Kongai

[Musashi]

Kongai is Kongregate's driving force.  I'm sure there are people here that play this, and I search but see no thread anywhere.  It's not an MMO.  It's a CCG.  And it's good.  It was made by some dude (David Sirlin) who balanced Street Fighter 2 Alpha Beta Charlie something.  Anyway, if you've played it, they're releasing a bunch of new dudes.  They released the first batch this week.  So if you haven't played for a while, there's new shiny.

If you haven't played it.  It's completely free, and you can earn anything that somebody can buy.  It's basically Street Fighter the card game.  That means PvP.  It's very deep, but it's pretty easy to pick up.  It's got a pretty good tutorial, and the tooltips are all well placed and informative.  You have to earn cards, and you only get to pick your first three to start.  You can earn more pretty easily at first by winning games.  But after you've won a certain amount of games, the chances of you getting a card for winning drops off significantly.  However, there's also a freebie every week you can get by playing the weekly challenge on Kongregate.  That's how most people get most of their cards.  Or you can just buy them with your government check.  Nobody will know.

You can foul up your noob experience by picking dudes you don't like, so be sure you check them out.  In general, you want at least one that can fight up close, and at least one that can fight far away.  You also want to make sure that one of your three cards has a really strong opening move in close range to open with.  (Never use a primarily ranged character first, as you start up close.  It's the mark of true noobery.)  A good noob deck:  Cornelius Andromeda Yoshiro  Make sure you put Cornelius in the first spot.  He's your best opener.

I can't remember if they let you pick items for your first dudes.  But if they do, put the Necronomic Tomes on Cornelius, either the Sharpening Stone, or the Herbal Remedy on Andromeda, and I'd probably go with the General's Insignia on Yoshiro.  Using Cornelius with the tomes is mega lulz because his big ability has a proc and most people don't read what the attacks do, and then the tomes can proc too.  So you can hit someone three times in the same round.  So what you get is, "You hit me 3 times?  wtf?"  Ahh, sweet tears of armor shining victory.

[Ghambit]

There are some really good games on Kongregate, but the fact they exist all on 1 flashy website with the same UI really takes the breath out of these titles.  I just cant bring myself to play more than an occassional stick-figure game on it.  Games like this really need their own websites.

[Musashi]

Have you tried Kongai?  Also, that's a pretty weird bone to pick.

[schild]

It's most certainly an over-designed Sirlin game.

[Draegan]

I think I tried this game once and it was giving me way to much information for a flash game so I closed the browser.

[Mosesandstick]

I stopped playing because the changing characters mechanic bugged me.

[Musashi]

It's most certainly an over-designed Sirlin game.

I don't understand how it's over-designed.  He's pretty big on balancing every little thing from what I gathered reading a little of his blog, if that's what you mean.  You have to screw up in succession, or get really unlucky to be taken out of a match early.  It ends up leaving a little too much to chance, imo.  I guess I would like to see it a little less random.  But I don't think that overshadows how well done it is overall.  Plus, collect them all.  Come on, guy.

[Ghambit]

Have you tried Kongai?  Also, that's a pretty weird bone to pick.

Weird?  How so?  The game is most likely too robust and clunky to run on a co-op site.  "Vibe" is important with these games.
I'll give it a shot regardless, but I just wish it was supported on its own.

[Musashi]

Well, Kongai pretty much is the vibe of Kongregate, if I understand you correctly.  It was written for the site to be the reason people come there. 

I just look at these sites differently than you probably.  To me, the games are just apps in a window, and I ignore everything else.

[Ghambit]

Had some quality time with this last night.  WAY too rock-paper-scissors.  Feels more like a protracted game of "War" than anything else (the intercept mechanics are a horrible design implementation).  It's not bad, but I was hoping it was more along the lines of the "Universal Fighting System."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Fighting_System

And if I want that I'll just poke around on LackeyCCG.

[Musashi]

Huh.  It's funny you should mention LackeyCCG.  I just dled it to try one of Sirlin's other games, but I couldn't get it to download it from the link he had up.  So I gave up.  Are there any other popular games for it?

[Ghambit]

Huh.  It's funny you should mention LackeyCCG.  I just dled it to try one of Sirlin's other games, but I couldn't get it to download it from the link he had up.  So I gave up.  Are there any other popular games for it?

Just go to their forums and they have the plugin lists there.  Also, it's fairly easy to make your own.
They pretty much have every CCG known to man there...minus the trading element.

[Hoax]

Had some quality time with this last night.  WAY too rock-paper-scissors.  Feels more like a protracted game of "War" than anything else (the intercept mechanics are a horrible design implementation).  It's not bad, but I was hoping it was more along the lines of the "Universal Fighting System."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Fighting_System

And if I want that I'll just poke around on LackeyCCG.

How the fuck is it too RPS?  Also intercept is the great equalizer and intercept mindgames wins fights.

[Aez]

There's only 56 cards.  I don't get it.

[Ghambit]

Had some quality time with this last night.  WAY too rock-paper-scissors.  Feels more like a protracted game of "War" than anything else (the intercept mechanics are a horrible design implementation).  It's not bad, but I was hoping it was more along the lines of the "Universal Fighting System."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Fighting_System

And if I want that I'll just poke around on LackeyCCG.

How the fuck is it too RPS?  Also intercept is the great equalizer and intercept mindgames wins fights.

This is the only CCG I've ever seen with an intercept for a card-swap, and there's a reason for that.  The whole game is basically who hits who 1st and hard enough so that you're forced to swap since pretty much the fight is over with at that point; then it becomes a mindless guessing game; as it is beforehand if you dont draw the right competition.  Beyond that, the ranging mechanics are yet another RPS element.  Then you've got coinflip chances for this and that, that can pretty much make or break your game.

I dunno, maybe it's more assfucking at the free level and gets better later.  And perhaps 5-card games are better, but they're not ranked anyways.
It's not a bad game, but in reality if you're gonna play Kongai you might as well play Pokemon.

There's only 56 cards.  I don't get it.

(shrug) the itemization adds variety I guess.  And if there were more cards you wouldnt be able to memorize character tendencies.

[Hoax]