How does the idea of playing a deck of Zombies and Pirates against your friend’s Robots and Ninja sound? I don’t know about you, but it sounds like great fun to me. Nomad Games, of Talisman: Digital Edition ($3.99) fame, is bringing Shufflebuilding Smash Up to iOS, so you’ll soon be able to bring all those crazy combinations to bear against your opponents. Smash Up comes with a variety of factions, each with a unique 20-card deck, and each of the up to four players gets to pick two factions through a drafting process and then battle for world domination.
The factions include Pirates, Zombies, Ninja, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, and even Dinosaurs, so the combinations should be pretty fun. Each combination apparently plays quite differently, so that should give the game plenty of replayability. The game will come with AI mode, and both pass-to-play and online multiplayer. Nomad Games has done a great job bringing the Talisman games to iOS, so I’m hopeful that this digital port will be equally well done. Smash Up is scheduled for a Fall 2016 release.
This looks really awesome. great review!
This game is awesome. The desktop version has some horrible lag though which one cannot get rid of even with optimised settings for fast play. Sometimes I'd just like to play one quick round but if it's dragging out too I don't want to do it between things. Is the iPad version also plagued by this?
Well i didn't know about that lag on pc. I have already bought and have been playing the ipad version and haven't felt any lag. I have experienced however sometimes without explanation the game just kicks you out to the ipad menu. Don't know why, i don't have the habit of have more than one app rolling and i doubt this consumes that much memory.
It reminds me a bit of the old Games Workshop game Sorcerer's Cave
It's fun but it is really hard to get attached to any character. Through randomness they can die really easily. There is no being extra careful with a character. He might survive 3 rounds in a row but get a bad draw the next.
Definitely wish chars didn't cash in gear after each dungeon, really saps the rpg-factor. Assume it keeps things balanced.
Absolutely necessary, in this instance - the randomisation of gear cards, the wide range of characters, and the game's reliance on building a deck on each level, means that either some characters would be hugely overpowered at the start of each stage; or else the less used characters would be hugely underpowered.
Can see an alternative path, in allowing levels to be replayed (they're currently closed off after completion). But otherwise...
So is there not really any RPG factors that carry over from game to game? Is it more of a rouge-like in that sense?
There are some persistent elements.
1) Your heroes can level up and get more hit points. They can also acquire traits that are permanent. I can't remember a specific example of this for real, but it's things like "Bulwark: If you receive damage of exactly one HP, then it is ignored that round."
2) You can unlock new hero classes, which is really where the game starts to come into it's own. Each class has slightly different starting attacks (cards) and some have special abilities. E.g. The Bruiser has Spikey - If you block all damage received then you do 1 HP to your opponent.
3) You can also unlock new weapons, armor and items. You generally only get these when you defeat an enemy but it becomes critical to unlock the higher level items to advance. And they stay unlocked when you open them.
4) You can unlock new glyphs which are basically starting bonuses you get in a dungeon. Things like +1 damage in your first two battles in the dungeon.
It's true that it's pretty tough to get personally attached to your fighters. The real POV for you, the player, is as the head of the Guild of Dungeoneering, and it's sort of explicitly acknowledged through the lyrics and music that you go through adventurers like an elephant through peanuts. There's not really any strategic way to protect your heroes. If they have some bad luck, that's going to be it for them. But they do advance in some ways and it definitely does give them an edge when they begin to do so. It can all just come to a very abrupt end when you have a bad run. I love this game and it's by no means spoiled my fun with it.
Frustrating. The game keeps crashing. I really like it, but it's not worth playing if i cant play for more than a few turns. It looks like wasted money right now if it isn't fixed.
I don't get why no one else mentions the constant severe bugs. Totally unplayable
Best game ever!
I think you meant "unlike many" or "like few" rather than "unlike few"...