Bash is card #10. It lets you use a Shield as if it were a Sword. Card #11 is a buff that you cast on yourself. It lasts indefinitely until you cause a monster to attack you. Instead of damaging you, it damages a random object in play; this includes items, so you'll want to sell/use all of the items in play before you cause the monster to attack you. It's above average in power, since you can usually get it to hit for 8-10 damage.
One suggestion. Would it be possible to allow you to discard something from your hand? (I have a sheild with one point left and two potions I don't want to sell, I'd want to just discard the shield and use one potion instead. Or, I change my mind about my hand and want to sell something to free up space for something more valuable.)
This game is clearly well made and very fun, but it's just too easy. I win 9/10 times, and the 1 that I lose is always due to something like drawing 8 monsters in a row at the very start, before drawing anything else. I suppose if I wanted to get more into the meta game of counting cards, the high score appeal would be stronger, but when the difference between an incidental high score and a meticulous one is ~20 pts, it's hard to feel motivated. Edit: for reference, without counting cards, my high score is 89, but I frequently break 80.
I think I'm terrible at this game, I can't win consistently and usually end up with the exact amount of health as the last monster card can do damage and obviously die. Anyone got any strategies/tips?
Thank you very much! I'm still hoping the Devs will give me the option to play in my prefered language. So i could follow this english conversation right from the get go.
I think being able to discard a card from your hand completely changes the game and the balance of the game making it much easier.
Yeah, I agree, but realize that you can still discard/sell from the backpack, just not once equipped.
Try getting a higher score. For doing so you will have to discard many health cards, armor or weapons to get gold for them. Winning is not hard. But getting a highscore is hard. My best so far is 107. To play for a score around 80 is boring.
Ha! I'm doing lucky to get 80. Granted, it would probably help if I could make up my mind if I wanted to play for score or just win.
Something strange happened. Sold a shield on my final turn, the animation that usually signifies your score increasing was visible, but my score didn't change. That would've given me 118, beating my high score by 1 point Edit: just realised the score changes at start of animation, so I very likely just made a mistake.
I found that after killing the monster in my backpack I could not use my backpack anymore for further cards. Is this the "steal-bug" mentioned? (Haven't found a description of that bug)
12th March 2015 [thread=257071][/thread] [thread=256963][/thread] [thread=255049][/thread] [thread=257022][/thread] [thread=257116][/thread] [thread=256989][/thread] [thread=256961][/thread] [thread=257058][/thread] [thread=257035][/thread] Card Crawl Is one of the nominees for Touch Arcade Forums' Game Of The Week VOTE HERE Developers, publishers and affiliates cannot vote for their own games!!
Yes. Once you use any card Stolen then your backpack is out of commission. Although if it is a monster, you do not have to kill it! (So hope you draw a 10-point baddie in there late in the game!)
Then play in constructed mode. Not nearly as easy plus your score doesn't even get you on the top 100. So it may be easy to not die... But to get a score over 97? See it's not that easy I thought the same thing until I realized it's more than just surviving...
It's pretty simple to get over 100 in constructed mode if you have good cards, I got within the top 25 with a score of 118, that was a few days ago though.
Just picked this up tonight after all the hype. I'm not generally a fan of card games but this is really good. Easy to learn, great presentation, and really addictive! High score so far is 59.
