A lot of my tabletop gaming takes with just two players. Sometimes I can get my wife to play a game after kids go to bed, sometimes I’m available for games at a moment’s notice and only a single friend is available. I do play games with my kids, and it would seem my 6 year old is slowly being drawn in to CCGs. I think most of it is the excitement of opening packs, but so many games have similar mechanics and ideas that it’s easy to tell him “this part is just like this other game.”
So, if a 2 player card game has an interesting hook, I’m up for giving it a try. That hook can be theme, unique mechanic, and crazy card interaction, whatever. If it has something I haven’t seen done in a card game before, I’m more likely to want to play it. Psi Wars has that hook.
The difficult part for me as a reviewer is that I’m playing a prototype. In most cases that’s not a problem, but one of the biggest appeals of Psi Wars is its visual table presence. All of the cards have a 3D holographic effect. However, for prototyping, the cards are all standard, non-3D with no holographic effect. It makes sense. I get it. For a small print run of review copies, you save money wherever you can. I just can’t judge what many will consider to be the defining trait of the game. That said, let’s get in to the game itself and I will circle back around to the 3D card effects in my final thoughts.
Psi Wars
Designed by Michael and Adeev Wohl
Theme
Far in the future, humanity has been nearly wiped out. You are one such surviving human. You have been tasked to help reestablish order on behalf of the Galactic Alliance. They have given you the knowledge of creation. However, you are not alone. Others have this knowledge of creation as well. So it’s a race to build your army and destroy your opponent’s lab in order to control the planet and restore order.
Fairly straightforward setting placing you and your opponent at odds. The 4 means of creating units are Bioacceleration, Neurogenesis, Digital Splicing, and Material Animation. The 3 types of units are Beings, Cyborgs, and Robots. I really like the simplicity here.
Beings are biological organisms with living tissue. People, animals, and creatures all fall in to this category.
Robots are strictly mechanical. The nature of their programming might change, but they are made up entirely of mechanical components.
Cyborgs are somewhere in between. These could be modified beings, or robots with biological brains.
A great deal of thought and care has been put in to what of the 4 creation types are combined at what ratio to produce the different units. This is actually one of my favorite parts about the game. “How would we create a cyborg like this?” or “What would this kind of robot need when being built?” I love when a game gets attention to detail right with its theme, and Psi Wars does this very well.
It also explains how each player has a “life total”. It’s not that your units are attacking the opponent, they are trying to destroy the lab. The lab has so many Hit Points before being destroyed. Again, it’s a small detail, but it shows that there is practical thought instead of just giving each player a health total and calling it a day.
Gameplay
There are 4 types of cards:
Creation Units – these are the 4 means of creating that I mentioned above. Digital Splicing, Neurogenesis, Bioacceleration, and Material Animation. These are the resources you must have access to in play to play other cards from your hand.
Battle Units – Beings, Robots, and Cyborgs. These are the characters you put in to play that attack and defend. There is a blue stripe down the left side of these Battle Unit cards so you can quickly identify them. Each of these units has different stats along with an ability. More on that in a little bit.
Equipment – This is gear that can be used by your Battle Units. Each unit can only have one equipment at a time. These give stat bonuses and some conditional effects so be sure to read the ability text as well.
Power – These are cards that can be played for a specific action or ability directly from your hand. Some resolve immediately and get discarded. Some are placed on characters for lasting effects until a condition has been met.
At the start of each turn you will be able to play a Creation Unit card to add to your available resources. You can then create a Battle Unit, Equipment, or activate a Power card by ‘depleting’ (tapping) the needed Creation cards. The creation cost is clearly depicted on the upper left corner of all cards.
After you’re done creating, you get a chance to equip and equipment you’ve created. Then it’s time to attack.
The way attacking and defending plays out is cool. Each unit has a green, blue, and red square on their card with strength and defense stats in each square. The green square represents Cyber Attack strength and defense. The blue is Psionic Attack strength and defense. The red is Physical Attack strength and defense.
