Uno always reminds me of good times in college on the park bench with our beach umbrella and lawn chairs. So, when I found Uno Boost on Facebook, naturally it drew me in. Basically the difference between Uno and Uno Boost is that, when there are no playable cards in hand, it’s possible to choose from a selection of special cards from a panel to keep the turn going. Of course, the number of Boosts available is limited, which I actually appreciate it. Once I ran out, I felt like I got in the groove of playing with strategy. Playing and winning more hands earns coins which can be used to buy more Boost cards.

In Uno Boost for Facebook, players play Uno against coaches, cavemen, sea creatures, aliens, and other interesting characters of varying difficulty levels that react to winning, losing, and changes in the luck of the draw realistically, however repetitively. The social aspect includes leaderboards for winning streaks and score both as part of the weekly tournament and all time. Also, like many other Facebook games, there is a daily bonus which increases with each consecutive day of play. Unlike most Facebook games I have played lately, however, I am not seeing a limiting factor as of yet. I can play and play until I am ready to stop, not until I run out of energy or episodes, or until it was no fun without paid content.

Don’t forget, as is the case with all shapes and forms of Uno, don’t forget to say (in this case, click), “Uno,” before placing the second to last card. It’s a computer, they will always catch you, and put two additional cards in your hand. Play it now! And share a favorite Uno memory of your own below.

I remember also playing Uno on an airplane to Japan with my Danceguard Team in High School on our way to World Championships with a few players from a soccer team. Stay tuned… I might have a picture of that somewhere…

Enjoy!

Simple game play is matching of cards for points. There are power up cards that get you more chances to solve the variety of solitaire layouts. It is anything but traditional solitaire, though you get more points for removing cards from the boards in sequence.
The soothing new age music in the game was very well done. It is floaty enough to reduce stress. While not sounding ominous or churchy.

Heartwild Solitaire is a good value in a casual game. It looks amazing on iPad, and it is hard to put it down. You can get a good sized Free Lite version, but the full game is inly .99 cents.

Nightfall is a brand new deckbuilding card game to add to your collection from Alderac Entertainment Group. The game will be released in early 2011.

In Nightfall, players will compete to control all the creatures of the night. Werewolves, vampires, ghouls, and more will be used to gain control of the land.

The official site will have more information on Nightfall as it gets closer to release. But for now, join their facebook to have a chance to own Nightfall before it comes out via the “First 100 days” content.

Nightfall uses a chaining mechanic for play. Each card has a main color and two linking colors. Match the main color of a card to one of the linking colors and those cards can chain together.

The object of Nightfall is to put wounds into your opponents’ decks and end the game with the least amount of wounds.

Every day from January 1 through April 10th, AEG will be giving away a free full copy of Nightfall in a special preview collector’s box. Want!

The artwork on these cards are beautiful and I can’t wait to try to win with my creatures of the night!

With the current Australian-US exchange rate and the cost of plane tickets, I instead considered swimming to the merry US of A. It is interesting that, after dipping one toe into the chilly water at the Gold Coast, I had my own personal epiphany:

Jealousy is a bad colour on me.

And winter swimming is crazy.

Marvel’s Super Hero Squad Online is another premiere game at PAX this year, and the Gazillion booth (#3433) seems to be the place to be for our comic-loving, collectible card game enthusiasts. To celebrate the announcement of Super Hero Squad Online’s Collectible Card Battle system, the first 25,000 people at the show will receive a free Starter Deck inside their PAX swag bag.

Additional decks and exclusive chase cards will be distributed at the Gazillion booth, where the company will be sponsoring a Super Hero Squad Online card tournament. Winning players will be privy to one of three prize packages from Alienware.

If you can’t get close to the Gazillion booth, do not stress – there will also be a live Super Hero Squad tournament located in the Tabletop Area of The Conference Center.

In summary: not only will there be brand new Marvel characters and registrations for the closed beta, but there will also be this live CCG tournament based upon the cards, art and rules of the in-game Card Battle System.

