I’m a big fan of Ascension: Wrath of the Godslayer on iOS. It introduced me to an excellent deck-building card game and provides some excellent transatlantic asynchronous multiplayer fun. Always a bonus.
I’d been intending to check out the physical version for some time but hadn’t seen a copy of it anywhere. Until today, that is, when I found not only the original Wrath of the Godslayer set, but also a new package known as Storm of Souls.
I shan’t get into the nitty-gritty of Ascension‘s mechanics here as those of you reading this will either already know what it’s all about or have the good sense to look it up for yourself. Suffice to say its a deck-building game with some superficial similarities to Dominion, but a much faster pace of play and a greater focus on “combat” of sorts, though not specifically against another player. Rather, all participants in the game compete against the game itself, and whoever does the best is declared the winner and the Lord of All Awesomeness, or something. There is a plot, but as tends to happen with many board and card games, it has little to no importance on how the game actually pans out.
For those already familiar with Ascension, Storm of Souls adds a few new bits and pieces. Firstly, it adds a bunch of new cards. These can be combined with Wrath of the Godslayer‘s cards to have games for up to six people at once. I haven’t tried this yet, but I can imagine it’s a very different dynamic to two-player games.
Secondly, a new Event mechanic allows cards to enter play that have ongoing effects. For example, one Event strengthens the Cultist “cannon fodder” enemies, making them more difficult to defeat but also making them worth more points. Others add modifiers to certain cards, some of which require you to think about the order in which you play your cards much more than in Wrath of the Godslayer.
Then there’s the Trophy mechanic. Rather than Banishing certain monsters, putting them out of the game forever, certain monsters can be kept as trophies and banished at a later time for various benefits. This adds an extra layer of strategy which is very welcome.
As with many deckbuilding games, the joy of Ascension comes in building good synergies of cards and then unleashing them in a vast combo attack that looks suitably impressive. While it takes time to build up to this point in Dominion, in Ascension you’re there within a turn or two, particularly if you pay careful attention to Events and the type of cards you’re playing.
So is the new version any good? Most definitely. Tonight has been an all-nighter of play, hence the lateness of this entry — haven’t been to bed yet! I hasten to add that it hasn’t been Ascension that we’ve been playing all night — we also took on Dominion and Last Night on Earth. Ascension was the clear favourite though, particularly as its setup is straightforward enough to make three games in a row a very practical prospect.
So, I shall certainly look forward to playing it more in the future, and if you’re a fan of the deckbuilding subgenre of card games, I suggest you check it out. And if you don’t want to splurge on the physical edition, be sure to check out the excellent iOS version — a faithful adaptation that is very well designed for the small screen and the mobile platform.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I better get some sleep…
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I have a couple of questions, as I’ve become interested in the iOS version. First, does it have a passing multiplayer to play with folks in the same room as you? I have a son who is equally interested and I think it’d be fun to play together. My second question is is there a competent single-player component or at the very least a good tutorial? I’d like to get my sea legs before taking on the likes of you. 🙂
Yes, there is pass and play as well as asynchronous online.
Yes, there is a rulebook and a decent AI against which you can play single player.
The iOS version is pretty slick, and a great introduction to the game. There’s an optional expansion pack you can purchase, too.
Hi Pete,
Your blogs are as usual great – but as far as this genre goes I don’t know the type of games you are talking about. And I don’t know how to find that sort of info. I am an expert in my own genre – Adventure and Hidden Object games, Puzzles and Mahjong etc, but the games you talk about, even the RPGs, are unknown to me. I have heard of some of them in ads but wouldn’t know how to start playing with others. This latest lot – deck-building – is a total mystery.
Are there blogs that deal with all these games on a basic level? I did play one Galaxy based game with my son and his mates online a number of years ago – where we explored planets etc and plotted courses across space – this was rather cool as I have done Astronomy as an Elective during my Uni days. But it was rather slow in that the time diff between Oz and US where some of them were, made for much waiting. Do you know the game I mean? Is it still around, or is it passe?
