You may not have heard of it, but Hand of Fate is a pretty cool little game. It's been out on Steam for a while and is $25, so we're not talking a $60 game here. The premise is simple: you wander into a mysterious mage's parlor, as he says many have done before you. You will play a card game with him, and attempt to defeat his champions and win more cards from him. The game progression is straightforward: you have a deck that consists of weapons, armor, power-ups, etc. Cards are laid out face-down on the table which represent the level "map," and you move your figurine from card to card, revealing story events and enemy encounters. The enemy encounters propel you into a combat arena that plays more or less like the Arkham games. Combats tend to be resolved fairly quickly--often under a minute, but a few minutes at most. As you progress through the game, you win tokens from the mysterious mage, which unseal more cards that you can put into your deck. Of course, the better the cards you put into your deck, the more dangerous challenges and adversaries the dealer will add to thwart you. Through it all, the dealer comments on your actions, his motivations, and what this may all mean. There is a story about your character and your past buried in the narrative of the cards, and it unfolds slowly and mysteriously, and the dealer grows more and more concerned about who you are and why you're doing this. It's a fascinating element and a more complex twist on game narratives than you usually get. Mechanically, the game is a lot of fun. Because you can customize your deck and are always winning more cards, even replaying the same level is a different experience each time. The map layouts change, the cards are shuffled. A level that kicked your ass 20 times might suddenly become a cakewalk because you unlocked just the right cards, and encountered them at just the right moment in the game to give you the edge you need. Difficulty ramps up after the first couple tiers of levels, and that's where getting better cards really comes into play. Some fights (and especially bosses) are hard to beat without strong gear and artifacts. You also have to manage food resources, which dwindle as you progress through each map. Will you spend your last bit of gold getting more food, or save up to buy that weapon you need for the boss, hoping you'll come across some food along the way? It's up to you. The card game is surprisingly strategic in nature, even though it doesn't play like Magic or other CCGs. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout-out to this little gem. Has anyone else played it?
Fucking card games, they're the Minions of game genres. Well, not really, but they do annoy me for no reason.
I guess I lack the affinity for card games, I did collect the TNG CCG but I never actually played it (or something along those lines, Magic: The Gathering etc). Everything that is presented in that way puts me off, doesn't help that I associate card games with the F2P model at this point (which is in it self yet another unfair response).
I do agree that you're being unfair! I'm not a big fan of computer-based CCGs, myself, but Hand of Fate is nothing like that. The cards aren't there to support a F2P or exploitative DLC model, they're just the metaphor through which you explore the game's world and story. There's one paid DLC ($5) that adds a whole new mechanic and different play rules (rather than, say, just a handful of cards.) I get why you're cynical about the computer CCG model, but none of those complaints really hold in this case. I hope you'll give it a shot at some point!
I've been reading both positive and negative reviews on steam. It seems everyone says the first half of the game is good. A lot of effort has been focused on making the learning curve shallow and the starting experience fun and entertaining. However the difficulty level ramps up to impossible in the back half due to having no way to counter special boss attack cards.
I'm more than halfway through and it's true the difficulty has ramped up considerably, but it's not anywhere near impossible (yet.) I say this as someone who largely sucks at games, too. From what I've read, the key to the late game bosses is building up the right gear/power combos before you go in, which obviously depends on what kind of deck you've built and what cards you happen across on your way to the boss fights.
Okay, since I got a new iPhone (6+, the old 5 broke down), I've been getting into Hearthstone, which very rapidly eroded my resistance versus card games. Fucking Blizzard I'll definitely check this one out now.
I'm down to the last set of bosses now. It's definitely gotten a lot harder. The success/failure cards are a lot more difficult to win, and the curses come at you constantly. I found in at least one instance, the best way to go is just beeline through each floor and hope you pick up some good gear and blessings along the way, conserving your food and saving your health for the boss. On the earlier levels, it's a lot more beneficial to take on various challenges and battles--you usually have more breathing room to recover from missteps. That's a lot harder near the end, since there are a lot more penalties coming at you all the time.