This RPG solitaire card game is one part strategy, one part luck, and a whole lot of fun.
You have a single deck of cards that is made up of your allies, enemies, equipment, potions, and other enchantments that effect cards placed on the board. At the time of this review, there are 8 decks available, 3 are provided with the game while the remaining are available through in-app purchase. There was also a promo for a 9th mini expansion. You can select any combination of decks to play with, or one at random.
Each turn you draw a card and place it on the board, if able. Enemies get placed on their side of the board, and your allies go to your own side. The game is very simple, if both of your stats are higher than the enemy, it is killed. If one is the same, no one dies. There are affects that some cards have that can further manipulate the battle such as weakening a stat, sliding them up or down the board, instant kill, and even returning them to the deck. Equipment and special square modifier cards can bestow these affects to cards placed on their square, as well. The strategy comes in setting your cards correctly and utilizing the various abilities and effects well while competing with the luck of the draw. If you fill the 5 enemy spaces, every enemy you draw after that automatically gets through to the castle. It is entirely possible to loose the game within the first 6 turns. However, this is a solitaire game, so losing will occur more often than not, though typically not as bad as that example. Subsequently, if your side is full of allies and you draw another one, you kill all enemies and win.
When you get into the game, it seems complicated at first, but there is a tutorial to help you learn to play, and as you keep playing, it's easy to learn what effects all the symbols have in play. Having a heavy random mechanic sometimes makes it seem that luck overshadows strategy, and in some cases it really does. But on a good shuffle, or with a long game, it really shines. There is a good mix of different types of cards to use to achieve your win, so you do need to put some though into your moves if you have any hope of beating luck. But the main thing to remember is this is a solitaire game. Losing is commonplace.
Thankfully, this is a universal app, so we users of multiple i devices don't need to repurchase anything. I've only played it on the iPad, so far, and it looks beautiful. The cards have a simple design, beautiful artwork, along with the gameboard. The game has nice ambient music and the sound effects are good. Overall, it's presented very well.
There are no game modes or any variant ways to play, it's just the standard game. It does have OpenFeint integration with leaderboards and 24 achievements based on how much gold you finish with, what you kill, and other accomplishments like winning a game with no monsters on the board.
This was one of the first app purchases I made for the iPad. It is fun to manipulate the cards and I like the RPG flair. The expansion decks are reasonably priced and add a lot to the replay value, aside from the hope that you'll actually win the next game. Anyone who likes card and board games and has no problem with low winning odds should get great enjoyment from this game.