Game Impressions Introduction I'm currently rank #17 on the Card Crawl leaderboard with a score of 130. I got the score with Leech, Betrayal, Swap, Transform and Midas Touch. I enjoy the game a fair bit! However, I think playing Constructed instead of Normal mode reduces the depth of the game (since there are only a few cards you can realistically play). I also think the game doesn't play well when played for high score. Here's a quick guide to getting on the leaderboard for Card Crawl constructed. As a warning, there are quite a few spoilers here! Deck Selection When evaluating cards, the *only* thing you should be thinking about is how much gold/life/damage it adds to your deck. Your ultimate goal is to score a lot of gold, but because you can sell items for gold, life and damage can mostly be treated as equivalent. I'll just say "gold" from now on as shorthand. One of the key principles of chasing high leaderboard scores is to assume you will get lucky. In these games, only lucky people ever get on the leaderboard. So when evaluating cards, you want to favor the ones that give a very large max gold, and hope to get lucky. If you choose *not* to employ a high risk, high reward strategy, you will lose on the leaderboards to someone who does. Granted, there's a limit. If your strategy only has a 1 in a trillion chance of working, you probably won't be able to properly execute it before either the heat death of the universe or you getting bored of the game (whichever comes first). So low risk, medium payout cards can be acceptable if their payout isn't *too* much lower than the alternatives, since you will hit your "max luck" quicker than people using a riskier strategy. A brief review of all the cards 1. Sap: Only good if you get unlucky. Never adds gold to your deck, just mitigates bad draws. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 0. 2. Vanish: Same as Sap. Never adds gold to your deck. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 0 3. Leech: Almost always does 5 damage and gains 5 life. A possible inclusion simply because of reliability. Score: 10 4. Sacrifice: Often does 10 damage. Unplayable in constructed, since it adds the same effective gold as Leech, but is less likely to get max value. Score: 10 5. Potionize: Never adds gold to your deck. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 0 6. Killing Blow: Max damage is 8 if you use a 2 damage sword and kill a 10 HP monster. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 8. 7. Exchange: Only mitigates bad luck. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 0 8. Steal: Only mitigates bad luck. Unplayable in constructed. Score: 0 9. Lash: Max payoff is 12 if you have 4 monsters on the board with at least 3 HP. This is very unlikely to happen, so usually this hits for 9. However, the best strategy probably uses it over Leech, since the max payoff is higher. It also has a combo with Fortify. Score: 12 10. Bash: Doesn't even really mitigate bad luck. Score: 0 11. Reflect: Max payoff is 10 if a 10 HP monster reflects on itself. This is somewhat harder to set up than Leech, so is unplayable in constructed. Score: 10 12. Betrayal: Max payoff is 20 if you have three 10 HP monsters all in a row. Obviously this is pretty tough to get max value out of, but it's not uncommon to luck out and get scores around 15 with it. A very strong card. Score: 20. 13. Revive: Max payoff is 10 if you have 1 HP and have a 10 HP monster hit you. This merits some consideration, since when you use it, the buff stays but you free up a hand slot. I think it's still less reliable than Leech, and so unplayable in constructed. Score: 10. 14. Frenzy: Usually, max payoff is 7 if you hit two 7 HP monsters with a 7 damage sword. Does not work with Lash, otherwise might be playable in Constructed. Score: 7 15. Lucky Shot: Max payoff is killing a 10HP monster. Unplayable in constructed, since it's less reliable than Leech. Score 10 16. Trade: Let's you sell a 2 power thing for 10. Really cute and fun to play in regular mode, but unplayable in constructed. Score: 8. 17. Swap: Let's you swap a 2 power thing and a 10 HP monster. This represents a 16 gold "swing". Score: 16. 18. Morph: This is the strongest card in the game. Even though the max value in the deck is 10, for some reason it can convert things to be as high as 13 strength! This means that in the best case scenario where you nuke a 10HP monster into a 13 value thing (which you should almost always sell), you can get a 23 gold value. Ridiculous! Score: 23. 19. Fortify: Unplayable in constructed normally, since all it does is add 5 value to the deck. However, with Lash it can be worth 20 if you get "the dream" of four monsters on the board with 8HP or more *and* you have Lash and Fortify, doing 32 damage total. This is extremely difficult to set up, but assuming hackers don't take over the leaderboard, I assume that it will eventually be filled with players using this unreliable but strong combo. Score: 20. 