have at least one joker(in multiplayer this only appears at the last level) in your deck, a powerful tactical tool.

To convince jurors of a suit you need exactly nine cards, with only 10 cards of each available per suit to make this possible, some tactical play is necessary and this makes the first trial seem hard as you have no special actions, but even with the special actions you are still limited by the deck.

Each level's trial's jury starts with jurors of certain criteria, making opening play in each game different enough to affect the middlegames. A couple of them even include special rules to throw a wrench in the gameplay. While there is no big life-changing trial at the end of all the levels, there is a decent sense of progress that doesn't make the game feel repetitive.

The game can be played without levels, the jurors are selected randomly and determine any special conditions. Special actions are usable only once per game.

Game Review: Treasure Solitaire

One of the 2023 traditional deck contest's toughest offerings is Treasure Solitaire, a puzzle game that plays like a Flash puzzle game but is not as forgiving.

Themed to treasure hunting, you start with some rumors, search for clues and use these clues to try to confirm the rumors and find the treasure. Your first deal four rumors, then start each basic expedition by drawing 19 cards, laying 15 of them on a hexagonal map and using the remaining four cards as your hand.

Each turn you draw a card to your hand and use two cards in it to remove cards from the grid based on some comparison. You do this two more times with the goal of leaving a single card on the map that should match the last card in your hand in either suit or rank. If you succeed you keep the card on the table as your clue.

After six basic expeditions you gather your clues for the final expedition, where you match them against the rumors from earlier but only remove one card per term: extra matches become exhausted rumors. This time the goal is to expend all your cards to leave one unexhausted rumor, that becomes the treasure.

Failing this, you take one of the face-up rumors as your hunch, shuffle them with your clues and other face-up rumors and hope the card you draw is the one.

 

There is more skill involved in this game, with the only strong luck element being the lay of your hand as everything else is face up information. It's one thing to clear a grid of cards, it's another to leave a single matching card, so your moves have to take out the right chunks at a time and not split the map too much. Planning ahead doesn't get spoiled by a draw too often to become a problem.

There's a lot of planning ahead involved, not only in how to clear the grid but also in what card to try to get as a clue. Every move has consequences and they all come out in the final expedition. As I said, this is no easy game, and mistakes are costly. Taking risk isn't much of an option and zugzwang is even possible, e.g. the only options either clear the map early or split it too much. 

Something can be said about having to play six basic expeditions, that while they are all different, how well you do in one doesn't affect the next ones (only the final expedition) so the puzzling is the same throughout.

You can opt not to play the luck-based ending, in this mode losing a clue means losing the game as you need all six to make the final expedition possible. The game is hard enough as is so this extra challenge is a small change.

Game Review: Club♣Fight

The first rule of Club♣Fight is to eliminate all the cards coming at you in a grid with your 13 cards by playing them in actions that remove cards from the grid. The second rule of Club♣Fight is that some moves are disabled if at least three cards of a suit appear on the grid.

Moves you can always do include removing every card matching the one you played, removing cards equal to the sum of the one you played or the inverse and playing a sequence of three cards to clear the grid. The card values are standard pip values with aces always low, there is also a joker that isn't worth anything and isn't any suit.

The special moves that can be blocked are removing a line of cards containing the card played (blocked by diamonds), playing a card and removing every card lower (2-7) or higher (7-K) than it (blocked by spades) and removing a sequence of cards that includes the card played (blocked by hearts).

First observation is that you should take out 3.1 cards per card played, easier said than done with nine visible card at most and the whole blocked moves affair limiting your attack output, but merely playing the most damaging move isn't enough, you have to remove the right cards lest you find yourself blocked: a grid with a 3-3-3 distribution in suits is not an uncommon sight.

The optimal moves are always the single card ones; clearing the grid may be useful tactically but is worth 3 cards per card, at least you have other ways to change the grid without being forced  to nuke.

Fun and unpredictable, this game is a quick diversion with a challenge.

Game Review: Aces of Warfare

Wargames need not be ornery. Aces of Warfare simplifies the solitaire wargame to a deck of cards in a system of sorts.

The aces and courts of the deck represent enemy forces that you have to defeat in a battle taking place in four locations. In general you play two cards at a time either to the left or right of each location until all eight slots are filled(you can use up a joker if you want to rearrange cards already in play), then an attrition phase follows where you might lose cards, and if aces show up on board extra powers kick in. Then comes your turn to fight, the result determined by the difference of the number on the right from the number on the left, negatives counting, you can lose, rout the enemy out of the area or win the battle outright but if you get zero or less expect reinforcements. 

You win by eliminating all 16 enemies but if you are unable to do this as you don't have enough cards special game end conditions kick in.

Designer Mike Heiman supplied the game with 10 historical battles, each with their own goals, geographical quirks, special rules and ace powers. You can probably even make your own battle with your own mix of these things.

In the interests of speed (reviewing each battle might be a later project), this review will cover the system, which is pretty intuitive for a wargame. Though the battle mechanisms are a bit too simplified to fit the material, it does use the luck of the cards to make the game have that bit of uncertainty. In the game your discarded cards can still be used for later but lost cards are "buried," this distinction might be confusing at first and there's no getting away from it.

