I am one of those gamers that has never played Magic: The Gathering, but always wanted to. So, the idea of a free card game on the iPhone/iPad appealed to me. Kard Combat is an interesting game that is fairly easy to play, but it certainly isn’t what I would call free.
First, the good--you get to pick from several classes that have different strengths and weaknesses, almost like a Dungeons & Dragons game. Each class has a certain deck of cards to play with that reflect their abilities and powers. The goal of the game is to battle NPC characters that are inhabiting levels of a wizard’s tower you are trying to make your way through. You use your deck of cards to battle the NPCs and their decks. The core gameplay involves playing one card at a time against the cards the other player has put down. Each player has a certain amount of health, so you’re trying to play cards that not only beat the cards from the other person’s deck, but also do damage to player using that deck.
The gameplay is fun, but I blew through the “free” content pretty quickly, which is my major gripe with the game. In order to have any sort of substantial experience with this game, you will need to pay to unlock new cards, new levels, etc. I didn’t enjoy the game enough to want to spend more than a dollar or two on it, which would basically only unlock the one class I spent the most time with. I guess if I knew a bunch of people who were also playing, I might be more inclined to spend money on the game, as there is a multiplayer component. As it is, however, I don’t really like the way the pay structure is put together for Kard Combat, so I can’t really recommend spending money on it. However, it’s still free to download, so you should check it out for yourself.
2.5 out of 5