Mystic Vale

I have played two deck building games in the past, Dominion and Slay the Spire. I generally like the genre and the different mechanics intertwined to create the game more interesting. Mystic Vale is an unique game. it uses advancements and vale cards. advancements are pieces of a card that are crafted into a card in your deck while vale cards act like relics in Slay the spire. In general there are 4 types of resources, decay and growth, blue dots(they act as money to buy advancements), spirit symbols, and finally victory points. each resource has different purpose. the decay and growth determines how much cards you can plant in your planting phase. blue dots act as currency to buy advancements, the spirit symbols lets you buy vale cards. victory points are the points you need to gain to win, also it determines when the game ends. I like the game but I don't think I will be playing this like I used to in my recent 2 weeks. There are 3 main problems and some minor problems 1. cards are unbalanced Advancement cards with growth symbols is way overbalanced. in theory you cycle through your starter deck in 5 turns. 3 if you pushed. adding growth symbols not only reduces the turns needed to cycle through your deck, but it also reduces the risk of spolining when pushing, resulting in more pushes accelerating the cycle faster. Not only that, because of the unbalances between the advancements and vale cards, spirit symbols are way to weak to invest in. If Azure Lake or Stream of Vigor is in view well spring is worth buying, but besides that spirit symbols are just too weak. in the extended vp game, they are too weak against strong engine cards with blue victory points, especially aurora. in the standard vp game, they give too small victory points, and the game ends before you get to buy vale cards that gives you 6 or 7 victory points. Because the growth symbols are just too overpowered, in every game you are forced to make an engine trimming down decay symbols and growth symbols. you cannot go directly towards bigger victory point cards like dreadcoil cobra or hive swarm because they cannot give you enough victory points if you havent trimmed your decay. 2. Advancements and Vale cards come out in random This problem is deeply intertwined to problem 1. In general, cards coming out in random order gives you more space to think and adjust your plans to what you are given. But because the cards are unbalanced, It only leads to the game tipping over to oneside. In general the games go out like this. I spend my turn buying a garbage card, the commons are filled, filling up good cards for the opponent to buy, they buy that card, the commons get filled, only to end up me buying more garbage cards etc. 3. the amount Victory Point pool doesnt seem to be thought into The game ending condition for Dominion or the bosses in slay the spire all seem very thought into. The more I play the game, the more interesting it gets. For this game it is different, I just don't get how the Victory point pool size was determined. the game ends too early in standard VP pool, the game gets too sloppy in Extended size. That's all 3 major problems. For the minor problems, the first problem is that you get random amount of money from 2 to 5 (6 if you've pushed) in your first turn. If there is a OP card in your commons, and you start with 6 money, the game tips over quickly. The game is already random enough, even the planting phase adds randomness to the game. Second problem is that the position of advancements are generally useless. Who cares if lifebringer seed is in the top third of the card or in the middle or the bottom? It only adds more randomness to already random game. After writing all this, what I think is the main problem is the fact that the advancements are unbalanced, which leads to more randomness in the game, not the kind of randomness you adjust and adapt to, but the randomness that makes you frustrated. All in all I liked the game, It was on sale and it cost me about 4$, I've spent good time on it, it had interesting features, beating the hard AI was fun, but i don't think I will be playing this game on a regular basis just because of its randomness. If I am wrong about my analysis of this game feel free to comment and correct me.

게임이 매우 긍정적이라는 평가를 받고 있음에도 한글 평가가 전무해 짧게 작성해봅니다. 키드덱빌딩 게임이지만 투명 카드들을 조합해 카드의 능력을 업그레이드 할 수 있다는 점이 특이합니다. 게임 내 튜토리얼 메뉴를 이용하면 게임에 대한 안내를 받을 수 있지만, 영어라 귀찮으신 분들은 아래 링크의 동영상을 한 번 보시면 대략적인 감은 잡으실 수 있습니다. 영어의 문제를 떠나서도 실물 카드의 메카니즘을 동영상으로 보시면 한결 이해가 빠르실 것 같습니다. 저도 그랬거든요..^^ https://youtu.be/didqhmMRoD4?feature=shared 카드별로 기능이 복잡하지 않고 디스크립션이 많지 않아 영어가 불편하신 분들도 크게 무리없이 게임을 즐길 수 있습니다. 스팀 친구들과의 온라인 멀티플레이도 가능하고, 화면 공유 4인 플도 가능합니다. 이 말은 같은 공간에 있는 사람 최대 4명이 추가 게임 없이도 한 사람이 구매한 게임으로 함께 멀티플레이를 즐길 수 있다는 얘기죠. 친구들과 게임을 하기 위해 추가 구매가 필요치 않은 점이 좋았습니다. 멀티가 아니더라도.. 카페 같은데서 AI와 느긋하게 한 두판 즐기기에도 괜찮습니다. 한 판에 45분 정도 소요된다고 하는데, 저는 첫 플레이라 이것저것 망설이며 플레이 했더니 그보다는 시간이 더 소요되었네요. 정가 14500원도 그리 비싸보이지는 않습니다. 하지만 지금 한시적으로 판매하는 1450원이라는 금액은 정말 혜자스러운 가격이 아닐 수 없습니다.

3천원에 즐기기엔 가성비가 너무 좋은 게임 옛날 게임인 만큼 빌드업 속도가 그리 빠르진않지만 설계하는 재미, 콤보터뜨리는 재미, 내실쌓는 재미, 도박하는 재미가 어울러진 잘짜여진 매커니즘을 체험하면 감탄이 나옴. 룰도 쉬우니 금방 배울 수 있는건 덤