Speaking of losing cards, what a great way to bring home the risk of losing too many troops out of either bad tactics or superior enemy forces. Strangely, even if you do have to play with a reduced hand it doesn't mean your fighting chances would change dramatically; there are only two battle outcomes with precise values.

Game Review: Sandcastle Solitaire

Kicking off my attempt to cover as many solitaire games in the 2023 Traditional Deck Game Design Contest, Sandcastle Solitaire is not just any column-piling game. True to the name, these cards are now made of sand and can collapse, not to mention the tide kicking in.

Each turn you draw and play a row of cards onto columns and discard some cards into a discard pile. You must start your row on an existing column can only play it in either the order drawn or the other way around. If a card is played onto a face-up card it must either be higher or the same suit lest the entire column collapse and all its cards flip. After playing your row, you discard half the number of live columns in cards from the draw pile. This cycle continues until the deck runs out. If you have more face-up cards than discarded cards you win.

Easy enough rules to get the hang of while having some flexibility in trying out different plays(you can draw a row from 1 to 7 cards), the game's strategy includes both foreplanning how many cards to draw and which columns to save and tactical considerations in choosing how to play the row and what losses can be taken. 

In my playthroughs so far I have played with long rows which meant risking inevitably losing columns as extending the tableau means more discards to try to outnumber. Someone in the linked thread used a more conservative strategy that requires precise card-counting. Most games end with close margins but is not at all unpredictable as it would seem.

The game can be played with jokers: they don't have a suit and represent the highest card in a column, a joker played as the first card of a column immediately collapses.

Game Review: Combo-bliterate

This a short review of a game sent over a playing card game Discord, a summary of rules will be attached.

Combo-bliterate is a solitaire where you deal a line of cards and remove cards with the goal of creating matches (in suit or rank) or runs. Though these matches score, removed cards cost points. You can also rearrange one card per deal (or two in a bonus).

The game is similar to old computer games that involve chained combos and the bonuses that come with them. Unfortunately there are no combo bonuses in this one, thus putting even more pressure to be efficient with scoring matches. Foresight is key and with limited moves each one has a value.

This is not an easy game, the penalty cards do stack up to punish moves that are too cheap. My best score so far is -1 with the rest at -2, so admittedly my strategy needs work.

-----

Rules:

One deck of cards. Deal nine cards in a line without rearranging. Prepare an area for scored cards and a penalty discard pile.

One each deal you can:

Relocate: Choose one card and move it anywhere in the line. Can only be done once per deal but can be done twice after a bonus. Does not cause chain reactions.

Remove: Discard a card from the line, this can cause chain reactions.

    Chain reactions: If upon closing a gap three or more cards collide and form an ascending or descending run, remove these cards and place them in the scoring area face up. If upon closing a gap two colliding cards match rank or suit, remove these cards and place them in the scoring area face down. This continues until no valid matches happen during a collision.

Pass: Can only be done with 0 to 2 cards on the line. Draw nine more cards onto the line or until the deck runs out. If passing with 0 cards on the line draw two cards face down into the scoring area and draw for next deal, on this deal you can relocate twice.

Game ends once there are no more cards on the draw pile and the line.

Face-up cards score 1 point

Face-down cards score .5 points

Face down cards score -2 points

Standard win is a total of 1 point. For hard mode the goal is a total of 4 points.

Game Review: Triangulations

Sometimes game design involves taking ideas from other games and using them in ways unseen before. It would be too much to ask for game concepts built from the ground up all the time, but just as how two cooks can make two different dishes out of the same set of ingredients the key to this sort of synthesis is in how to bring the themes together. The less likely the concepts look like they go well together the more striking it is if the end result works beyond expectation.

In simple terms, Triangulations combines manipulation rummy games with strategic resource collecting based on grid geometry.  You start with a hand, a grid and two pawns, the goal is to have all the right cards to lay off in sets and runs. You have two options and both end with your hand growing, get used to this as the game ends once the supply runs out. The options are moving a pawn the same number of spaces as the card value underneath then drawing a card from the supply(you start the game with a delay of two jokers before you start drawing); and taking both cards from the opposite corners of the rectangle the two pawns make(the delay jokers are reset).

This is a game filled to the brim with long-term considerations: Every move you make has a consequence you will have to deal with. The freedom of movement given by high-value cards is rather deceptive; the possible landing spots are already based on whether the starting card is even or not. If you have a specific card in mind do note that you will have to take another one if it's on the grid, and now you have to consider both pawn tactics and foresight when it comes to the extra cards; it might not be until the game ends that a card will prove itself useful.

On their own, manipulation rummy and using corner coordinates on a board can't possibly mix but the main idea in play here is the latter, the former a result of putting a purpose to the mechanism. The mix works well with no part feeling out of place; rummy is rarely this strategic.

The basic card grid is 5 cards by 5 cards but other grids are possible and designers John and Liam Kean even give a few ideas.