iOS, Android, PC •
I’m not a huge fan of Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, but that has more to do with bloat than the game itself. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but when a game keeps adding cards and rules and mechanisms, eventually my brain shuts down and I can’t handle it. Sure, I could play Ascension without the expansions, but then the same part of my brain will keep telling me that I’m missing out on “the big picture”. It’s a sickness.
That said, I know a lot of you love Ascension, so you’ll be happy to hear that its follow-up, Shards of Infinity from Stoneblade Entertainment, is coming to digital next year. You’ll also be happy to hear who’s behind the port. No, it’s not the Ascension-crafting Playdek. Instead we have Race for the Galaxy upstart, Temple Gates, taking the helm.
Now, I haven’t played Shards of Infinity so a lot of what I know is going to come directly from the press release. That means blurbs. Lots of blurbs. Next time we talk about SoI, I promise to keep the cut/paste to a minimum. For now, however:
One-hundred years ago, The Infinity Engine was shattered and its reality-bending shards have destroyed most of the world. Now, it falls upon you to gather your forces, defeat your adversaries, and rebuild the Infinity Engine! Will you survive? Shards of Infinity combines an unprecedented level of strategy and customization into one small box. Rather than competing for points, players must outlast their opponents and reduce their health to zero, which can be done in a number of ways. Each player starts the game with a basic deck of cards, and they can acquire new cards from a central display of six cards (as in Ascension) and add these new cards to their deck or use them immediately, depending on what they are. Every character starts with fifty health and zero mastery. On each turn, you can spend one gem (a.k.a., money) to gain a mastery point. The more mastery you have, the more powerful your cards become. This lets even the weak cards in your starting deck become more powerful as the game progresses. If you reach a total of thirty mastery, you can activate your Infinity Shard, which instantly defeats your opponent. As you acquire new cards, you can employ allies and champions to craft your strategy. Mercenary cards can be added to your deck as in other deck-building games or they can be played immediately from the center row for their ability; this adds even more drama to each player’s turn as a key mercenary flip can alter the very outcome of the game! Will you neutralize your opponents before they can fully master the Infinity Shard? With careful planning and aggressive gameplay, only one player can emerge the winner!
That’s a blurb! While that tells us a bit about the gameplay, we want to know what we can expect in the app. Fans of RftG know the kind of quality we can expect, and the list of features won’t surprise you, either.
- For 2-4 Players
- 30 minute playing time
- Build your armies by recruiting allies and champions from four unique factions.
- Launch surprise attacks on your foes by instantly deploying mercenaries.
- Unlock limitless power by mastering the Shard of Infinity
- Cross platform network multiplayer
- Local pass and play
Shards of Infinity will be coming to iOS, Android, and PC in Spring of 2019. The app will run $8 when it launches, but Temple Gates and Stoneblade are also looking to have a beta before that. No details yet, but we’ll keep you in the loop.
Please consider a login instead of friend codes…
And @Neumannium, I get what you are saying about bloat, but the beauty of a game like ascension is that it is designed to be played with 1-2 maechanics at a time. Sure, you could buy all the expansions and mix them all together like a crazy person, but keeping your sets limited makes it much easier to remember what is going on in any given game.
I know. I hope I got across that I consider this to be a personal failing and not a failing of the game itself.
Totally looking forward to this. I’ve had the physical game on my wishlist for a while now. Thought Temple Gates did a good job with RftG.
You did. I just had to open my yap anyways because I do feel that the piling on of mechanics in a game like Ascension feels different to me than, say, Magic.
I think Ascension plays best only one set at a time. But even still, I find the decisions less meaningful than in Star Realms (or even Cthulu Realms), and it is rare when I don’t have a good sense of who will win the game by turn 5.
I don’t know you anymore.
That’s not bloat, those are expansions.
Any news that Temple Gates will be releasing Roll for the Galaxy? It was something that was supposed to come out late last year.
Based on RftG I imagine they will do a good job, but Playdek’s app is really hard to beat, they have online multiplayer down pat.
Um, wow! I’m not sure I can fully imagine limitless power. This app will do that? What would I do with my life? Will it still work even if I close the app?
With limitless power comes limitless responsibility. I think I’ll pass thanks
I went to Temple Gates’ Roll for the Galaxy page and it still says a release date of 05/03/17.
So I think they kind of missed it (though that being said, there was a press release from them in September talking about it coming “soon”).
I’ve sent a message to Temple Gates asking for info. Might get a full interview…
Haven’t played it, but as someone that played hundreds of games of ascension on iOS when it was new, color me intrigued.
See? You are the journalist!
Didn’t say I’d actually follow through with the interview…
I played the physical version August / September time in a 4p game at a London on Board session.
You can see the Ascension influences straight away in terms of art style (non-memorable) and some of the mechanisms, although it plays very different to Ascension, especially as you attack other players directly, and it plays better with 3p or 4p.
I have never played the physical version of Ascension, so was surprised at how small the Shard cards were, and it was very hard to read the card text to work out what each card does.
I did like the mechanism where some cards grow more powerful and have different effects when you reach certain energy levels.
On the whole, I found it a much, much lengthier and protracted experience then Asension.