The attacking player chooses up to 2 characters to attack. Defending player can choose up to 2 blockers. Attacking player then chooses if they are attacking with Cyber Attack or Psionic Attack stat. Compare that chosen strength stat to the defenders defense stat of the same type. Both players then roll the d6 combat modifier die, adding the die’s value to their strength or defense stat. If the Defender is not knocked out, they get to then counter attack with their choice of Cyber or Psionic in the same way, rolling the die as well. If neither character was knocked out, then another attack and counterattack occurs, but with the Physical Attack stats this time. There are some loopholes in the rules about types of units that can or cannot be attack with certain stats if they do not have those capabilities, but those are clearly laid out in the rules.
If no blockers are declared, an attacker will simply deal its Physical Attack strength in damage to the opposing lab’s Hit Points.
And that’s basically it. Players keep taking turns going back and forth until one player’s lab Hit Points reaches zero.
For Parents
I think Psi Wars’ mechanics make it a great game for kids. The easy to understand creation costs. The limited ability text doesn’t give cards an opportunity to be overly complicated. There are lots of rock, paper, scissors type effects with focusing on what types of units you have and are in combat with one another. The added die to combat presents an element of luck, which I prefer when I play with my kids. Let’s be real, we’re not at a point where my 6 or 8 year olds are going to out-strategize me or have better tactical play. Not at this age anyways. But adding a die to combat makes good choices less of a sure thing and bad choices have a slim margin of success.
Combine that with the fact that there are no tokens to keep track of. That’s a breath of fresh air. There are many 2 player card games I love. So many of them require status tokens, effect tokens, damage tokens, or some other kind of token. That’s fine. I’m not against tokens. But it is nice to have a game that is simply the cards and dice. No additional tokens or boards needed. That makes set up and tear down time a breeze.
I wouldn’t say the artwork is graphic or ‘scary’. There is a violent or grotesque nature to just about every card. Lots of tendrils, tentacles, teeth, claws, blades, and whatever else. I guess the best way to put it is that there is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness in the card art. Thematically, this future is a messed up place. I mean, it says that humanity has been almost eradicated. And with these creature running around, it’s easy to see why. But there is no valiant, friendly-looking, good guy unit. The closest thing to that is the Bellarn Cyborg. It’s not a criticism on the art, but being a family-friendly review site, I need to at least let you know that it’s for each parent to decide if artwork like this is acceptable for your family. For mine, it’s no different than the aliens they see in Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy or some of the creatures in Lord of the Rings.
Final Thoughts
The gameplay is good. It’s solid. It’s just unique enough that it doesn’t feel like “just another 2-player card game”. I think it could get relatively stale after a few plays, but I’ve been told that there are mechanics on the way in future expansions and packs to expand on what we already have.
I am a little concerned about the 3D effect on every card. With your own Creation Units and Battle Units in play, your opponent’s as well, and the cards in your hand, that’s a lot of holographic cards you’re constantly looking at. I don’t think it would feel overwhelming, but it was one of my first concerns. The text is pretty clear on the 1 holographic sample card I received. It is slightly less clear than a standard card, but I don’t think that difference would make any of the cards unreadable. That may be a testament to the font size and style used for this game.
That said, I really want to see a table full of these cards. It’s the kind of game that will grab the attention of people walking by at a convention or game shop.
The combat method is unique, and I like it. The units can use Cyber or Psionic Attacks… but at the end of the day, they all put up their dukes. The dice in combat keeps things unpredictable and casual. The appearance of the cards is not like anything else on the market. Psi Wars does some new things and does some familiar things well. With a reasonable price point for a game like this and obtainable funding goal, I think this game will succeed and could fit a nice niche in any game library.
You can check out their Kickstarter campaign now, and follow them over on Facebook to stay up to date with what’s going on.
Be the first to comment