Cardpocalypse Review
If you’re a regular reader of my reviews, you know by now that I love video games that are also card games. I don’t want to seem predictable or repetitive, but at the same time I can’t deny the affection for card games that I developed over decades in comic and game shops. So when I learned that Gambrinous, creators of the delightful Guild of Dungeoneering, had developed another digital card game titled Cardpocalypse I was immediately sold.
In Cardpocalypse, players star as Jess, an elementary school student who has just transferred to Dudsdale Elementary. During her first day, Jess is introduced to the card game Mega Mutant Power Pets, based on Jess’s favorite cartoon show of the same name. Unfortunately, thanks to the efforts of the school bully and a realistically incompetent school staff, Jess quickly gets Mega Mutant Power Pets banned from school grounds, earning the ire of most of the student body and placing her squarely with the unpopular kids. But soon Jess has much bigger problems as mysterious purple lightning and noxious goo begins invading the school as the week goes on and brings with it a hostile force that can only be defeated by playing Mega Mutant Power Pets.
Being the only way to save the world as well as being the coolest game on the school yard, the main gameplay of Cardpocalypse is building decks for and playing Mega Mutant Power Pets. This is a shame because MMPP is actually a pretty uninspired game. When building a deck, players first select a champion with a unique passive ability that will dictate what faction of cards can be played in the deck, then build a deck of 20 cards. The two kinds of cards that can be used in decks are minions, which are creatures played to the board to fight until they run out of health, or mutations, single-use cards that perform actions when specific conditions are met. Playing MMPP is too close to Hearthstone for my taste, with players having a supply of a single resource that increases in capacity every turn and minions featuring special keyword abilities that allow them to do things like attack the first turn they are played or remain untargetable until they attack.
It’s a real shame that Mega Mutant Power Pets is so cookie cutter because all of the mechanics Cardpocalypse builds around it are genuinely terrific because Cardpocalypse isn’t just a game about a card game, it’s about being a child playing a card game. This means players can do a variety of things only children full of juvenile, unrestrained excitement about a game would do. The first one of these mechanics players see is that, while trading cards with other students, Jess can offer snacks from her lunch box as part of the trade. This is great for two reasons: firstly, Jess is sent to school every day with one snack that doesn’t carry over between days of the week so players are able to grow their card collection every day at effectively no cost, and secondly because this is absolutely what a thrilled child would do. As a kid, I definitely would have traded away my tater tots for a Nidoking Pokemon card because who needs nourishment when you can have an awesome rhino-rabbit card to beat your brother’s deck with when you get home from school? In the same vein of enthusiasm over logic, players are also able to apply stickers to their cards to improve stats or grant new abilities. Of course it’s not in the “official rules” but if it’s good enough for the rest of the kids on the playground it’s good enough for Jess. Lastly, there are specific points in the game where players are able to create entirely new cards or rules for MMPP. When players complete certain side quests or reach specific points in the story, players are able to cobble together entirely unique cards by selecting parts from two or more categories, or institute new rules from three possibilities. Building new cards is fun but my favorite is the new rules, because it can change the game in a huge variety of ways. The new rules can be anything from “Defender minions have one more health point” to “anytime a player would draw a card, they first shuffle their hand into their deck and draw a new hand.” These are fantastic because they not only emphasize the unashamed creativity of Jess and her classmates but also gives different players different experiences when they play through Cardpocalypse.
Beyond just the excellent childhood simulator mechanics around MMPP, Cardpocalypse features several other excellent game design choices. My personal favorite is the game’s map. The map obviously shows the player the full layout of the school and Jess’s position therein, but also shows where every important character is and what they’re currently offering, whether it be an MMPP battle, a trade offer, a side quest, a story quest, or an end-of-day hangout. I love this because it helps me know exactly where I need to go and who to talk to to complete my objectives and know which conversation will end the day, which is very important because side quests are only available the day you start them. But it’s not done there, because players can select any of the areas to immediately move there from anywhere else in the school. This isn’t to say moving around in Cardpocalypse is hard or bad, but instant travel between classrooms is extremely convenient. Lastly, I like that Jess is in a wheelchair but it’s never really brought up. I do not need a wheelchair to get around nor does anyone else I know, but I know that representation is important and I appreciate that Cardpocalypse never takes a moment to point out how good they are for including it.
Sadly, Cardpocalypse has some issues to go along with all of these great features. The main problem I encountered was interface sticking, and by that I mean some parts of menus or information screens would stick in on the screen until I restarted the game, which is a huge pain when it happens during the middle of an MMPP fight. Another big problem was menus and conversations not opening when I clicked on them, but the game believed these had opened so Jess was totally immobile without me being able to click on anything to get out of whatever window was supposed to have opened. Again, the only solution I found to this issue was completely restarting the game. I understand that making video games is difficult but having to reboot a game is incredibly annoying and disruptive to the experience.
I love so much of Cardpocalypse which is why I’m so disappointed by its shortcomings. Having the core card game Mega Mutant Power Pets be so derivative and bland yet surrounded by so many excellent and flavorful mechanics is like having a spectacular Thanksgiving feast with all of the best side dishes, but instead of a turkey as the main course there’s a single pack of pizza Lunchables, which as we all know are the worst variety of Lunchables. I can’t see Gambrinous being able to “fix” their core mechanic by making MMPP a more interesting game, so I think the $25 asking price is and always will be too much for Cardpocalypse.
Buy this game on sale
It’s worth playing, just not at the price they’re asking
