Board? Game! – DC Comics Deck-Building Game

The world of board gaming can be a little daunting at times. The Deck Building sub-genre even more so. The fact that they vary in complexity as much as they vary theme can making choosing a game to start with a bit of a minefield. As someone that has experimented with a fair few Collectable Card Games I assumed a card game that comes with all the cards you could need in the one box would present little resistance. I was, at least initially, wrong. My first venture into the genre was with the cooperative Resident Evil game. While enjoyable, it took us three or four games to understand what was going on and I suspect we were still not following the rather confusing scenario based rulebook.

The first hurdle for someone that plays Collectable Card Games will be understanding the core mechanic of all Deck Building games. You start with a deck of just a few cards and spend your turns acquiring more while at the same time working towards the core objective of the game. All cards in your hand are discarded at the end of each turn regardless of whether they were used, then a new hand is drawn. When you run out of cards in your deck your discard pile is shuffled to make a new deck, introducing all your newly acquired cards into your arsenal. Once you have this concept down you’re good to go.

I don’t recall Aquaman’s ability; it was probably fish-related.

In hindsight the DC Comics game is where we should have started. The rules are simple and the rulebook is extremely clear. That’s not to say the game isn’t deep – halfway through your first game you’ll be throwing out complex card combos with ease. For our first game I summoned Ryan to Glasgow’s bastion of comics and analogue gaming, Geek Retreat.

Ryan had a quick read of the rules while I destroyed some Pop Tarts and a coffee and we were quickly underway.

As instructed we selected two random hero cards each and picked one to play as. Ryan chose Batman over Superman and I rejected Aquaman in favor of Green Lantern, obviously. Each hero gives you a special ability that stays in play at all times, each focused on that hero’s speciality. Batman gets bonuses when using equipment cards, Superman has powered up Super Power cards, and Green Lantern is rewarded for using multiple different cards at the same time. I don’t recall Aquaman’s ability; it was probably fish related. We were shortly joined by a couple more players and that that flowed extremely well, developing into a game with far more conflict between players.

As explained above, you take turns to acquire new cards from a limited selection and this builds the power and size of your deck. After a few cycles of shuffling your discarded cards into your draw pile you should be drawing hands with enough power to attack the bad guy at the top of the Super Villain pile, earning yourself an extra powerful card for your deck. This continues until there are no more cards to be purchased (unlikely) or you have defeated all the Super Villains.

The beauty of the game is how well thought out the cards are. There are strong, suitable themes to each main hero as well as the 50+ other characters that feature on action & power cards. Another feature that is worth mentioning is the game’s crossover compatibility. As the game uses Cryptozoic’s Cerberus Engine ruleset it will be compatible with other Cerberus games and expansions allowing you to combine cards from each set. With a Capcom release due at the end of the year things could start getting very interesting!

Designer: Matt Hyra/Ben Stoll
Publisher: Cryptozoic Entertainment
Mechanic: Deck building
Number of Players: 2-4
Length of Game: 45-60mins
Complexity: Light

Buy it here

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlThRazITdQ[/youtube]