clickbliss

Card City Nights 2 is a charming and surprisingly deep card game

by Omar (@siegarettes)

• Card City Nights 2
• Developer- Ludosity
• Publisher- Ludosity
  
• PC (Steam)

It’s been a year of surprises. I never expected to get into fighting games. Or to see a strategy game that I could enjoy. And I definitely didn’t expect to have a game that got me into deck building, let alone two of them. But thanks to Card City Nights 2, here I am.

The first Card City Nights drew me in with its charming art. The colorful, playful character designs paired well with the card art drawing from Ludosity’s previous games (Ittle Dew, Muri, Princess Pitch etc). It gave off a lighthearted vibe and felt like a good alternative to more serious card games that often aim for something more epic and expansive. The same is true for Card City Nights 2, but set upon a dysfunctional space station, giving them room to bring in even more bizarre designs and plenty of fantastic monster girls.

The surprisingly deep card game from the original returns as well, this time expanded to support more interesting interactions between players. The first used a simple system where you had to connect three cards on a 3x3 board to activate them and perform various effects. Each card was limited by arrows marked on its borders that denoted what it could connect to, with more powerful cards being more limited in options. It was inviting, but gradually built into something more complex than it seemed.

Card City Nights 2 expands on this, keeping the connection based system, but expanding the board and having both players play in the same space. On top of that activating a card sets it into a countdown rather than activating it immediately. It gives the game more chances to interact with the opponent, and allows long chains of actions, and more chances to counter them. It’s initially slightly overwhelming when compared to the first game, but once I understood the basic flow I quickly began to grasp what my options were. Which is good, because they started to open up real fast.

Not only could I chain moves doing multiple damage together, but I could block the connections of my opponent’s cards, disable their effects before the happened, turn them to my side, or even use special spy cards to connect theirs to mine. It’s incredible how much Ludosity has done with the structure of the original game here, all while still feeling less taxing than contemporaries like Hearthstone or Gwent. There’s a good campaign to back it up as well, with absurd writing and situations, and the lighthearted tone that kept me smiling throughout. There’s a smooth ramp to the challenge, and if I ever felt that an encounter was beyond my level there was always someone else to play on the space station. It even managed to get me to dive into the deck building system, and to experiment with certain builds to see if I could make a particular set of cards work for me. 

For the most part, I was content simply to unlock new parts of the station and talk to the cast of characters. There’s so much charm here that just wanting to see something new pushed me through. As you go on you’ll casually stroll into some pretty strange situations, like a group of demon girls obsessed with a certain bag of snack foods. There’s plenty of humor both in the writing and in visual gags, and while each area of the space station is generally static, it’s full of little details to take in. You can even click around them to pick up some extra currency for card packs, hidden picture style. 

Oh, and did I mention? The soundtrack is a JAM. There’s a great chill vibe to the electronic soundtrack, and I was bopping my head both during battle and when clicking around the station. As I write this I’m listening to it and getting distracted by their sweet sound.

Card City Nights 2, put simply, is a warm and inviting game that manages to bring its own take on card collecting games. It amuses and charms in equal measure, and I rarely felt frustrated with it, even when losing. It has this wonderful playful momentum that kept me curious and engaged. Above all, Card City Nights 2 is a game I walked away from smiling.That’s worthwhile by itself.