So here’s a few firsts for the cog. It’s a mobile card game.. Yeah… I know… “wtf happened” right?  -_-  Bear with me, there is a good reason. The game is called Urban Rivals. The official site is here. Trailer below (yes.. a trailer for a mobile card game…).

Wow.. I’m sure glad that trailer was packed with actual gameplay and didn’t bother with movie clips.. ^^; You can play Urban Rivals for FREE on either the PC version or the mobile version. From here on I’m going to need to assume you have a basic understanding of either the Pokemon TCG or Magic: The Gathering AND a basic understanding of poker.

Urban Rivals is a simple battling TCG where players pit 4 characters against each other in quick 1v1 matches. Cards are played face-up with fixed stats and abilities visible by both parties along with a secondary pooled-resource called “pillz” (like a mana pool) which is fixed per match. Pillz are used by players as a multiplier on their card’s power and are “bet” in whatever amounts players see fit.

So why did I start playing this? During my day I sometimes find pockets of free time (bwahaha sif). Pockets that are too short to play anything serious, but long enough to consider playing anything at all. In these pockets I can now simply log in, tend to my farm, plant a few more… yeah… see what nearly happened there!.. ^^; My point is that this exact “casual pocket” of time probably would have been filled with a “ville” game clone by many people until now. An Urban Rivals match takes about 45sec-2mins. That competes with any of your compulsory “ville” maintenance micro times. :D It’s short enough that I’ve played someone in the space of walking 1 block to lunch. 1 block lunch pwnage! o.O

There’s enough of a system in Urban Rivals for me to feel rewarded as a “good” player. It’s certainly nothing near the complexity of Magic, but I definitely feel it’s a rule environment where I am rewarded  for being “good” by excelling. No blue shells here.

The silver lining is in the betting of Pillz. Even when an opponent might have better cards than me, it is entirely possible to out-play them with better fakes or reads of his play. Limping in with stronger characters or reading a limp and counter-limping (also constructing your deck to enable these kinds of strategies) all exist over and above the cards. Many cards with tiny bonuses might appear particularly weak initially until reaching a level of play where you can see the use for +1 attack in a battle. Many battles are lost by simply being read too easily, having the opponent manage their Pillz resource better than you, to have them finally comeback and win in the late-game.

I enjoy 1v1. It makes for the purest form of PvP. Chess, Go, Tennis, whatever it is, it’s only you and your opponent. It is never anyone else’s fault when you win or lose. Knowing that I am battling a human opponent live somewhere in the world each game is very satisfying. There are usually about 2000 concurrent users online each time I’ve played and I’m yet to spend more than 10 seconds getting a match.

TCG collectibility. 700+ cards. Check. Cards can also gain XP and level up actually changing their appearance and stats, which is a nice advantage being purely online affords over physical cards. Some nice card artwork and evolving story. Check. Slick microtransaction model for selling booster packs. Check.

So there it is. In my little pockets I find time to battle people. They often have deeper rosters padded with real money. Their cards are stronger. But I can still win. ^^ Why? Because I don’t care how deep their pockets run, they can’t buy a good poker face. :)

All the cool kids use French screenshots. ^_-

Xp, more Xp…. and then some.

Myth Wars reminds us that all good munchkins do have somewhere to go… which keeps them out of our games. ^_^

Still, its got good potential for a BETA. Using beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds with animated sprites over the top. Battles are done the old Final Fantasy style, running around until you get randomly drawn in, and even use a similar ATB battle system. Plethora of skills, stats, numbers, pets, and who-knows-what-else. @_@

A good option for people on lower spec comps. Not so graphic intensive, and given that battles aren’t in real time, a slower connection won’t kill you.

Go on.. join the dark side. The dark… number crunching… side. (-_-)

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Rusty Cog Archive: 12/10/06