Star Realms - the Game

Well -tried the game out finally.

I’m not a huge fan of deck-builders generally – the kind where you build your deck in-game – but have been reasonably successful playing my friends in the DC comic themed games, and seriously considering buying Core Worlds. Overall, I liked it, despite the usual huge frustration at watching opponents grab up the cards I want and then trying to figure out how they’re chaining together 30-40 points of damage when I can’t stop my 1-point scouts from popping up.

For those who aren’t familiar with how the game plays, you start out with a deck of entry cards  that do one point of damage or one point of trade/purchasing power. You also start out with a pool of “authority” points that are lost when damage is done to you. You play the cards in hands of five to purchase ships and bases. Each of those ships allow you to either do more damage, heal more damage (“gain authority”), or buy more trade. Special abilities exist to scrap cards out of your discards (to flush out low-value cards and increase the odds of desired cards coming up), draw additional cards, or gain additional trade/etc. if ships from the same faction (there are four) are played.

Bases stay out, and give you some benefit every turn – scrapping cards, trade, authority, or damage, for example.  Some – outposts – also act as tanks. They have to be attacked before your opponent can attack anything else, and if he cannot do the minimum damage to eliminate it, are unaffected.

The artwork is solid, the mechanics straightforward, the factions each have their unique strengths regarding scrapping unwanted cards, pulling more cards, etc., and a player is not advised to concentrate on one, or even necessarily two of them.

Oh, and Jon Del Arroz has a nifty book out set in this universe.

You can download the digital version of the game through Steam or the Android Play store or the iOS App store. The free version allows play against the AI, but not online play.