Dominion Expansion Sets

Expansions

An overview of each expansion:

• Intrigue: The first expansion, and the most natural. Comes with another set of Treasure/Victory cards, allowing you to support multiple games and/or a 5-6p game (though 5-6p games of Dominion are generally not that much fun). Focuses on interaction and card choices.

• Seaside: Focused on duration cards, which last between turns. Along with Prosperity, has probably the most powerful Action cards.

• Alchemy: Introduces Potions, a different kind of “currency”, and emphasizes Action chains, leading to much longer games. Probably not a great first expansion.

• Prosperity: Adds Colonies and Platinums, and a lot of other over-the-top cards. Probably the most popular expansion, and certainly the most well-received.

• Cornucopia: A small expansion that focuses on card variety. A more advanced set.

• Hinterlands: Introduces cards that trigger when you gain or buy them. A more advanced set.

• Dark Ages: The most complex set so far, with a big emphasis on card interactions. It introduces many new mechanics (including gaining from the trash).

Releases

	Name	Re­lease Date	Type	Cards	Kinds of King­dom card	Theme
	Dom­in­ion (Base game)	Oc­to­ber 2008	Stand­a­lone	500	25	The ori­gin­al game.
	In­trigue	July 2009	Stand­a­lone	500	25	Decisions among multiple possible effects. Hybrid cards that are both Victory cards and another type.
	Sea­side	Oc­to­ber 2009	Ex­pan­sion	300	26	Cards with effects that happen on the player's next turn.
	Al­che­my	May 2010	Ex­pan­sion	150	12	The Potion Treasure as an alternate card cost, with cards that require a Potion as well as Coin to be bought. Decks with large numbers of Action cards.
	Pros­per­i­ty	Oc­to­ber 2010	Ex­pan­sion	300	25	Expensive cards and Treasures that do something when played in the Buy phase. Higher-value basic Treasure and Victory cards. VP tokens.
	Cor­nu­co­pi­a	June 2011	Ex­pan­sion	150	13	Cards that are more useful when there is variety in the player's deck.
	Hin­ter­lands	Oc­to­ber 2011	Ex­pan­sion	300	26	Cards that have an additional effect when bought or otherwise gained.
	Dark Ages	August 2012	Ex­pan­sion	500	35	Cards that have an additional effect when trashed. Cards that care about the Trash. Cards that upgrade themselves. Ways to upgrade other cards.
	Guilds	June 2013	Ex­pan­sion	150	13	Coin tokens that can be saved to spend later. Cards you can get more out of by paying extra for them.
	Adventures	April 2015	Ex­pan­sion	400	30	Cards that can be saved for the right moment. Events, which give you something to buy besides cards. Tokens that can modify cards.
	Base Cards	June 2012	Re­place­ment Cards	250	0	(A set of all the basic cards—Treasures, Victory, and Curse cards—from the standalones and expansions with new design and different art. No Kingdom Cards.)

Sources

• What expansions should I get? | Dominion Strategy
• Dominion (card game) - Wikipedia

The ABCs of Dominion

My coworkers have got me hooked on the game of Dominion. Dominion is a simple deck building card game. I think what makes Dominion fun is the rules are very simple to learn but the variations of game play are expansive, which follows the "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master" mantra.

Each turn involves 3 simple steps. You play an action, buy and then cleanup. What gives Dominion the game play variety are the various actions, and each new game played can use different action cards.

About.com succinctly summarized the ABCs of the game play rules. Your turn consists of four phases:

A)ction: You may play one action card from your hand. Follow the directions on the card, which may instruct you to draw additional cards, gain spending power for your upcoming Buy phase, or give you extra actions to play additional action cards.

B)uy: You may purchase any one card in a pile on the table. To do so, play treasure cards from your hand until the value is at least as high as the purchase price of the card you want to buy.

C)leanup: The card you purchased, all cards that you played, and any cards remaining in your hand, are all placed in your discard pile.

