shimei

Doomtown: Reloaded is an expandable card game that is accessible to 2-4 players. Giving an overlook to this game, the game theme was set in the wild west, in the town if Gomorra around the year 1860. Each player can take a role in 1 of the 4 factions (The Law Dogs, The Sloane Gang, The Morgan Cattle Company, The Fourth Ring). Like other card games, Doomtown: Reloaded comes with hundreds of cards in the base set for players to build their deck with. Each faction has 52 cards for players to use. The game has 4 phases which I will explain more in detail in this review. Gameplay time is roughly around 30 minutes for Intermediate/Advance players. Keep note that this game has an extremely steep learning curve. It might take hours for new players to just learn the game’s basic mechanics. Once you learn how to play, the real fun begins.

By starting the game, each player can choose a faction to play with. Each card set that comes with the faction has 4 different types of cards. Spades, Diamond, Hearts, and Clubs. Spades are referring to “dudes” in this game. It is the cards that players can hire to work for them and use for different purposes depending on the gameplay. The dudes have its own abilities and cost. Diamonds are usually location cards, referring to “deeds” in the game. The deed cards can bring players special abilities and advantages to the game. Each building/location has its own cost to build and income for players every round. Hearts in this game refers to “attach some sort of enhancement” to a dude. Either it is an item or a spell, it is something that can boost your dude’s ability. Clubs are action cards. The card itself has 1-time use abilities. Once it’s used, it will immediately be discarded into the discard pile. However, before using the action card, a player must pay the amount that is assigned to the card like the deed/dude cards.

The gameplay goes through 1 day that contains 4 phases. Gambling Phase, Upkeep Phase, High Noon Phase, and Sundown Phase. Gambling phase, players draw 5 cards and the player with the lowest hand wins the gamble. It will the effect the game play order as well. On the left side of each player’s board, there is a chart that players can see the ranks of the cards that they just draw to determine who’s the winner. Upkeep phase is the phase where the player collects money, hire dudes, pay wages and build deeds. Players can regard this phase as a “setup” phase for the day. The deeds you build, the dudes you hire will dramatically change the gameplay. High noon phase is probably the core of this game. In this phase, players should expect some intense gameplay. In other words, this is the phase where all the card actions, dude/ deed action, excitement, disappointment happens in the game. Control points and Influence points are now being introduced to the player. Players can control opponent’s deed depending on the control points on their dudes. The higher the control points a deed has, the higher or equal amount of influence points the dude requires to have in order to take control. The players will take series of action to maneuver around the town, call out fights, gain control points. Then this leads to the sundown phase. This is the phase where players count the total amount of control points/influence point that they gain in the previous phase. A player who has the highest control points wins. However, if players have the same amount, new day starts and players will repeat the 4 phase again.

To sum up with, Doomtown: Reloaded definitely brought to the player some solid gameplays. From deck building to strategic usage of each card, Doomtown: Reloaded did a great job on combining traditional poker card games to a western steam-punk card game.

Pros for this game: 1. Great value for the content in the box. 2. Contains a sample gameplay tutorial. 3.Great card and ability design.

Cons for this game: 1. Has a really steep learning curve for new players. 2. Keeping track of stats might be really difficult in this game. 3. Some terminology in this game might be confusing to people in different cultures.