Nightfall (by Playdek) - Universal

[currymutton]

Originally Posted by tecwrtr

We'll see her once she plays an online game. No one shows up until then. Hopefully soon!

Well, I check. Camzy has this game but I am surprised I cannot send out an invitation...

[currymutton]

WoP, nice game, one chain and you reverse the tide.

P.S. I cannot stress enough how much I would do game chatting here...

[Arkard]

Is this actually a good game? I mean, I really like Ascension and so far what I've read of this is that it's well made and the tutorial and rules can be confusing... but not much commentary on whether the core game is good?

It's not much of an investment to check it for myself, but thought I'd ask.

[sladeums]

Originally Posted by Arkard

Is this actually a good game? I mean, I really like Ascension and so far what I've read of this is that it's well made and the tutorial and rules can be confusing... but not much commentary on whether the core game is good?

It's not much of an investment to check it for myself, but thought I'd ask.

I find the base game more enjoyable than Ascension, personally.

There is a much, much higher rate of player interaction giving it much more of a traditional TCG feel than Ascension's solitaire-with-a-scoreboard dynamic.

It does lend itself better to live play, I think ... it's just easier to keep a flow and strategy going since the relations between your cards mean more than in Ascension.
But async is fine and how I mostly end up playing anyway.

If you enjoy the genre and are not put off by the setting I see no reason you would not enjoy it.

Complaints about the tutorial are a little overblown imo ... yeah it ain't terribly helpful going in blind, but big wiff, so you have to put maybe an hour into wrapping your head around it.
Just play the tutorial ... READ THE RULES... play the tutorial again...then a match or two vs AI, and you should have it mostly down.

[WakeOfPoseidon]

Originally Posted by currymutton

WoP, nice game, one chain and you reverse the tide.

P.S. I cannot stress enough how much I would do game chatting here...

Agreed, the chat feature would be a nice touch. And yeah, you never know with this games, even if you're up by a good number of wounds, if your opponent gets a good chain on that last turn of the game, it's over. Had a bunch of great games with you and tecwrtr both - each of you are good opponents

Arkard, in response to your question - yes, this is a must buy if you like card battle/deck building games. I really enjoy Ascension and this game both immensely, but they each have a very different feel. Ascension is much more tactical (what is the best move I can make now), while I feel like Nightfall is a bit more strategic (you have to plan several moves ahead and think about what cards are going to work for you for the duration of the game). Nightfall can be a bit more tense to play than Ascension, but it is very rewarding. Definitely worth the money.

[Arkard]

Originally Posted by WakeOfPoseidon

Agreed, the chat feature would be a nice touch. And yeah, you never know with this games, even if you're up by a good number of wounds, if your opponent gets a good chain on that last turn of the game, it's over. Had a bunch of great games with you and tecwrtr both - each of you are good opponents

Arkard, in response to your question - yes, this is a must buy if you like card battle/deck building games. I really enjoy Ascension and this game both immensely, but they each have a very different feel. Ascension is much more tactical (what is the best move I can make now), while I feel like Nightfall is a bit more strategic (you have to plan several moves ahead and think about what cards are going to work for you for the duration of the game). Nightfall can be a bit more tense to play than Ascension, but it is very rewarding. Definitely worth the money.

Alright, cheers. I remember reading some comments that some people didn't enjoy the "matching colors" mechanic too much. That there's too much things to think about I'll give it a try..

[tecwrtr]

Originally Posted by WakeOfPoseidon

Agreed, the chat feature would be a nice touch. And yeah, you never know with this games, even if you're up by a good number of wounds, if your opponent gets a good chain on that last turn of the game, it's over. Had a bunch of great games with you and tecwrtr both - each of you are good opponents

Arkard, in response to your question - yes, this is a must buy if you like card battle/deck building games. I really enjoy Ascension and this game both immensely, but they each have a very different feel. Ascension is much more tactical (what is the best move I can make now), while I feel like Nightfall is a bit more strategic (you have to plan several moves ahead and think about what cards are going to work for you for the duration of the game). Nightfall can be a bit more tense to play than Ascension, but it is very rewarding. Definitely worth the money.

Thanks! Your W/L ratio is amazing. Also appreciated your review of Yggdrasil.

[Artfoundry]

Originally Posted by Arkard

Is this actually a good game? I mean, I really like Ascension and so far what I've read of this is that it's well made and the tutorial and rules can be confusing... but not much commentary on whether the core game is good?

It's not much of an investment to check it for myself, but thought I'd ask.

I have mixed feelings about the game. On the one hand, it has great artwork and music and an interesting game mechanic (a mix of the deck building of ascension, the combat of magic (sort of), and the color chaining of Uno).

