Khyle

I’ve only played Summoner Wars a few times IRL. I’ve been waiting for this to come out on iOS so I can get my fix. PlayDek has hit a home run with the visual elements to this game. The translation is flawless. There are some finer rules points that I thought would be difficult to have on the iOS version, but they’ve pulled everything off flawlessly.

Really, really well done. I love this game, and am eagerly awaiting the next version with hopefully more factions.

Having said all this, there are a few nits, that I hope will be revised soon.

Offline: The AI takes *way* too long to think out every step of every move. Also, this game really needs an undo – with all the options you have, if you drag too fast, and missed your target by 1/8″ it can ruin the game for you.

Online: It’s easy to find a game. And while it’s not specific to this game, it annoys me that I can’t start a game with a GameCenter friend who has that game but hasn’t logged on.

Lastly, there have been several games in which I’ve lost or the other person has resigned. I have yet to see the final moves in these cases.

Short Overview of Gameplay -> It’s a deck building game, where the goal is to gain victory points by killing monsters or buying cards with VPs associated with them. So you might buy a card that gives you more Runes (money), or Power (Heavy Militia).

Then depending on what you draw to your hand, you can buy other cards with special abilities. Or, if you have enough power, you can choose to defeat a monster.

On the translation -> Well done. The art looks good, the game play is smooth, and you have the ability to speed up or slow down game play. The game makes it clear if you can’t do anything else on your turn, which is helpful (especially as you are learning the game).

A couple nits on the interface: Dragging to the void (when you defeat monsters) or adding to your discard (when you buy cards) is a little touchy. You have to ‘throw’ the cards, and if you don’t get them to just the right area it doesn’t work. Like I said, a nit. The other thing that is a tad bothersome is that when you have constructs in play (they are always active, you don’t have to draw them), it is difficult to remember you have them to act upon. There is for instance, a card that allows you to draw an extra card to your hand. I always forget to do that before I start buying\fighting.

Then I notice after I played my hand, and I’m irritated.

Overall – I would definitely recommend a pickup of this game. I bought it for $.99 and immediately bought the expansion. Great quick gameplay.