Sirlin Games

[lilyhollow]

http://www.sirlingames.com/

There was a thread for this before, but after the crash I can't search for it. So!

Pretty much everything put out by these guys is pure gold. I could go on and on about all the games Sirlin has released, but whatever, you can just play most of them online here. Just a quick and dirty description for the three that are playable on the site:

Yomi, "Fighting games in card form"
Flash Duel, "Divekick in board game form"
Puzzle Strike, "Dominion but sleeker and way more ridiculous"

If anyone wants to play any of those, or learn them or whatever, feel free to let me know. There may be time zone issues but I'd be happy to show people the ropes in any of these.

There's also Kongai, which I don't think has much of a playerbase anymore, but that was sort of Sirlin's take on competitive Pokemon! I still want to poke around a bit and see what's what with that, eventually. So if any of y'all wanna fuck around with that at some point, speak up. <3

For upcoming games, there's Codex, which seems to be some sort of absurdly ambitious customizable (but not collectible!) card game. There's also going to be a digital version of Chess 2 soon, starting with the Ouya but presumably branching out from there. I know there are people around here who were buzzing about Chess 2 for a bit, it's awesome despite making quite a few people annoyed with its title.


Finally, there's Pandánte. The basic premise seems to be "Poker, but with more excitement and laughter and less folding. Also, pandas." I know jack shit about Poker, but wowowow I am hyped for this:

The game's Kickstarter launched about a week ago and is doing quite well. The main question right now is whether it's going to reach the $75,000 stretch goal for the cute blue diamond chips. I think they're really gunning for that one, not so sure it's gonna happen though. Considering that it doubles as a Poker set with high quality chips with fucking pandas and bamboo on them, who knows, maybe some peeps from that crowd will be drawn in.


Anyway, this is a thread for all things Sirlin Games! Discuss whatever, challenge people to games, and so on!

 

[Xaqwais]

The best Panda based gambling game, without a doubt.

(I am also down to play/teach the three main Sirlin games)

 

[meteor64]

I intend to get Yomi at some point. His book is great stuff, any serious gamer should read (I have 2 physical copies because I asked for it for my birthday :s)

 

[Redless]

I ordered a copy of Flash Duel recently after wandering around his site reading the articles and finishing Playing to Win. That was definitely a good read, if a bit short. Anyway, I found the store and I looked through all the different games, finally deciding that I liked the sound of Flash Duel. That was about a week ago, and since the hard copy of FD hasn't shown up yet I have been playing the print and play with friends. I try not to read all of the analyses on the Fantasy Strike site, so that the people that I have taught irl and I can come up with our own strategies. So far I have taught about 7 people, but that only includes simple mode, so most of them don't play with characters yet. I have considered making an account on the fantasy strike website (which my friend ntiller showed me), but I don't like the idea of having to pay "Gold" to unlock the virtual characters when I already shelled out like 40$ for the game itself.

From what experience I have from the characters, I prefer playing Grave, but I have only ever used Grave, Jaina, and Troq, so my experience is pretty limited. I like martial mastery, which is one of the most flexible, powerful abilities I have seen. The other two abilities are nice too, because they are tricky without being unwieldy. Throughout my simple mode games, I have noticed that getting the first Dashing Strike that sticks is very important because with the low deck size, once you have your opponent recovering you have complete control of the round. In the future, I will probably try playing as Rook because he has very good control at close range and is hard to approach, and Gwen, because I want to see if she is as annoying a character as people say. By annoying, I mean bad. Overall the characters seem pretty balanced, and I am loving the detail and realism that went into each one, especially Zane and Quince and how they represent different governmental philosophies. From what I have seen on the forums, Zane and Setsuki are considered to be the best characters, but I wonder by how wide a margin, since I have never played with either and played against Zane like twice (granted the opponents were inexperienced, but he didn't perform very well).

Anyway, I have been also lurking around the FS forums and noticed user Kristoph (actually on the thread applying Smogon philosophy of banning to FD, lol), whose posts I has noticed while lurking the Smogon forums. I checked the avatars, and I found them to be the same. I considered making a Flash Duel thread, but while browsing the great library, I came upon this one, started by that guy I had recognized.

Anyway, that was a longish post, but I really like Flash Duel from what I have played/read of it so far. I would rather figure out more of FD for myself than get taught the basics by one of the two that offered, but I am still rather new to the game, so any pointers that either of you (or anyone else) could give me would be great.

 

[Minwu]

Chess 3: the rechessening

 

[Minwu]

Chess 4: modern warfare

 

[Xaqwais]

Anyway, that was a longish post, but I really like Flash Duel from what I have played/read of it so far. I would rather figure out more of FD for myself than get taught the basics by one of the two that offered, but I am still rather new to the game, so any pointers that either of you (or anyone else) could give me would be great.

Even if the online system feels weird to you, I think making an account is worth it. There's always a free character you can play endlessly and as long as you win at least one match, you get to play at least 2 games with whichever character you like. This is pretty big for Flash Duel, where understanding the intricacies of time out is kinda hard to take in without experience. Flash Duel lobby is pretty inactive, but if you wanna do matches I'm down to play and help teach what I can.

Also, Yomi and Puzzle Strike are more complicated but also pretty fun if you're willing to learn those.

 

[lilyhollow]

I hear Flash Duel tournaments can actually get pretty intense. It sounds like the game actually has more competitive depth than the designer really expected, hahaha. I haven't played a ton of it yet though. I'd definitely be down to play with whoever, though it's kind of harder to reach me on Smogon since it's kind of inconvenient for me to post (it's pretty laggy now apparently?).

And yeah I mess around on Fantasy Strike forums a bit. That Smogon thread rang too many alarm bells for me to resist~

Oh, and Pandante's kickstarter got a reboot. The deluxe version is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less expensive now. It's already gotten 2/3s of its goal in two days, so I guess that was a good move on Sirlin's part.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sirlin/pandante-reboot

 

[Minwu]

Super Chess 5: Are you ready to chess?

 

[Yuri]

You guys play Yomi? I played it once with some friends and I kinda like it. Is there a way to play online? I don't feel like dumping 100+ bucks on a physical game I have no one to play with.

 

[Xaqwais]

Yeah there is an online version available to play on www.fantasystrike.com

The free to play model is a bit weird, but you can infinitely play one character out of the 20 and it cycles through switching every 3 days. You also get tokens to play any character for free in limited quantities and you can also buy gold to play whoever. It's a little complex but bit works put IMO.