GAME REVIEW - Spells Of Genesis
I think this will be my 4th month playing Spells Of Genesis. Just a few days ago they did an upgrade to the game, but not a whole lot has changed.
They added another target (a distraction to you main foes) in the form of an icon of 3 coins. If you hit the coins you get a variable number of coins added to your purse. So far I've seen from 6 to 23 if memory serves me correctly.
Many of the stopping points of the main map got new names (Messes up my data because I need to rename everything) and the farthest point reached now pulses to indicate how far you got.
I've been farming Giant of the Mountain lately and the reward for beating it went from 119 to 153 coins, which is nice. The daily login quest is also giving more coins than it did before the upgrade.
Game-play
Spells Of Genesis is a blockchain-based trading card game. Each day players can try to move farther along the path of the main map by challenging the stopping points along the way. At each challenge is a variety of boards with obstacles that can be either stationary or moving, along with balls of various sizes. The bigger the ball, the more damage it can take. At the bottom of the board are your 4 cards that you use to shoot at the balls with. Each card takes a shot in order from left to right until either all balls are destroyed or all your cards are destroyed. The balls all have numbers on them that count down for each shot you take. When the count reaches one and you haven't destroyed the ball, the ball fires at you!
Each stopping point has 7 stars. Every time you complete a 3-round set on that point you earn a notch towards completing a star and some coins. When all notches are done, you get your first star and win a card. If you click on the card image next to the notches, you can see which cards you will get for each star.
I would love to show you some screen shots, but the Terms Of Service (TOS) specifically forbid reproducing anything from their game.
Each time you play a 3-round set, you consume energy (the cost for each set is shown before each set is challenged). The more sets you win, the more energy you get, but each round also costs more as you progress, so you are basically stuck at being able to play 3 to 4 rounds 3 times per day.
Once you reach the Orc stopping point (now called The Eye Of The Orc), a challenge point becomes unlocked. I haven't attempted it yet because I read that you can only try this ONCE, so you want to have really good cards before taking the challenge. Why? Because there is no limiting energy consumed here. You get to play round after round until you are killed off. If you are able to survive a long time, I imagine you can earn quite a lot of coins there.
My thoughts about the game
It is a typical PAY-TO-WIN type of game. Although you can play for free, the developers have put a lot of thought into the game and made it so that no matter where you are, the carrot is always dangling in front of you and just out of reach.
For the longest time, I was farming Kayla (Now called Magic Mountain) over and over and over again, trying to earn enough coins to buy more cards that I could crystalize (trade for crystals) so that I could use the crystals to upgrade my cards. I finally got my cards strong enough to be able to take on the next stop, The Purple Dragon (now called Curse Of Heights). The cost to challenge the Purple Dragon was 7 energy and you got 85 coins each time you won at the 7-star level. It costs 100 coins to buy a card and each card gives you just 1 crystal if it is a common card.
They claim that there is a 1-in-5 chance of getting a RARE card, a 1-in-100 chance for an EPIC card and a 1-in-1,000 chance for a LEGENDARY card. Somehow I didn't seem to be getting that many rare cards so I began tracking them. This is what I got when I tracked it for a month:
As you can see, I collected a total of 601 common cards and just 115 rare cards. That averages out to 1 rare for 6.278 cards; close to 1-in-5, but not quite. Today I bought 30 cards and got just 3 rares, so 1-in-10. The upgrade did not include making it easier to get some rare cards.
Epics were said to be 1-in-100, yet during my month of tracking it was closer to 1-in-200!
When it came to Legendary cards, I must have got lucky because I managed to get 2 in 722 cards. It was probably the legendaries that allowed me to move ahead as far as I got.
One day I got curious as to exactly which cards were available in-game, so I went to their assets page and searched for all the available in-game cards. What I discovered was that I had actually collected almost all of the rare cards avaiable (missing just 1) and I had many of the epic cards (missing just 6).
What struck me curious though was how evenly distributed the epic and legendary cards are. And why can I find 30 or more of 1 particular epic card, but I still haven't found any of the other 6 cards that I don't have? I find it hard to believe that the cards are really dished out randomly. The data seems to indicate that certain cards are just more rare (set to a different drop rate) than the others. Could these be better cards? I didn't dig that deep (yet).
