Have you ever wanted to control and fight with giant beasts from another dimension? Of course you have, we all wanted too at one point, the bigger the better of course. So here comes Tridek – Creature of Galena, letting you fill the shoes of leader of these monsters, that can be summoned in the form of cards to your deck, draw them, play them, and watch them come to life. It’s quite satisfying.
So why haven’t you heard of Tridek? Well it’s one of these new-fangled Kickstarter crowd funding games, and as of writing this there the funding period just closed, and unfortunately not reached their funding goal of $55,000. But thankfully they are still going ahead with development which is great to hear, and they are planning a mobile version. It’s sad to see a game that has potential canned just because crowed funding didn’t work; more developers should try and find the funding if they can.
So Tridek is a trading card game that if you have ever played any before, you will feel right at home here, Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon, the rules are a little different, but the premise is the same. You have a deck, you draw cards, you play them and then you unleash some massive creature to bite the head off of your opponent, well that’s in my head anyway. So, Tridek does away with a part that most players of other trading card games are used too, Resource cards. There is no mana or land cards to be found in Tridek, what there is though, are three different coloured crystals, Red, Blue and Green, each from Fire, Water and Forest monsters, and at the start of the match you have 5 of each. Now you’re asking, why only 5? Well that’s simple, each card has a crystal cost, but also has a crystal yield, so if one monster costs 3 blue crystals, it will yield 2 red crystals. This is an interesting new dynamic that is defiantly only found in Tridek, it allows for a different kind of play, a different kind of resource management, one that will push players of Magic or Pokemon to rethink how they deal with this resource and this is something a new Trading card game NEEDS to stand out from the rest.
Now we get to the bread and butter of the game, the card types and Creatures. Creatures at the moment are looking great for a brand new game, having a good amount of 200+ is amazing for an indie game like this, considering each new expansion of Magic has around 200 as well, they have managed to come up with a similar amount. Not only this but you have two other cards, Support and Hacks, both are perfect for the more devious players out there who want to work different strategies into their game. Hack cards raise your creatures attack or defences, or lower them for an opponent creature or even give them a new ability, making it easy to topple a once formidable foe, or turn your own whelp into a fierce creature. Support cards are much different, whilst a hack will stay active for much longer; a support card will only stay active for one turn, or be placed into the block slot of the game board, being activated when needed. When you couple all this with the limited playing field, only three creatures and three blocks being allow at one time, this game becomes a lot more tactical. Gone is summoning as many creatures as possible to rush your opponent, you have to think carefully.
With the changes to the card system, more things had to be cut, of course here we have the deck number, which has been cut down to 30. The usual 60 of other games has been cut down due to the lack of resource cards. Winning is much different too, the players don’t have life; no one does, so you don’t get to beat your opponent to death with an array of creatures. Instead we have VP, standing for victory points, defeat a creature, and gain some VP, once you hit 30 you win. This is the one part I’m not sure if it works, I mean once you defeat 3 creatures you’re almost at the needed 30, so it makes matches a lot faster than what some people are used too, if you dislike long matches though this game is perfect for you.
The tutorial that is given In the game aims to ease a new player into the game, which it does wonderfully, you can be into a match within the first 20 minutes of play time and be able to hold your own against others, the in games shop makes this even better with buying boosters or see what cards are on sale. The cards on sale especially is a great feature, three cards are on sale that change every so often, you can buy each for a discounted price, or all three for an even lower price, it works fantastic. So far you don’t even need to pay for them with real money either, you just win matches and get them, I’m not sure how they are planning on funding this game now the kickstarter didn’t go great, but I’m preparing for the charges to he found here.
Tridek is a very different game to other trading card games out there at the moment, and it separates itself with a method of playing that works well for both people who are experienced or new to the Trading card genre. It’s refreshing to not have to worry about resource cards too, but having to tackle with the new system here was difficult, but it was great to find cards that worked together with their crystal yield. Tridek is a game that right now sets itself apart with its different style of play, which is great, but with other Trading card games making the transition from table top to computer, it will be interesting to see how it fairs.
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