20. Midas Scarf: Pretty reliable 20 gold. Just nuke a 10HP monster with it. Score: 20. In my opinion, there are really only 7 viable cards in the entire game. Every deck needs to have Midas Scarf and Morph. Their power level is too strong to not include. After that, you need to pick some combo of Betrayal, Leech, Swap, Lash and Fortify. Betrayal + Leech + Swap is the lowest variance but also the lowest ceiling, while Betrayal + Lash + Fortify is the highest ceiling but extremely unlikely due to the difficulty in getting Lash+Fortify to work *in addition* to getting a good Betrayal. Some general gameplay tips - Your play needs to be very risk-oriented to get on the leaderboard. If you can't use a sword/shield that turn and can't store it in your backpack, it's usually better to sell rather than equip and clog up a hand slot. - Restart if you ever are forced to use the 5HP ability that puts cards on the bottom of your deck - it's not like you're ever going to get a highscore with -5 points anyway. - It's okay to leave a single blue card equipped if you can't use it. These can't be sold, so you're going to eventually have to use it anyway (or not get a high score, and restart). - Always try to leave 10HP and 9HP monsters alive at full HP. Midas Touch or Transform get maximum value when used on the highest HP monster possible, so you'll need to use them on 10HP/9HP monsters if you want to get a high score. - If you have to choose between 2 high HP monsters of the same HP, you should favour leaving it in the 2nd or 3rd slots. They're better than Slots 1 and 4 because it's easier to set up good Betrayals and Swaps if the monster is in the middle. Maximum score - Assume perfect efficiency. - You have 12 HP at the beginning of the game that you can spend before dying. There are 54 points each of Potions and Gold in the game (1 each of ranks 2-10). There are 27 points each of Swords and Shields in the game (1 each of ranks 2-7). There are 118 total points of monsters (2 each of 2-9, 3 of rank 10). With perfect efficiency and no abilities used, the max number of points you can score is thus 56. - If you Lash + Fortify with 2 8HP monsters and 2 9HP monsters, you get +32 gold. - If you Midas Touch a 10HP monster, you get +20 gold. - If you use Betrayal to kill a 10HP monster and a 9HP monster, you get +19 gold. - If you morph a 10 HP monster into a 13 value item, you get +23 gold. This leads to a score of 149. I believe this is the highest possible score. By comparison, the highest score with the build I used is 143, but is much more likely to hit "max luck" before the above build. Conclusion The main reason I wrote this guide up is to show that the game is fairly shallow if played in constructed mode for high score. Since the developer said this was what I should pursue if I wanted to play *seriously*, I'm a bit disheartened. In my opinion, my "ideal" version of Card Crawl would be: - All random special cards. Playing with all of the special cards maximizes the depth of the game. It forces you to learn how to play *all* of the cards instead of just a subset, and gives the most possible interactions. - Ranked by overall performance rather than high score. Risk management becomes more interesting if dying is a bad thing that actually punishes your score. As is, I just restart immediately whenever I have even a slightly bad run. I think the game is pretty interesting when you have bad luck and are trying to mitigate it. But this isn't important at all in high-score chasing. - Better balanced. Among other things, Midas/Transform are too strong, and Bash is too weak. I've already mentioned that I'd like to see Bash function like Frenzy and not expend the shield in the attack. Transform should at least summon a random object that ranges from 2-10 rather than 2-13, since 13 isn't even a card in the deck! I'm not sure how to nerf Midas. As a note, even if it gave no gold at all and simply removed a creature, it would already be *strictly* better (by that I mean better in every possible situation) than Reflect, Frenzy, Sacrifice, Killing Blow and Lucky Shot. Since it also happens to give you gold in addition, it's sort of stupid card IMO. I realize that this is probably infeasible due to time and money constraints, but a man can dream, right?
Thanks for the detailed analysis and I agree with most of the points but it also shows how simply playing for a high score results in a hollow, mechanical experience. If every time something even remotely bad happens you hit restart... then this takes any fun out of the game and simply makes it a job. I think you mentioned the fun of getting out of a bad situation and this I really agree with. To me that is the fun of the game and you're right that it is too bad you don't get rewarded for it in your score. Still you get the personal satisfaction of a close call rather than constant restarts just to have the cards you need for a great combo finally show up to advance on the leaderboard. Of course it's nice there are two ways to approach the game: casual with personal satisfaction and the hardcore leaderboard approach with the constant restarts. Nice write up but you did spoil it for a lot of people that didn't want to know every detail of the final three cards. Oh well... I guess you didn't read any other posts here in the thread. Right?