I was fortunate to have been given a Viscula Ladybug card (an epic card that has already been quad merged) and that allowed me to move beyond the Purple Dragon to the next level boss, the Giant Of The Mountains. I'm able to do a few stars of some of the stops beyond the Giant, but then get stuck because I keep getting killed off. I need even stronger cards but as yet cannot find 4 of the same epic cards to quad merge into anything stronger than what I already have. I have pages full of the junky epics , yet the best I can get is 3 of some good ones. Without that 4th epic, I'm stuck. It seems that after completing 7 stars, the cards given out are the ones you no longer need, keeping you following that carrot dangled in front of your face. IF... I... CAN... ONLY... GET... THAT... ONE... MORE... CARD!
Some will look for the short-cut and simply buy the cards they need, while others will get frustrated and quit playing. I'm a stubborn one, so for now, I'll keep going. With so few legendary cards, I'll just save up my (I call them) diamonds from the daily log-ins and buy legendary cards until I have all of them, then for sure then next one HAS to be a double of one I have. But since it takes so long to collect enough diamonds to buy a legendary, by then they might have added more, at which point I think it would be time to quit playing.
Conclusion
It is a struggle to make progress unless you purchase cards. The physics of the game seem a little off at times (I really can't see how some of those bounces go off in the directions they do). And for me (playing on a desktop computer) I get some nasty surprises like not being able to aim or having balls get jammed behind moving objects that break the game and that stops me from being able to shoot at all, every now and again.
If you like the slow grind, this game is for you. Or, you can FEEL THE POWER by buying your way to the top.
Thanks for reading my review!
Hi happyme,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Wow!! Thank-you so very much!!!
Man, I don't get it why people play pay to win really. There are soo many games which offer not only great gameplay and plot, but you can actually enjoy the feeling of being competitive without spending money.
How did you decide to play this one? 4 months is quite a lot of time if you know you never gonna "make it". But on the other side...idf you have ffun, that's the most important part.
The game was introduced to me by one of the participants of my own Zombie Adventure game here on Steemit. I was very curious about any game that used the blockchain, so had to try it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Had I known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have spent so much time on it, however I'm too far into it to give up now. I haven't spent a cent on the game and it is kind of exciting to see how far I can get, so for now I just carry on. I'm still learning things about the game, so it may have other sides of it that I haven't seen or experienced yet.
Ohhh dude...no freaking way it's you...I guess I remember post about your game, I might actually even commented there. Was it kind of gameboy like game. With chibis? And you approach a person and dialogue starts...Man I actually remember it hahaha :D Steemit is small that we crossed paths again D:
Nope... No chibi's in my game and no dialog, just kill the zombies. It runs daily, so you can easily see what I'm talking about by checking my blog page.
Shit haha..I hoped you're the guy, would be cool :D
Thanks for sharing your review of this game! How exactly is blockchain integrated into the game? I guess I'm not familiar enough yet with the technology to know how it would benefit it.
I'm curious as to how it looks. Do you have a link for the game where I could check it out? Sounds like it could be fun but very time consuming. I'd love to see it for myself though.
Thanks again for sharing!
Thanks for the interaction!
The cards are registered on the blockchain similar to how your Steem is registered as yours. In the game, you use crystals to rank up the cards to their maximum. When 2 of the SAME cards are at maximum, you can merge the 2 cards and obtain a new card that is stronger than the 2 original cards. Repeat the process with 2 more of the same cards (using a total of 4 of the lowest level cards so that you now have 2 merged cards). These 2 merged cards are then ranked up to maximum and they are then merged into the final (quad-merged) card. When the quad-merged card is maximized, you can "blockchainize" this card for 200 crystals. Now it becomes registered on the blockchain and you can sell it, trade it, give it away, or just keep it. It is yours to do what you want with it.
The game is played at https://play.spellsofgenesis.com/ or you can download it from Google Play and use your mobile device. NOTE that you NEED to use a mobile device to download their wallet if you plan to do any trading. I don't have a mobile, so I installed an emulator (ReMix OS Player) onto my computer and used that as my pretend mobile to get my wallet. They have a new wallet called Casa Tookan, but that wallet doesn't work in my emulator. The old wallet (Book of ORBS) works just fine.