WHAT: Premiere: Super Hero Squad Online PvP Combat Live Collectible Card Game Tournaments

WHEN: During the Penny Arcade Expo – September 3-5 2010

WHERE: Gazillion Entertainment Booth (# 3433)

Oh dear, I am starting to feel envious again …..

PAX convention veterans and newbies should head on over and check it out!

It’s called TweetMTG. And it’s going to be a delicious addition to your weekend multiplayer gaming. That is, if you can tune in for the weekend of July 31-August 1.

How do you join in? Simply follow @TweetMTG on Twitter. Or, for the Twitter-impaired, watch the feed on Wizards.com. From there, get ready for the Multiverse to unfold in ways you’ve never seen before.

Top minds in Magic R&D have compiled some of the finest and most plot-foiling effects they could find and will unleash them on the TweetMTG Twitter feed every few minutes for an entire weekend. Before each game, each player joins the team of one of the five Planeswalkers (Ajani, Jace, Liliana, Chandra, or Garruk) from the Magic 2011 core set. Some tweets provide benefits for players on a certain Planeswalker’s team. There are also a few tweets that are unaligned and will affect everyone equally.

This is a move that is beautifully creative, and I can’t wait to see how much it is going to help or hinder the game.

So hop on board and enjoy this small step that hybridizes collectible card gaming and social networking. For more information, head on over to Wizards.com!

These decks have been created mainly for people who have been playing Duels of the Planeswalkers online and want a smooth way into playing Magic: The Gathering itself. Wizards of the Coast have come up with a starter deck for most of the mana colours*, and these decks are constructed so that beginners and online fans alike will enjoy them. 

Decklists and descriptions below are from Wizards, and link to Wizards of the Coast’s community blog.

Hands of Flame – The Chandra Nalaar Deck

Burn them all with Chandra’s red deck.  Put your opponent on the defensive, then unload an awesome arsenal of fiery destruction.

Teeth of the Predator – The Garruk Wildspeaker Deck

Harness the power of Garruk’s green deck.  Take advantage of its abundant resources and devastate opponents with awesome creatures.

Thoughts of the Wind – The Jace Beleren Deck

Manipulate the fabric of the Multiverse with Jace’s blue deck.  Watch the fumbling attempts of your opponents as you counter their spells and turn their creatures against them.

Ears of the Elves – The Nissa Revane Deck

Elvish dominance continues with Nissa’s black and green deck.  Decimate your opponents with a legion of elite elvish fighters.

Eyes of Shadow – The Liliana Vess Deck

Rain down despair with Liliana’s black deck.  Master the forces of malevolence and death, and punish opponents with a suite of discard effects.

Sounds like another fun summer activity after the Magic World Tournament in Puerto Rico last month. Looking forward to hearing more about our readers using this deck!

* Many thanks to Brian for pointing out that Wizards have not released a white deck for this series.

Starting May 12, 2010, the newest expansion of the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG), Unleased, will be released. This set will feature more than 90 cards including six new Pokemon Prime cards, including Tyranitar and Steelix. Also being released are the legendary dogs, Entei, Raikou, and Suicune, which will appear in pairs on Pokemon Legend cards. The new theme decks will be Chaos Control and Steel Sentinel. The theme decks will sell for about $12 while booster packs are $3.79 per pack. For more information, visit www.pokemon.com.

I’m not big on board games lately, but at a party someone took out Chrononauts and it changed my view on card games.

Chrononauts is a time travel card game, where you play as a time traveler with a secret mission, a secret identity and the job of fixing Paradoxes. Your specific card has a series of events that you will need to have happen in order to win the game, although there are a few different ways that a player can win the game.  And, of course your mission will conflict with what the other players will need to accomplish.  Along the way you will also collect Artifacts that you need to win.  Winning allows your character to return to their own time.

So, how does a Paradox happen? Other players are able to change history by adjusting the TimeLine (the arrangement of the cards that acts like a game board).

The game itself does not take too long to play and was so much fun we started a second game right away. This is a game that I would consider a staple for a game ground, and one that any group of people can play and have fun with it: no matter the skill level. You may even learn something new about history!

