0.6 hours played
Written 1 year and 4 months ago
[i] My Experience [/i]
I tend to be interested in almost any non-roguelite/like single-player deckbuilders that I find, and I'd certainly never seen anything like [b]OscarWildeCard[/b] before. As a new resident of the Golden Palace apartment complex, you're looking to out-host your opponents at dinner parties by having the best guests on your side of the table. As you place your guests (cards), you'll slowly accumulate points towards the total required to win the duel. Winning can require a degree of strategy, as the guests that your opponent plays can alter your side of the table and vice versa.
I appreciated that the game had such a unique premise, the amusing style of the game's illustrations (done by a comic artist named Joe Phillips), and the wild card (WildeCard?) mechanic. At some point during every party (duel), each player can place one of their cards at the head of the table. Although each of your cards has a basic effect, cards also have a wild card effect that comes into play instead if they are played at the head of the table. These can often affect every card on the board, so it's important to wait and play these at the most opportune times. There are a few other compelling mechanics, such as the yellow lines or arrows on each side of your cards (if these lines are flush, both cards will receive a bonus) and the symbols on the tops of some the cards (I honestly can't remember exactly what these do), but overall each duel is relatively straightforward.
Where things fell apart for me was with the deckbuilding aspect of the game. I tend to try and find synergies and combos between the cards in my deck, and I enjoy trying to find ways to ensure that I get specific cards during a given match. Not only are these types of synergies fewer and farther between in [b]OscarWildeCard[/b], but any that you set up in a given game are more easily disrupted by your opponent. [b]OscarWildeCard[/b] is more of a game about observing and adapting to what's currently on the board than developing a deck with a self-contained strategy. While I can understand why some players might prefer this style of card game, it just isn't what excites me personally about the genre. For instance, in [b]Magic the Gathering[/b] I was always a "Johnny" player, trying to create decks that I hadn't seen before with cards I hadn't seen used.
If the deckbuilding aspect of card games isn't a priority for you and you enjoy this sort of moment-to-moment adaptation, [b]OscarWildeCard[/b] might be a good game for you. However, I'm personally more into deckbuilders like [b]System Crash[/b] or [b]Cardpocalypse[/b] that put more emphasis on deckcrafting and creating synergies and combos.