ENJOY!
It reminds me of this game I used to play on my phone called... crap I can't remember the name hahaha but it was SO addicting and so much fun. You would select a particular character (or card in your case) and go through all these different levels. It was quite basic but you could do the same thing, merge different characters to create more powerful characters. Then they opened up this thing called the market and you could sell or trade characters but only for the in game currency. There was no blockchain or real money value attached to it.
Thanks for the link! I'll check it out, sounds like it could be a bit of fun. Cheers!
The idea of SoG is not original but then what HASN'T already been done? It must be torture for people to come up with new ideas for games and music while trying to be original.
I'm still enjoying the game, however it does become frustrating at how long it can take to make any progress. I'm basically stuck here until I get one more epic that I can use to do a quad merge with. I'm not even going to do a double-merge yet because with my luck I'll merge the wrong set and get a 4th card from a different set and then not have enough crystals to upgrade and merge the 4 cards! So I sit here with several sets of 3 epics and wait.
Oh man that's right. That would be super lame to do all that work and then not get what you need after the merge. Better off waiting for that 4th epic card.
I've played so many games that are time consuming. I guess as long as they bring you entertainment and don't turn into something that takes over your life, then I'm cool with. I've played too many games that start dictating how my day goes hahahaha so many online text games or mobile games that really suck you in. And that carrot dangles! You want that better item or you need your daily whatever. These game programmers are genius at one thing and that's getting you hooked on it. I had to stop a lot of games because of the commitment it took to level up.
But I like that kind of thing too you know?!? hahaha It can be a lot of fun working for it. The struggle is real.
Well I wish you luck in getting that 4th epic! It will be a sweet feeling once it finally happens. Cheers!
Years ago, I got addicted to an on-line game called Redmoon. I thought about it all the time and even dreamed about it. I was hooked badly! Of course, that's what makes a good game... one that people want to play, that they talk about, and get others interested in playing it. Word-of-mouth is one of the best advertisements.
Actually, by having energy run out in SoG is a good thing because it (kind of) limits how much you can play daily (you can also purchase energy, so that's why I say "kind of").
Struggling on its own isn't much fun if there is no reward in the end, however, the greater the struggle, the greater the feeling of achievement when you conquer the obstacle. I remember how excited I was when I got my 4th Spectre of the Swamps card. Now I have 10 of her PLUS a quad-merged version of her called Yellow Shaman. She is no longer valuable to me as a card to use for playing, but will give me lots of crystals when I crystalize them. As each hurdle is overcome, there is a new one still in front.
There's been SO many online games I've been addicted to. But I remember the name of the game I had forgot! Defender of Texel!!! It was so basic but for some reason SO much fun. It was only a mobile game but I used to play it ALL the time. I don't think it exists anymore. I know they shut it down but there were rumors they'd bring it back. Not sure if they ever did.
The reward is where it's all at! Especially when it means you'll be able to do better in the game. And that's where they kind of hook me. If it's something I need to struggle for but I can see the possibility of overcoming that obstacle, I'm hooked.
LOL... Memories.
I think you might enjoy Spells Of Genesis. Every little bit extra makes a difference. Plus you get to choose which of your cards would fit to make the best team for different scenarios. Currently I only switch out one card between RAIDS and Normal Quests, however there is also the daily bonus to consider, where it requires a certain TYPE of card to win 3 rounds. That could mean I need to switch in a card I don't typically use and challenge something easier.
-- screenshots or didn't happen. Loljk first time I heard of such a game and it sound like an intensive grind or pay to progress ..
I do like your enthusiasm for making daily records. Reminds me of what I used to do when playing games I'm really into especially when it comes to probability.
Thanks for the comments.
I don't usually make data-tables of games I play, but something just didn't seem right, so I needed to convince myself that I wasn't just imagining things. One thing to remember is that in random selection, a dice with 6 sides will not give you a different number each time. Although you have a 1-in-6 chance of getting a particular number, it could take 20 rolls to get the number you were hoping for.
I was told by a game developer that some games use a pseudo-random generator and set it so that it drops a "wanted" result after a certain number of failures. It is obvious from my 1-in-10 recent experience that SoG doesn't use this idea or have set the bar too high.
