Ascension:Chronicle of the Godslayer

[GromBloodboy]

Any tried this game? I was at a FLGS today, and saw it. Looked pretty cool. Called my Pops and had him check out some reviews. Mixed comeback. Some say good, others say no strategy, just luck, others say weak components. Has anyone seen it or played it, and would you suggest picking it up. Here is the link to the site.

http://www.ascensiongame.com/

[jschild]

It's basically like Dominion and Thunderstone.

However, both Thunderstone and Dominion allow you to take multiple cards to build your deck to achieve your goals. You cannot easily do this with Ascension. All the monsters and hero cards are randomly shuffled together. Build a good deck to kill monsters. Well sorry, you might end up with only heroes and constructs in the middle for several rounds with no monsters to kill. Build a deck to buy lots of VP generating constructs and heroes? Sorry, you might get multiple rounds of nothing but enemies in the middle.

Does this make it bad? good? Neither, it just makes it different. It has zero setup time so you can jump right in and start playing. However, there is almost zero player interaction (it essentially amounts to forcing your opponent to discard his construct or constructs).

I like it for a quick game, but I'd rather play Dominion (better overall mechanic), Thunderstone (theme is far more consistent and also has a more reliable mechanic), or GoSu (tons more player interaction).

[B:T:L Matt]

My girlfriend and I enjoy this game a lot. As jschild mentioned, it is quick to setup and takes roughly 35-40 minutes to play which you can't beat if you want to play something, but can't devote too much time. The artwork in my view is crap compared to other card games. It doesn't have the depth and strategy of other deckbuilding games, but it is still fun to play when you want to satisfy a limited time, game playing itch.

[Raider30]

I love Ascension. As mentioned it is quick and easy to get set up, games go quickly and scale easily. Definitely easy enough for as young as 8 to play. Our games are always close, which is a nice bonus. It is extremely rare to totally run away with a game.

The new fate mechanic from the expansion does add some flair, but IMO, there aren't enough of the fate cards to make much difference once you shuffle the expansion into the main game. They come too few and far between most of the time.

There is also an ipad app which is really good. The AI on the hard level does a great job playing tough. It does not yet include the expansion though.

- Raider30

[B:T:L Matt]

For anyone interested to know, Gary Games is releasing a full sized expansion for Ascension on November 25, 2011 titled, Storm of Souls. It appears that this set will introduce new play mechanics and an "event" card type.

[GamerHusband]

I have this game on my Ipad. It is a lot of fun. I recommend it to everyone. They have also released the first expansion as well.