Spellstone

Collectible card games have managed to gain popularity in the last few years and extend beyond their classic fan base, and it’s all thanks to the fact that developers made them more approachable. Thus, games like Hearthstone make it much easier for beginners to start playing, without reading up on entire books regarding rules and conventions.

Spellstone is about as basic as it gets in the genre, while still providing you with the minimum amount of strategy to make you feel like your actions matter. Thus, this is a casual CCG with colorful graphics and energy-based gameplay mechanics, which means that you are limited by time and a paywall if you want to play for more than a few minutes every day.

As mentioned before, the mechanics are much easier to deal with than in most other CCGs, because all you have to do is select one of the cards in your hand and drag it to the table. All that matters is for it to have enough damage and health points to beat the hand of your enemy. You do not even get to control the attack phase, since everything takes place automatically.

The missions get tougher later on in the game, so it’s important that you get better cards as well to deal with stronger enemies. Thankfully, you are usually rewarded with them after every completed quest, so you are never lagging behind your opponents. It’s also possible to find legendary cards that feature even greater powers, but they are obviously much more difficult to get.

As for the graphics, everything looks about as basic as you would expect, given the casual nature of the game and the fact that it is also designed to run on mobile devices. On the other hand, the interface works pretty nice with a mouse, so there aren’t any control issues to worry about. The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done if you don’t pay too much attention to it.

In conclusion, Spellstone is not suitable for those of you who are veterans of the genre, but it can be the perfect starting point for someone interested in CCGs. Hence, it features simple gameplay mechanics and forgiving battles, making it easy to understand the concept and apply it in other games.