Dam, 2 légendaires 😲
I've never gotten one through the card buys yet (got one as a reward from the achievement quests and one from beating October's challenge... They happened to be the same one 😂)
The Viscula Ladybug is one of my winning cards in nearly any combo, that's for sure :)
I actually like the slow grind mechanic, as it avoids my normal "play it for hours on end then get bored" problem.
It's true there's a lack of ways to earn bitcrystals without spending... I actually had an idea om going to propose -> fiction writing contest/bounty to create back stories for the cards that don't have it, with rewards in BCY or users choice of Rare / epic
I haven't spend a dime yet, but it's true the mechanics are a bit pushy about getting you to buy gems.
Your conclusions about potential differential probability for different cards seem pretty good. I've noticed that too, in how many of some cards I get while nearly never getting the others. I remember one if the mods sharing a document after doing a generation of 10000 cards to reassure someone there was indeed a possibility of getting légendaires and they weren't lying through their teeth.
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Thanks for the feedback.
You actually have 2 of the SAME legendaries!!!! WOW! Obviously you merged them and now have a super-duper card (unless it is one of the less-useful legendaries).
Are you still wanting to quad-merge and blockchainize ALL your cards? It seems to me that it is only worth doing it for epic or better cards. Anything less is almost worthless and certainly not worth 200 crystals were you to try and sell it.
Right now I'm just quad fusing all the cards I can. I have 4 of every common in existence, and pretty sure I've got the complete set of rares too. Just got me another Epic to complete a set too XD
I'll focus on blockchaining the Epics next, then work my way down from there.
Im Starting with the commons to progress on the merging achievement mainly 😆
I've only got 5 commons that aren't completely merged hehe 😆
It's the Aodh, so maybe not the absolute best but still interesting for certain levels.
I can't fathom how #1 got 411,000 points already... either Keirins a bot or they're putting 100+€ into the game a month to stay on top...
I'm at 12,000 and can't keep in the top 150 for the life of me 😂
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You and I are trying different approaches. I figure that I can get 4 of each of the common cards at any time, so am crystalizing all of them (I used to keep 4 of each, but altered that practice). I don't know if the achievement rewards are worth using up all my crystals since I'm always short of crystals.
I see the Aodh card used quite a bit in the raids, so it seems that is quite a common card; I have that one double-merged as well and use it a lot.
I have no idea how they calculate your progress score but assume that one gets MORE points at higher levels. I suspect that someone who gets 411,000 points must be way up there with all bullet-proof cards and is just smashing every level. Yea, they might also be buying more energy too.
By the sounds of what you have in cards, you should be able to play 3 times per day and farm about 1,000-2,000 coins per day with daily bonuses and raids. That should put you into the top 150. It's when you try to progress and get killed that you don't gain many points, so stick to farming something that pays decent and that you can kill at least 95% of the time. That's why I was stuck at Purple Dragon for so long... the giant was killing me about 50% of the time until I got Viscula Ladybug. (One more ladybug and I can have 2 of the viscula ladybugs if I wish to devote the crystals to her. Unfortunately her normal attack is very low compared to what the balls can take. I have to hit one ball several times with 9 attack, so 3 barely scratches them.)
It will be interesting to see which strategy ends up being better. Please do keep me informed on your own progress. It's always fun to see how others are doing.
I will :)
Right now I'm making good progress on bearing the monthly campaign. I'm at star 4, halfway to star 5.
I do the monthly to get the legendary at the end, but it also awards more gold.
After how I understand the leader board it's literally the amount if gold earned through quests and levels, but not through the challenge (with the right cards the challenge can go on for quite a while after all)
By the way the challenge is just a cost of 10 energy each time you try, and you earn more gold the more levels you survive. I got the impression from your post you though it was a one time thing ? Or did I misread that ?
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Have you completed Witch Of The Hills (formerly Sia)? I can't get past the 5th star.
I'm also stuck at the 4th star of Eye of the Orc. If I don't get any stronger cards soon, I'll never beat the orc by month's end. I take it that's what needs to be done to get that Orc card? I've never got anything besides the normal wins, so do you get both the normal card at the end AND the special monthly card? Do we need to sign up for anything or are the cards given out automatically?
I'm stuck at the last part of lvl 7 of the Witch. Mostly because I'm so focused on completing the monthly campaign.
