Star Realms

Star Realms is an intergalactic battle for two players.

The game is made up of cards that represent three things: your authority, and combat and trade abilities. Each players starts with fifty honour – kept track of via special cards – and their own set of ten spaceship cards that have combat or trade values. The rest of the cards are placed centrally, with five laid face-up, available for trade. The starting player deals themselves three cards (thereafter players will deal themselves five cards throughout) and chooses how to use them. On the cards will be ships that can fight (they have a combat value that affects your opponents’ authority) and ships that allow you to trade: their trade value allows you to buy more cards from the five in the centre. After you’ve played whatever cards you have available, they go into a discard stack (along with any just-purchased cards) and you deal yourself your next hand of five cards.

Your starting deck of cards is fairly basic, so the game is all about the cards you buy and the work they do: the most destructive cards are inevitably the most expensive, so while you’re saving up for them, you may find yourself taking on a lot of damage. And some of these upgraded cards – bases – don’t get discarded at the end of your turn – they just sit face-up, inflicting a steady stream of damage to your opponent’s authority on every future turn until they are destroyed.

When your draw deck runs out, your discards are shuffled and become the new draw deck. The game continues with the simple deal/play/discard pattern until one player’s authority reaches zero – that player loses, and the other… wins!