I'm playing children's card games: Kongai

Really, I'm playing the hell out of them. It's a nice change of pace from just playing fighting games all the damn time. Even though this one is a lot like a fighting game.

Kongai is a cross between Pokemon's battle system and a fighting game, which have more in common than you'd imagine. Yes, Pokemon. You can laugh, but Pokemon is actually a pretty deep versus battle game: the problem is that the raising of Pokemon is such a tedious and hopelessly convoluted business that you have to spend hundreds of hours on the game to even get to the part where battle becomes interesting. That's why it's so good for kids! As for the fighting game pedigree, it's designed by David Sirlin, who knows rather a lot about fighting games, and has written a book on competitive videogames whose points should be understood by anyone who plays or designs them.

So the design is pretty strong! You start by picking out some character cards: then you assemble a 3-character team out of a collection of fighting game archetypes (even Slayer!) and jump into a turn-based battle. As in Pokemon, different characters have different attack types and resistances, so my Pikachu can beat up your Squirtle. The fighting game elements introduced are the distance game and the intercept. I have a robot samurai. He is a tank: does good physical damage while taking very little. For him to be effective, however, he has to be in very close. Most people will try to get away from him. If I know this, I can choose to "get close", despite being in close range already, and when the other guy chooses to "get far", it won't work.

Another mind game situation is the way they've dealt with switching from the Pokemon system. In Pokemon, you can be pretty sure when you're on the bad end of a situation: Character A often will die in one hit from Character B. So this forces your hand and you've got to switch, right? In Pokemon there's no penalty for doing this, so fights will often result in players switching over and over again until they're in a spot where both players are actually willing to fight. In Kongai, if you suspect the enemy will switch in order to avoid your attack, there's an "intercept" button that will do big damage and force that character to stay on the field. On the other hand, if you suspect your enemy's going to intercept you, you'd simply attack him and watch as his intercept fails. Bringing it full circle, if you think that they think you're going to intercept, simply attack instead. There is no failsafe move, which is a point this game has in common with the best fighting games.

Later, you're able to get equippable items with various effects, but due to the heavy emphasis on mind games, your deck has a lot less to do with winning than your individual tactics during the fight itself. Getting more cards either requires that you win a lot (a lot) or that you clear certain achievements on Kongregate's other games. This is good for Kongregate and it's sometimes good for you, as Flash games on community sites like this have always been a mixed bag.

Still, the core experience is well thought-out, and I've always found the "i know that you know" battle of wits compelling. I haven't played Kongai a huge amount, but I constantly find myself coming back to it, just for a match or two.

Comments

[TOLLMASTER]

You're slightly wrong about there not being a penalty to switching Pokemon during battle. Switching a Pokemon out for another counts as your action that turn, so whatever Pokemon you switch to usually gets a free hit (or a free status effect) applied to it by the attacking Pokemon. While it's still usually better to switch than to not switch if you come up against a Pokemon whose type is stronger than your own, Pokemon also often learn moves that aren't their main type, and people often plan on this. If a Blastoise is up against a Golem, the Golem user might switch out to Venusaur which would be strong against Blastoise's Water-type rather than Golem's weakness; the Blastoise user could have taught Ice Beam to his Blastoise, which would hurt the Golem almost as well as a Water move, and also hurt a lot of other things the opponent could switch to (in this case, the Venusaur).

There's also at least one move, Pursuit, which attacks a retreating Pokemon pretty badly, just like you talk about in the card game.