Have you had a look at my blogs yet? I am writing each blog for first time viewers. This is rather tedious as I have to repeat my views continually from game to game. I have put some general blogs on referring to this attitude, and was wondering if I should Link each blog to the relevant main blog to save time and space and energy – or is that just annoying to people? Also I wondered if I should state that my blogs are for people who haven’t seen games before – well I thought that I had to do that. But yours are not like that. So should I ditch the kid gloves and change format and style – or maybe add some Novice Categories for the simple ones and create Adult categories? Except most of the expert players are kids!! S i g h . . . Getting rather bored with my nuts and bolts, basic blogs. Jud
PS: Your Narrative blogs are excellent – you are very talented – never doubt it!
PPS: Hope you have time to reply to these questions for me.
BoardGameGeek.com (also known as BGG) is the most well-established resource on board and card games, though its interface and database can be daunting to navigate for newcomers. There’s a wealth of information on there for pretty much any tabletop game you can think of, though, including reviews, session reports, rules variants and all manner of other goodies.
Alongside that, some friends and I are shortly starting cautionsmallparts.com, which is aiming to be an accessible blog on all things tabletop rather than the impenetrable but comprehensive mess that is BGG. Watch for that very soon.
Regarding your blog, it’s always a tricky one to know whether or not to assume knowledge when writing a new post. Some possible ways to avoid having to repeat basic information might include a static page or post that you just link to somewhere in each new post, or provide links to something like Wikipedia throughout your post when referring to a specific concept. There’s no “right” way to do it save for knowing your audience, really. Solicit some feedback directly — try putting up a post encouraging people to let you know what approach they would prefer you take. I think WordPress even lets you create polls, though I’ve never tried it myself. I’ll take a look at your site when I’m not on the road and see if I have any good ideas 🙂
Thanks Pete. This ‘tabletop’ expression you use – is it something on the computer – like ‘desktop’ is – or are you talking about real physical board and card games and the ‘tabletop’ refers to a real table? Naive sounding question and probably puts me down in the ‘dummies’ category, but these days due to ‘computer and techno speak’ I am beginning to not trust linguistic denotations. rofl I think that’s what I meant when I said that the games you were discussing are in a different realm from the ones I deal with. Just when I think I am getting somewhere with these games, along comes another sideswipe from another genre/generation/language derivation. S i g h . . .
Not to worry! It’s easy to get lost in specialist lingo, particularly with media that doesn’t have parallels with anything else!
“Tabletop” gaming is a catch-all term that refers to board, card and role-playing games; to put it another way, anything you’d sit around a table with your friends in person in order to play. To distinguish this type of role-playing game from those you find on the computer, it’s also sometimes referred to as a “pen and paper RPG”, while role-playing games on computer and console are often referred to as “CRPGs” or “computer role-playing games”.
You know what? You’ve given me an idea for my first post on CautionSmallParts.com: a primer in this terminology for people like you who are new to it all. I’ll link it for you and/or repost it here when I’ve done it.
I am so glad that it was what I thought it was. Phew. Maybe I’m not quite so past it as I thought.
But, yes, it would be terrific if someone would write a blog that gave novices the keys to the computer-speak codes. I actually suggested this to WordPress when their explanations on their Support pages were gobbledigook to the uninitiated. Couldn’t make head nor tail of their explanations of simple questions. They assumed knowledge that simply isn’t there for newcomers. So they updated their Home page and simplified their Support page explanations. And I am grateful for that. Mind you some of it is still a little complex. The fact that others were offering explanations in the Forums leant weight to my comments.
So go for it mate and absolutely do link me into it asap. I hope it is a huge success. I like to see people succeed. You just have to keep trying and keep going against the odds no matter how they seem to defeat you. I try to do this as much as I can – though some days my health defeats me. But not for long. As soon as I get the link I will click Follow like a devotee. lol I hope you don’t mind the lol but it lets me express that I am really happy or that I am grinning when I say something in case my written word doesn’t show it. i have been caught out before where words seemed to be more serious than intended. Texts can do that too I find. You get a text and think”what the . . .?” And after you have retaliated testily find that the intent was completely different. So please accept the lo in the spirit in which it is given. 🙂
PS: I knew the word was Termrinology – my brain had tucked it down in the filing cabinet in the cellar guarded by the alligator with the stairs out!!! Love Douglas Adams! Do you? Jud
Just spotted the typo! How funny. Terminology sheeeeesh!!