On the other hand, it has both technical and design issues. First, while it has multitasking, the multitasking is basically useless with online play because you always return to the main menu whenever you relaunch the game (just like Ascension). On top of this, if you ever get a window based alert (as opposed to the top notification bar alert), you'll also be taken back to the main menu (annoying bug).

Second, I feel the cards are not well balanced. There's a handful of cards that are much better than the rest, and if you get some of those that chain properly (and your opponent doesn't) and don't make any really bad moves, you're pretty much guaranteed to win. It's possible this issue could be addressed with future expansions - I don't know the real version of the game well enough though.

Third, unlike Ascension, the game doesn't show you the cards in your deck, so if you come back to a game after some time (especially if you're playing multiple online games at once), you may have trouble remembering your strategy. The only option to help with this is to look at your discard pile, but that of course won't always show all of your deck.

Finally, there are some UI issues that could be easily fixed - the spinning moon game indicator in the upper left corner overlaps the clock, so it's not always easy to see (not to mention it looks bad), and if you press the Done button while you still have cards you can play, the game won't warn you like it does when you press Done and you still have purchasing options (so on the small iphone/ipod screen, it's easy to accidentally press Done before playing all your cards since your cards are right above the button). Also, particularly on the small screen, if your opponent has a lot of minions out, and you're trying to apply damage from a spell card to one of them, that spell card will overlap the right most minion cards, making it next to impossible to select them.

And as mentioned, there's no chat feature (probably the most requested feature for both games). I kinda feel like Playdek is focusing more on trying to release as much as possible (2 games and 2 expansions in about 9 months is quite a bit) rather than satisfying their audience. I completely understand the need for revenue (I'm a dev myself), but to some extent you need to make your customers happy as well. While releasing new content is the best way to do that, if you don't address the problems with the game as well, players will become more and more frustrated over time that the company doesn't seem to pay attention to its users.

Overall, I don't think this game is as polished as Ascension, though it still has its merits and fun can still be had playing it. One more thing - the learning curve at the beginning is pretty steep, but if you keep at it, it all becomes pretty clear eventually. The one thing that took me the longest to figure out (and I still get messed up sometimes) is the turn order. Turns are pretty wacky because both players play on every turn rather than other typical card games. What's more, it feels odd that the player who starts a turn (and starts the chain) is actually the defender for that turn instead of the attacker - that just feels backward to me.

[amn624]

Originally Posted by Artfoundry

I have mixed feelings about the game. On the one hand, it has great artwork and music and an interesting game mechanic (a mix of the deck building of ascension, the combat of magic (sort of), and the color chaining of Uno).

On the other hand, it has both technical and design issues. First, while it has multitasking, the multitasking is basically useless with online play because you always return to the main menu whenever you relaunch the game (just like Ascension). On top of this, if you ever get a window based alert (as opposed to the top notification bar alert), you'll also be taken back to the main menu (annoying bug).

Second, I feel the cards are not well balanced. There's a handful of cards that are much better than the rest, and if you get some of those that chain properly (and your opponent doesn't) and don't make any really bad moves, you're pretty much guaranteed to win. It's possible this issue could be addressed with future expansions - I don't know the real version of the game well enough though.

Third, unlike Ascension, the game doesn't show you the cards in your deck, so if you come back to a game after some time (especially if you're playing multiple online games at once), you may have trouble remembering your strategy. The only option to help with this is to look at your discard pile, but that of course won't always show all of your deck.

Finally, there are some UI issues that could be easily fixed - the spinning moon game indicator in the upper left corner overlaps the clock, so it's not always easy to see (not to mention it looks bad), and if you press the Done button while you still have cards you can play, the game won't warn you like it does when you press Done and you still have purchasing options (so on the small iphone/ipod screen, it's easy to accidentally press Done before playing all your cards since your cards are right above the button). Also, particularly on the small screen, if your opponent has a lot of minions out, and you're trying to apply damage from a spell card to one of them, that spell card will overlap the right most minion cards, making it next to impossible to select them.

And as mentioned, there's no chat feature (probably the most requested feature for both games). I kinda feel like Playdek is focusing more on trying to release as much as possible (2 games and 2 expansions in about 9 months is quite a bit) rather than satisfying their audience. I completely understand the need for revenue (I'm a dev myself), but to some extent you need to make your customers happy as well. While releasing new content is the best way to do that, if you don't address the problems with the game as well, players will become more and more frustrated over time that the company doesn't seem to pay attention to its users.

+1 to these comments plus there should be an option to slow play down even more than the present slow speed offered. Typically, cards the opponent buys fly by so quickly it's very difficult to remember which little moons are on them. Another idea would be a log. At least in Ascension, you can see the last few moves by every player. Like you say, you return to a game and you have no clue what occurred earlier.

With some help, the game could be much better.

[sapphire_neo]

Is it just me or are active matches hard to find?