Spectromancer design

[Rooster]

What do you think about the game?
It's another game from Richard Garfield.

It has deck chosen at random for you. You only choose your class.
It has no element of luck, but it has element of chance. I find it very fun.
What are in your opinion pros and cons of this game?
Richard eliminated all (I think) flaws of M:tG.
a) Buying your way to victory
b) Best deck wins, not the most fun.
c) Mana screw

Are there any other games like spectromancer?

[Ripplez]

what do you mean by -

"It has no element of luck, but it has element of chance."?

[Rooster]

The skilled player wins. There is no chance for you to get cards so bad, that you know you'll lose.
Even if the cards are chosen for you

[Ripplez]

i have played this game some time ago. i hated it beyond words could describe. to me it was boring and bland but most importantly, it was too diifficult to win. this was against the computer on the demo but it drove home exactly what i should try not to include in my own games - what iv called the duel masters syndrome

when i played tcgs for the first time, it was mostly just yugioh and duel masters videogames for the gba. and the duel masters videogame was one i just lost horribly at over and over again. at one point i couldnt understand why i was losing over and over and over again. it got to a point where i sat down and over the course of hours, went to grind every single permutation of cards to be played. and in the end i found that no mater what happened, there was in general, only one or two correct sequences out of hundreds that let you win the round. it didnt randomise the draws at every turn, the whole order of cards was predetermined till someone shuffled. and going over it i realised that the game was set up in such a way that i COULD not win after a certain point. this is true for most games but the startling part was that this was fairly early on. it isnt an observation on the main game itself (although i hate that too)

i had played spectromancer sometime last year abot summer i think and i came to the conclusion that it has largely the same problem. for a game with a huge tree of opportunities, i found time nad time again that the point where the game started to slip into an unwinnable state was nowhere near the end of the games. at first i thought it was because i sucked at it so i just kept at it and then solved every battle in the game simply because for any given deck i faced, against the opponents card there was a fixed line that would just work. counterplay wasnt important because its the computer but then, against a human opponent the game would probably work WAY differently

which wouldnt stop it from being BORING. there is another side to having cards represented as one shot options than a concept to copy from as long as you have the ability to pay for it - you have to bait them constantly. there is never a moment where you can say, well that threats gone - you have to pretty much constantly bait everything which is mentally draining and too much work.

which is where alot of opinions come in that this is the mark of a good game. if you ARE going to say this, ill cut you off right now - no it isnt. the fact that you lose an option is integral, its the reward part for the stragy-reward payoff. i employ a strategy, i do it for a reward proportional to the effort used in doing it. pay 2U for draw 2 cards, sure. it curtails what i can play since i have to now splash blue and i might now have to use cards that go against my decks nature (which is why you dont see everyone splash blue) but i deem its worth for the advantage +1 card advantage gives me so i go for it. by removing the individual cards, you also remove any lasting reward, if your deck isnt going to crush them, then you have to keep facing the same cards over and over, dragging games out way more than any game has a right to

and once again leads back to my point about the game being boring. the effects were really plain in the demo, i dont know if the full version is any better. but the demo wouldnt sell me on mechanics or flavour or gameplay. sorry

[Rooster]

So do you think that it's better to have individual cards, rather than infinite amount of... stuff, right from the beginning?
I partially agree. The game is very repetitive, and there aren't many choices to make.
Yet, I still think it's playable. I wouldn't take it over magic, yugioh, or pokemon, but I still like it.
I think it has to do with someone enjoying casual gaming. Spectromancer isn't for those people, sadly.

[sneaselx]

From what I heard, that is not the game design, it's a problem with the AI.

[briggs]

I LOVE Spectromancer! I've been playing since early beta.

It's not really a card game, and anyone who thinks it is will be very disappointed; Spectromancer is first and foremost a game of skill.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

What do you think about the game?
It's another game from Richard Garfield.

Richard eliminated all (I think) flaws of M:tG.
a) Buying your way to victory

Isn't the online version demo only and we can't continue our progress unless we buy the game?