Universal Cabals: The Card Game (by Kyy Games)

@Gabrien: I feel for you, I really am.

Then I think about SpaceChem, my other goty contender for the year. That game was also very subtle (I mean horrible) tutorial-wise, but I got the point eventually.

For me it's part of the fun, to grasp the rules and mechanics, figuring out the nuances. Have you tried to start with the Danann Fairiefolk (green cabal)? I think you should, then buy some individual cards -- one or two "Lady of the Lake", an "Osculum Infame", probably a "Banshee" will do. Build a deck around them, and play some SP games. That'll de the trick hopefully.

On the other hand, I'm sure the devs are working on a proper tutorial at this moment.

 

After playing several games, I've discovered the following.

1. Claim the pointy crystal resource and deployment [if applicable] tiles as soon as possible. More resources means more units that can be deployed and more abilities that can be used.

2. Units that restore resources, buff power and grant dominion points are best kept at the back. I listed those in order of priority, but that varies across playing styles. I've found that these units are also best used to claim resource tiles but it's a tricky balance.

3. If you're playing the Primal decks [Danann Covenant and Bearclaw Brotherhood], Striga and that leprechaun gentleman that gains power when conquering a tile [I forgot his name, pardon] are extremely useful and can win you the game if you get them early on. They're both very tricky to use, however, since you'll need to find prey for Striga and conquerable tiles for the leprechaun. Alternatively, you could give them initial buffs if you have excess resources and the right cards.
I've actually had just one of these charge all the way to the enemy stronghold in two games but I think that was pure luck.

My victory rate against the AI is a bit sketchy; it's evenly divided between a solid win, barely surviving and being soundly thrashed. Victories are satisfying and losses are clearly the result of me fumbling a turn [though betimes due to ill luck, as is the case with the nature of TCGs].

 

How do you access cards that you win as a reward in the single player mode? They don't show up in the deck creation screen.

 

They belong to a certain faction (green AND blue, or red AND yellow). If you can't see them in your deck, that means you need a deck for the other faction.

 

This game is cool, but its REALLY expensive to play. 200 influence $2? WTF?

 

Hmm... Never tried these Ascension type of strategy card games. Would I find this fun? <--- Not a retoric question!

 

While something claiming to be a tutorial should actually be just that, rather than a page of rules, the game's mechanics really aren't anywhere near as complex as some people seem to be assuming they are. The complexity lies in the functions of the individual cards themselves, not the generic mechanics of the overall game, and that's something no tutorial will cover comprehensively for this game. Reading the cards, scanning the rules and playing a single game (not an unreasonable ask) were enough for me to figure out how things work, which lead me to discover that the real issue was more the unintuitive way the cards are activated.

Some (cards that need to be "exhausted", for example) require selecting the card then tapping it, others (specific effects) require selecting a card and tapping a target on the board, some (general negative effects) require selecting a card and tapping the enemy hero's name, and still more (general positive effects) require selecting a card and tapping your hero's name. These latter two activations should be changed to work the same way as the exhaustion mechanic, because there's no actual reason or logic behind having the player tap on multiple arbitrary locations on the playfield. The official forums reveal that multiple players have found this particularly unintuitive, and have ended their turns thinking they'd used a card when they'd not actually done so.

Other than the first game, I've won every match since (versus the AI); a recent win (with my online Zahir deck) came down to a win via domination points as I had somehow used up all my cards while it seems the AI still had another ten. I kept generating domination points from the board and my evasive homunculus, and right at the end the AI used Gas Attack and wiped all my pieces off the board, but I hit 60 and won just as he hit 59. Conversely, in the last game I played (offline as Danann) I won handily in a couple of turns simply by charging towards the enemy's stronghold and powering up one of the weakest cards in the game to lead the way.

While the average gamer might walk away from their fifth match still losing and wondering how best to set up their offense and defense, and how best to use the board to their advantage, I don't believe the average gamer (and certainly not the TCG/CCG crowd this title is aimed at) is likely to walk away still not having a clue how the game actually works.

Honestly, considering that the overwhelming majority of card and board games in existence don't have interactive tutorials explaining the rules, and yet for decades people have consistently picked up and played those just fine (and this game isn't anywhere near as complex as many of those), I'm not sure how people seem to be having such a major problem here. Add to this the fact that computer-based games don't actually allow you to make a rules error based on personal misinterpretation, and this seems like a rather bizarre issue that appears to have been blown out of proportion. Additionally, in this case, the questions asked thus far and the things people have said they needed to "figure out" are covered in the game's rules.

 

Well, I did go back for that fifth try, and oddly enough managed to make some progress. Here are the basics that won me that game against the AI:

-Capture as many resource tiles as possible.
-Use card abilities where possible (tapping on some cards lets you use their ability - important discovery I shouldn't have had to make on my own) to strengthen units at the front lines.

