boardgaming in photos: Escape, Ascension, Epic, Lords of Runeterra

 

13 Dec 2020. When I brought out Escape: The Curse of the Temple again, I realised I really was rusty. I have played it many times with elder daughter Shee Yun. We have done all the modules in both the expansions. This time, it took us a few attempts to win. We were only playing the very basic mode, without even the Curses or Treasures modules which come with the base game. 

Younger daughter Chen Rui was still afraid of the soundtrack which comes with the game, so we used the non-scary soundtrack I composed. I teased her, aren't you a bit too old to be still using this non-scary soundtrack? 

This was one rather extreme game of Ascension I played against Han. This was his last turn. The victory points had been exhausted (0 star with red glow at the centre). Han was at 54VP (small star along the top edge) and I was at 10VP (star at bottom left). He had 13 runes (grey triangle) and 57 attack (red circle)! There were no monsters in the centre row for him to attack now. If he spent the 57 attack on the 2-health cultists, he would be defeating them 28 times! Over the many years of playing Ascension, I think this was the first time I encountered such a situation. 

The reason was this specific card. This allowed Han to treat all Mechana heroes as constructs, i.e. they could stay on the table and didn't have to placed in the discard pile. Because of this he had many Mechana cards in play every turn. 

Completely slaughtered... 193 vs 63. More than 3 times my score.  

This is Epic on iOS. I own the physical game, but have only played it a few times. I remember it fondly as a quick and fast-changing game. However I never spent much time to learn it better and play it more. I noticed the app version was free-to-play, so I downloaded it to give it a go. It turned out to be a disappointment. It was not well polished. Not having bells and whistles was forgivable. What annoyed me was the user interface design. It was workable, but it made the game feel tedious to play. I don't remember the physical game being so much hassle. During battle, both players have opportunities to play cards until both pass. In the app, this was implemented in such a way that I had to press some button a number of times before I could get one single fight resolved. It wasn't smooth at all and I think it could have been done better.  

My biggest gripe is the speed of the AI. It takes a long time to think. I can't stand that. Simplistic or the lack of visual effects and sound effects do affect the user experience, but these are not problems with gameplay. The AI speed and the user interface (UI) design are the showstoppers for me. One more example of why I don't like the UI is how I view the details of a card. When I bring up the card details screen, I have to click a button to close it. A better way would be to let me touch and hold the card to call up a details box, and when I lift my finger, dismiss the details box. Alternatively when the details box is open, just let me touch anywhere to close it, instead of requiring I press a specific button. All these annoyances add up to stop me from enjoying the actual game. It felt like a poor game. This app version of the game really can use some refinement. 

Legends of Runeterra is a very different story. This is a digital-only 2-player card game based on the League of Legends universe. It has beautiful artwork, impressive visual effects and sound effects, and good UI design. The user experience is excellent, and reminds me of Hearthstone. All these are games of the same genre. It is two players building decks then going head-to-head trying to reduce the other's health to zero. 

It is probably grossly unfair for me to compare Epic with the other two titles. Its production budget and development team are likely much smaller than the other two. It doesn't make sense to compare a low-budget indie film with a Hollywood summer blockbuster. Still, I think the UI and AI speed in Epic need to be improved. 

In the screenshot above, there are many keywords in yellow on the character card. When you touch a keyword, an explanation pops up. 

The onboarding experience of Legends of Runeterra is excellent. I don't know the universe or the characters, but it is still fun for me. It's just another generic fantasy setting to me. I'm not sure I will play this for long though, because I'm too lazy to do deck-building. I used to play Hearthstone, and that didn't last very long for this reason. I find Legends of Runeterra rather similar to Hearthstone. Some elements are exactly the same. 

Every round players receive mana, which is then spent to play cards. Some cards are characters, and others are spells. Spells have one-time effects. Characters stay in play and are used to attack your opponent and to defend yourself against attacks. In the first round you get one mana, in the second round two mana, and so on. Just like Hearthstone. One difference is that up to three unspent mana can be carried over to the next round, and such mana can be spent on spells. Another difference is the round structure. In Hearthstone, when it is your turn, you gain mana, play cards and attack. After that your opponent takes his turn. In Legends of Runeterra, when a round starts, both players gain mana, and then they take turns performing actions, until both pass. Within one round, only one player gets the attack token and may initiate attacks. The other player may only defend. So players only get to attack every other round. 

I recently purchased the Brink of War expansion in the Race for the Galaxy app. This is the third and last expansion in the first story arc. I have been playing this a lot, so it's well worth the money spent. The main element introduced in Brink of War is prestige, a special and rarer type of victory point, which can help you earn extra regular victory points. The expansion also includes many interesting and quirky cards. 

After adding this expansion, I sometimes run into problems. Occasionally the AI's take a long time to think. Once in a while, the app crashes, and I can't resume the game which is in progress. I am forced to start a new game. That's a shame. If this happens, it is usually when the game is building up to a climax. I wonder whether my iPad is just too old for this. Too much processing. With all three expansions in play, Race for the Galaxy is quite complex. Also I prefer to play with the maximum number of players, i.e. with three other AI's, and I set all the AI's to the strongest level. I'm now going to try playing with just two other AI's. Let's see if this helps avoid crashes. 

In the screenshot above, I scored 57VP, which I thought was respectable. However one of the AI's scored 61VP. I had two 6-cost developments which scored 11VP each, which was decent. The winning AI mostly scored via prestige and consumption.