I think you've got a case of mistaken identity as to where you get the orc card.
The monthly campaign us only visible once you've beaten the first level if Every normal level, and there's 5 other levels (including Dark Creator) after the eye of the orc.
The monthly is called "November's Feast" and is the one that rewards the legendary Orc once you've completed every star.
Cards for the monthly are given out when you play that level. No sign up required.
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Woah! So the monthly is similar to the challenge and raid stopping points in that it appears on its own as an overlay on the map? I'm not that far into the game yet. No wonder I can't see those monthlies! So basically, I'll always be too far behind to get any monthly because it takes me too long to get there (it's over before I reach it). What a downer.
SoG is much like Steem then... the early adopters get the advantage and KEEP that advantage forever. Then again... the Orc card isn't THAT good until it is quad-merged and HOW do you get 4 of them if it is a special card you can only get by completing the monthly special?
Boy do I still have a lot to learn about this game!
Yup, you read correctly. That's the way I understood the challenge (as a 1-time thing). You mean its not? We can take the challenge more than once? Have you actually tried it out? If that's the case, I wonder if I'm strong enough to make it worthwhile taking the challenge?
How does one enter the monthly challenge? (You are such a good source of information!)
The "challenge" level one is unlocked about halfway through the base game, costs 10 energy and can be played as many times as you want. That's the one with infinite levels (~4-5 enemies o'er level gradually getting stronger, with gold rewards going up. About 7 levels in you're near 150 gold I think. Been a while since I played it)
Unless it's changed since I last played it
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Thank-you! Perhaps I'll give it a try when I get a new quad-merged epic that I feel can last long enough in there. Currently, too many of my hard-hitters have little life and/or zero speed.
You seem to really be into this game. I love to read such enthusiastic review. It is a little bit subjective but it doesn't bother me. You play it for over 4 months so you can share your experience within your review. I wonder how many coins you will get when you enter the The Eye Of The Orc. It must be exciting and scary at the same that you can only do it once. Do I understand correctly that you collect the coins and then buy cards for them? You seem to have collected quite a few cards and I understand that some of them are very good. I also like your tracking idea :) It's good to see how you're doing every day.
Thank you for sharing and good luck with the game! :)
Thanks for your interest and interaction.
The Eye of the Orc is NOT the challenge stage. The challenge stage is a separate entity but is LOCKED until you reach the Eye Of The Orc.
The game also has a RAID function that you can attempt each day. The raid function doesn't require any energy so I generally exhaust my energy first and then do the raids. The raids pay out even when you LOSE, so do use them as often as you can. They don't give much for losing, but it all adds up.
The raids and the challenge are accessed from the main map, lower right corner.
Yes, you understand correctly. We play for coins, trade 100 coins for a card. Common cards can be "crystalized" (traded) for 1 crystal. Upgraded cards get more crystals, but less than what you put into them. Rare cards trade for 7 crystals each, so these are the ones you want to be getting lots of because upgrading costs a lot!
140 crystals to quad-merge a common card.
350 crystals to quad-merge a rare card.
770 crystals to quad-merge an epic card.
1610 crystals to quad-merge a legendary card.
So just to get ONE quad-merged legendary, you need to have collected 1,610 common cards and crystalized them (or less cards of greater value).
Sorry, I didn't enter how much gold comes from the Eye of The Orc. (In case you didn't know, you can r-click the image to open a new tab and see it full-size)
The 3rd column of BOOSTS is where I track which star I'm working on. (I put in 3 columns in case there are more boosts in later stopping points)
I did not know there was a game called Spells Of Genesis that is based on blockchain, thanks for letting me know. I've been looking for games that relate to that technology but I have not found something that suits my tastes as a player. I think I read that you have been playing it for four months and you have given a very specific and detailed review, you see that you have taken advantage of your time in the game, I hope you do much better and you get more than what you have achieved.
Thank-you!
This review has been at the back of my mind for a while and I finally managed to put it out. It gives me great pleasure to hear that I'm able to share information with others that they appreciate.
Eventually I am bound to get some better cards, so I will be able to move up another notch at that time. In the mean-time I keep collecting crystals so that when I finally do get the card I need, I have the crystals necessary for upgrading those cards.
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