D)raw: Draw five cards from your deck to replenish your hand. If there are not enough cards in your deck, shuffle your discard pile, and it becomes the base of your draw pile.

Terraria Free for Android on Christmas Day at Amazon App Store

Terraria is free for Android from the Amazon App Store - today only!  This is part of a free daily package that includes a number of other games too.

Blizzard Epic Black Friday Sale

Blizzard's black friday sale has Diablo III and StarCraft II for 50% off the base games. (and 75% off on World of WarCraft, if you are into the subscription game). Sale ends December 2nd.

Untrusted - Hacker Puzzle Game

Untrusted - Hacker Puzzle Game

My brother introduced me to to this simple online hacker puzzle game by the name of "Untrusted" (or "The Continuing Adventures of Dr. Eval"). The game was written by an Alex Nisnevich and a Greg Shuflin.

Although the game is a "rougelike" game, there is a fundamental difference. Rouge was a dungeon crawler. Untrusted is a puzzle game requiring simple hacking skills.

The objective of each level's puzzle is to write Javascript code to hack the level's Javascript code, and allow the player character to reach the exit. As the hacker, you are only allowed to edit/add code in certain sections, marked by a black background. Code marked with a red background is not modifiable. You might think you could just simply modify the code to say "go to exit" (or placing an extra exit next to player, as you can on earlier levels), but the difficulty is that each level also has different validation and constraints that you must work around.

Author's Description of Untrusted

"Untrusted —or— the Continuing Adventures of Dr. Eval is an exciting Meta-Javascript Adventure Game wherein you guide the dashing, steadfast Dr. Eval through a mysterious MACHINE CONTINUUM, wherein, using only his trusty computer and the TURING-COMPLETE power of Javascript, he must literally ALTER HIS REALITY in order to find his freedom! You must literally edit and re-execute the very Javascript running the game in your browser to save Dr. Eval from this dark and confusing reality!
The game presents you with a roguelike-like playing environment and a console window with the JavaScript code generating each level. As loaded, each level is unbeatable, and most of the JavaScript is blocked from editing. The challenge is to open a path to the next level using only the limited tools left open to you." [source]

Lego: Lord of the Rings - 100% Completed

Lego: Lord of the Rings - 100% completion

Tonight we finally 100% completed the Lego: Lord of the Rings game.  This means absolutely nothing to anyone else, other than to me and the love of my life (also my best friend).  We spent almost 37 hours together on local co-op, over the last two months, collecting everything the game had to offer.  We were then honored with a bonus end cut-scene (which you can watch online, without the actual work).  Now we need to find another similar co-op game to play together.

Contre Jour

Contre Jour

Contre Jour - http://www.contrejour.ie/

Chillingo has made a fun little physics puzzle game, you can play online for free.  You will need an updated browser that supports HTML5, such as Firefox or IE10 to play.  For a few bucks you can also buy it on the Apple/Android/Windows store and play on your phone/tablet.  The game physics are similar to World of Goo.

"Blurring the lines between interactive art and games, Contre Jour showcases a beautiful but haunting world shaped by the interplay of light and darkness. Utilizing intuitive touch controls and set against a poignant orchestrated score, you’ll guide a mysterious creature (named Petit) through organic and machined levels by manipulating the very environment itself. Pull, swipe, and tap gadgets such as tendrils, air geysers, and pulleys to complete clever puzzles."

• Intuitive touch controls let you interact with the environment in delightful and surprising ways.
• Sixty levels of mind-bending puzzles to explore and play.
• An emotional musical score by famed composer David Ari Leon adds a level of sophistication and heart to the game.
• Directly inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's legendary story, The Little Prince (French: Le Petit Prince).

For a bit of fun trivial, Contre-jour (French for "against daylight") is a "photographic technique in which the camera is pointing directly toward a source of light, which produces backlighting of the subject and creates silhouettes and emphasizes lines and shapes."

Contre-jour photography