A Deckbuilding Look at Demonslayer

demonslayeroverviewDemonslayer: The Siege of Mt. Kunlun (to give its full title) is rather uniquely a deckbuilder that was published in China a few years ago, and is just now making the jump to the United States, thanks to the folks at EOS SAMA.

The Game

Demonslayer is clearly a deckbuilder from an earlier generation. It owes the most to two early games in the genre, Dominion (2008) and Ascension (2010). Much as in Ascension, you have two types of currency: money (“clarity”) and attack. You also have two types of cards available for “purchase”: a set tableau of action cards, plus three special attack cards for each player (all either “spells” or “immortals”), and a random tableau of monsters (“heart-eaters”) — which comes out in waves of nine monsters, each of which includes eight acolytes and one tougher boss (“overlord”). As you might guess, money buys action cards, while attack kills monsters.

Continue reading

Kickstarter Preview: DragonFlame

DragonFlame: KickstarterA few weeks ago I wrote about Monster Mansion, the first of a pair of Kickstarter previews I was planning on writing. This week, I’m discussing the other one, DragonFlame, a card game by Matt Loomis that’s now being Kickstarted by Minion Games.

You Cut, I Choose

DragonFlame (2015) is a game that I find hard to classify. Since you’re spending your time playing and collecting cards, it’s most obviously it’s a card management game and a set-collection games. However, those two priorities come together through what’s essentially a you-cut-I-choose mechanic. Each turn each player gets a hand of three treasure cards. Everyone plays those cards into lots that are defined by castles. Then, players pick lots one at a time, in their current order.

Continue reading