Duodecad review: Kick ass with cards

Here to join the ranks of the more high profile collectible card games on Xbox Live is Duodecad. The genre has not had many entries in either the Arcade or Indie Games section of Xbox Live over the past several years with only Magic: The Gathering and Culdcept Saga filling the void. While Duodecad does not have the depth or staying power of either of these higher profile CCG’s, it succeeds in providing the simple, yet deep core gameplay mechanic that such a game requires. In addition, the quality of the art, music and the game’s overall polish is well above your standard Indie Game fare and easily justifies it’s price.

Duodecad’s core gameplay is quite simple. Two players face off on a 4 by 3 board with twelve total slots for cards to be laid down. Cards are initially owned by the player that places them onto the board, but every card can be captured and utilized by whichever player does not currently control it. All cards contain four numbers, one on each of the four sides, and capturing another card is as simple as placing a card with a higher number on the appropriate side next to it. As simple as this seems initially, there is plenty of underlying strategy based around which sides of your cards you leave vulnerable to being taken by your opponent each turn as well as blocking off portions of the board with your own cards. On top of this, there are half a dozen options that allow you to make the gameplay more complex by adding strength bonuses and penalties to spots on the board, as well as allowing combos and multiple card chain captures in a single turn. The strategic concepts around the core game become multiplied and more complex when paired with these optional gameplay components and they allow for plenty of variety.

In addition to the core game itself, no collectible card game would be complete without the ability to purchase or earn new cards and then build your own decks. Duodecad offers a large variety of different cards with great artwork and a nice set of screens that allow you to view what cards you own, their stats, a percentage of all cards that you own and even how many different cards you have seen over Xbox Live versus other players. There is also a card shop that slowly opens up as you play more and more matches and you can you spend credits earned from completed games on new cards. Unfortunately, this card shop seems to open up very slow and by the time you are capable of purchasing a new level of cards, it is likely you will have already earned far superior ones from the AI or other players. Another feature that is lacking is the ability to create and store a set of cards as a deck before a game. Instead, you are forced to select six cards from a list of all that you own before each game. This can be frustrating and time consuming once you have earned dozens of cards and especially in the face of how short most of the games tend to be.

Duodecad offers a multiplayer component on Xbox Live where players can host or join games and use any custom settings that are normally allowed in single player as well. The concept of playing against other players and gambling for cards is an enticing one, but the multiplayer component of Duodecad was broken due to a bug for the first few weeks of its release. This issue was just patched recently, but during review time we were not able to find many matches to partake in.

It is a shame that a few simple oversights detract so greatly from the overall flow in Duodecad. On top of the inability to create a set of cards to use prior to game start, the game flow is seriously detracted by the fact that you are forced back to the main menu after every single match instead of being given a “rematch” option. If you are able to overcome these issues and have a little patience, there is much to be loved about the game. It does a splendid job of creating the “simple to learn, difficult to master” feeling of many great games and provides more depth and polish than most other Xbox Live Indie Games even come close to. More than anything, Duodecad will prosper and achieve its complete potential if it is able to grow an online community. As a single player experience, Duodecad is fun. As a multiplayer experience with a good community, it could be classic. Only time will tell.

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Doudecad was purchased for 240 MS points ($3). Download a free demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

By Evan Lennick at July 31, 2011.