I managed to build up one card then sent it on a killing spree. Crude but it worked.

Next game I lost quite badly again, but at least I do feel like I made some progress.

A proper step by step tutorial is still most needed by far.

Not sure how much I'll progress from here since the IAP will most likely kill this for me soon enough, but at least I feel like I haven't totally wasted my time at worst. At best, I see a lot of potential writhing under the stranglehold of IAP.

@Fimb: Thank you for the tips.

 

Ugh, stop being ridiculous; this has about as much legitimacy as telling somebody not to play Uno until they're provided a tutorial because you can't figure out the game's pretty straightforward rules and haven't even bothered trying them in practice - and the basics of this game aren't any more complicated than that one.

I'd love to believe that the iOS gaming community isn't made up of the stupidest people on the planet, and that in general they're quite capable of reading the rules of a game and then putting those into action without needing their hand held every step of the way, but that's apparently becoming a bigger and bigger ask for some reason, even though people have been doing this successfully for centuries.

 

Appletini, you make some very valid points. I agree to an extent with most of what you said, but I still maintain that the instructions are too brief and need fleshing out. If Kyy's target audience are indeed the existing TCG crowd, then cursory instructions are understandable but not advisable. After all, this is a very niche market and one must assume that the developer are hoping to reach out to the more casual gamer. If so, then more comprehensive, hold-you-by-the-hand rules are sorely needed.

Anyway, you made a very reasoned argument which does make sense for the most part. You're certainly right that new technology has spoilt us rotten, what with interactive tutorials and whatnot! Now we expect it every time, which isn't always a reasonable expectation. I didn't mean to blow this whole thing out of proportion; I just wish developers placed a higher priority on providing more extensive rules for their games.

To be perfectly honest, I'm more concerned with the pricing; it seems to be on the high side but I'll see how that develops as the game makes a mark for itself and becomes more popular.

 

In my opinion your exaggeration about the complexity and the missing tutorial could needlessly dissipate some players. As Appletini has already mentioned the game isn't as hard as you think. (I don't want to justify the missing tutorial, you are right about the most you have said, but the game is really much too good to focus predominantly on the tutorial-thing).

 

It's not *that* bad. The brief tutorial in their main website covers practically everything you need to know, which is why I think it's a bit strange that they didn't just lift it into the iOS version. While the iOS tutorial is largely complete, it doesn't make for skimming; that's what I did, so most of my confusion is a product of my own folly.

Gabrien: They did say that they were going to include free ways to earn Influence a few pages back.

 

I don't think people will avoid the game based on what I and others have said about the tutorial. If they do, then they are being very unwise given that Cabals is free. I've never disregarded a game based on what another person has said about it and if others do so with Cabals, then it's their loss.

As you rightly say, the game is too good to throw away for the sake of a poor tutorial. The fact that I am still frequenting this thread should be proof enough that I'm still well and truly in the picture. I concede that my previous posts did sound quite harsh, but I'm more than willing to give Cabals a chance as it looks too good to pass up for what is, essentially, a minor hurdle in the grand scheme of things.

 

Thanks for pointing me to their main website. After reading the in-game so-called tutorial and (of course) losing my first game, I was pretty confused of the interface, the card symbolism and pretty much the whole mechanics of the game. I do not consider myself a newbie to complex card games (having played a lot of Blue Moon and Race for the Galaxy), but this version of Cabals is rather obscure and uninviting save for the most die-hards willing to get fun of a freemium game through trial and error, despite a big number of deep games on the app store, who really take efforts to teach you not only the basics but also advanced tactics in a very effective and quick way, e.g. Tigris & Euphrates or Puerto Rico, to name two games, which only recently were released.

This has nothing to do with being too lazy to read a rulebook, there isn't even one, just a summary what the game is about, called tutorial, which does not help much to understand how to actually play the game. I guess, since Cabals looks interesting, I'll have to wait some more weeks and see what the devs will do about that.

 

I dont know why this tutorial http://www.cabalsgame.com/how_to_play.php is not ingame. With that tutorial everyone should know how to play the game just fine, no need for more indications.

BUT the one inside the game is just not good at all. I sugest you to replace it.

 

This is miles and miles from the point.

It doesn't matter whether the audience is made up of dumbasses or MENSA candidates. When you release a new game — and especially when it's an all-new property — you might want to take a minute to explain some rules and show some examples. It's pretty much a universal practice for developers who want to be taken seriously.

KYY's silence on this subject is telling, But they might want to start slowing this train down pretty soon. I'd guess they are losing hundreds of potential players who are turned off by the game's vertical learning curve and/or by seeing threads like this one. That's going to become thousands, if they're not careful.

 

I'm lost as to why they decided to create another, inferior tutorial and put that in the app instead. The instructions on the website are definitely better and should be included in-app.

I'm surprised Kyy have not commented on this yet. I can't decide whether that is a good thing or not.