Some new cards have been released into the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Let’s see what’s in store for all you trading card fanatics out there…

The Duelist Pack Collection Tin 2010 is perfect for players that want to add popular cards to their collections and test their luck at booster packs. Included in the tins is the “Starlight Road” card, 3 packs of “Duelist Pack-Yusei 2″, 1 pack of “Ancient Prophecy”, and a special 3-card all-foil pack with three of Yusei’s favorite cards from the animated series. A beginner’s guide is also included.

A new structure deck called Machina Mayhem includes 11 brand-new cards and gives players the cards they need to play big monsters to dominate the game. This structure deck introduces the “Machina” series of Machine-type monster which you can equip to other machines to pump them up. Machina Mayhem includes “The Big Saturn”, a card from the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga and is one of the biggest Machines to grace the game. The deck is 40 cards, including one Ultra Rare and 2 Super Rare foil cards, and is available for about $10 at most hobby and retail stores.

And a quick congratulations to Satoshi Kato from Tokyo, Japan who out-played the field of 716 other players to claim the title of champion at the Shonen Jump Championship at Nashville.

And these enemies will later decide to befriend you just so they can play this game and kick your puny attack score repeatedly out of revenge or retribution.

Players: 3-10, depending on how many expansion/theme decks are in your possession, and whether or not you have enough recreational leave available from your employer.
Ages: 12+
Genre: Strategy/RPG
Playing Time: 30 minutes minimum.
Manufacturer: Steve Jackson Games

BUY

While it has been available since 2001, Munchkin has long been considered a required staple in any game library, simply because there aren’t that many games that will have such a profound effect on players without a console and television acting as a conduit. Munchkin manages to inspire the best and worst out of all of us with a very simple premise: “kill the monsters, steal the treasure, stab your buddy.”

This card game is an ingenious spinoff of the RPG genre, recreating the elements of dungeon-crawling that are synonymous with Dungeons and Dragons. For those who have been brought up on D&D or even any RPG game developed by Bioware or Blizzard, you will recognise a lot of those elements in here (picking a class, a race, and levelling up after killing monsters). However, many of these role playing elements are left to chance, with the cards deciding if you will be an orcish bard or a half-elf thief. Leaving this up to chance may be detrimental to the player’s ability to successfully apply traditional strategy techniques, but it also contributes to this game running for an hour on average, although some people have claimed to have had a game that has continued for eight hours.

It is far too easy to make your friends fight your battles for you...

When you have your turn, you’ll kick down a door (draw a Door card) in order to explore a “room”. Most times, you will find a monster that you have to choose to fight or run away from. However, this door card might be a character class, a race card, or even a curse that makes you lose your armour or allows another player to take an item. If you have the good fortune to pick a monster, the fighting mechanics are simple: add up your level with your bonuses (armour, class, etc.), and see if this total outranks the level of your monster. If it does, you win, the monster dies, and you get to “loot the body”, which allows you to draw a number of Treasure cards. You also get to go up a level, which is the primary goal of the game – the first to reach level 10 wins the game.

Of course, if you lose, you die, and your fellow players can loot your body.

This is where the ability to stab your friends right royally in the behind comes into play, and it is no secret that your fellow players will be happy to help you in order to further hinder your efforts to reach level 10. They can help you to defeat any monster or curse (after negotiating for a share of the treasure, of course) or they can play whatever curses are in their hand to make the monster more difficult for you to beat.

Munchkin can be considered quite an illogical, random game where the inability to plan for the long term can be a turn-off. However, the jokes make up for it, and a fast-paced game where you have a limitless potential to cause your friends misery far outweighs the lack of careful game play.

And, of course, the primary reason I can think of is that this game gains its audience by its own self-deprecating humour, which somehow makes it accessible to a wide demographic. With many alternate themes of the original card game now available (including Munckin Fu, Space Munckin and Munchkin Booty) as well as a plethora of expansions for the original Munchkin deck, it is hard to foresee anyone being genuinely bored with this game.