Six best card games to play with your iPad right now
Card games are a favourite time pass for families and friends. A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including poker. Physically you can play card games at real casinos or at home with a deck or pack of playing cards that are identical in size and shape. Each card has two sides, the face, and the back. The faces of the cards may all be unique, or there can be duplicates. The composition of a deck is known to each player. In some cases, several decks are shuffled together to form a single pack or shoe.
Some games that are placed in the card game genre involve a board. The distinction is that the gameplay of a card game chiefly depends on the use of the cards by players (the board is simply a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement), while board games (the principal non-card game genre to use cards) generally focus on the players’ positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose.
Online card games are video games played on computers or with card games mobile apps. Here are the six best card games to play with your iPad right now. You can download these card games apps from app stores and get started.
1. Ascension: Deckbuilding Game
A deck-building card game in the vein of Magic: The Gathering, Ascension differs in that you build your deck while playing the game, rather than in your spare time beforehand – thus making the game more immediately accessible, while perhaps compromising a little on strategic depth.
You and your opponent(s) start with 10 cards, each of which gives you a single white ‘rune’ point (to spend on buying new cards) or red ‘power’ point (to spend on killing monsters). Each turn you are dealt five of these, and you play them, then spend the points acquiring or killing the various cards that sit in the middle of the board.
There are tons of special cards, all of which demonstrate the unusual art style this game offers. This is a free game app. Click here to download now.
2. Card Thief
In Card Thief you move through a deck of cards as a stealthy thief. Sneak in the shadows, extinguish torches, pickpocket guards and steal valuable treasures without getting caught. Card Thief, the official follow up to Tinytouchtales excellent dungeon crawler Card Crawl, attempts to condense the classic stealth genre into a solitaire style card game. The game offers accessible core gameplay with a deep layer of tactical planning and various risk reward mechanics on top. In 4 different heists, you can test your skills against various enemy and trap types. By successfully completing heists you can unlock and upgrade 12 equipment cards each with a unique ability to improve your high scores.
With plenty of depth and superb visuals, even its slightly repetitive nature can’t take the edge off Card Thief. This game app costs AU$4.49. Click here to download now
3. Exploding Kittens
Exploding Kittens is a multiplayer card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats. Play with 2 to 5 players across multiple phones in the same room, or online with friends or strangers. In this highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette, players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten, at which point they explode, they are dead, and they are out of the game — unless that player has a Defuse card, which can defuse the Kitten using things like laser pointers, belly rubs, and catnip sandwiches. All of the other cards in the deck are used to move, mitigate, or avoid the Exploding Kittens. This app costs AU$2.99. Click here to download now.
4. Hearthstone
The Gathering with Warcraft characters, Hearthstone is a card battle game. Build decks and strategies, summon minions and cast spells. The different classes and their specific cards and abilities add a nice level of variety, and a single-player mode means you don’t have to take your game online unless you want to. As with all trading card games, Hearthstone hinges to some degree on IAP for new card packs, but the quest rewards for fulfilling various criteria (such as a number of monsters summoned or points healed) minimize the necessity of paying for anything. The turn-based set-up makes it a perfect game to play during odd moments, and seeing a long-term strategy pay off is very satisfying. This game app is free with in-app purchases. Click here to download now.
5. Meteorfall
Meteorfall is a deck-building roguelike. You’ll choose your class from one of four unique adventurers and then set out with a deck consisting of some basic attack cards. During the course of your adventure, you’ll be presented with the opportunity to add powerful new cards to your deck. No adventure would be complete without slaying a few monsters that get in your way. In battle, you’ll draw cards from your ability deck. Each time you draw a card, you’ll be able to swipe right to play the card, or swipe left to skip a turn and regain some stamina.
Between battles, you’ll venture through a variety of locations, represented by an encounter deck. You’ll encounter blacksmiths that can upgrade your cards, temples that can help you optimize your deck, and mysterious characters that will make you all sorts of bargains.
The tactical strategy of combat micro-decisions mixed with the strategic element of deck-building provides a compelling and deep gameplay experience.
Over time, you build and customize your deck of actions and skills, strategically using them to carve your way through evil monsters – right up until a ghoulish boss inevitably kills you. At which point, you dust yourself off and have another go, safe in the knowledge no two games of Meteorfall are ever alike. This game app costs AU$5.99. Click here to download now.
6. Sage Solitaire
Sage Solitaire is a brand new Solitaire variant that combines the luck and joy of Solitaire with the depth of Poker; lovingly crafted, and optimized for your iPad. The free version of Sage Solitaire deals out Single Deck, Insta-Tournament, and Vegas Modes. A single in-app purchase kills ads and unlocks more modes, wallpapers, and themes that pair nicely with any situation you might be in. So take it with you, Sage is a Solitaire game fit for your life.
In the basic mode, you score by removing poker hands; the better the hand, the more points you get. Strategy comes from a limitation that forces you to use cards from multiple rows for each hand. With the stacks at the top of the screen being taller than those at the bottom, the latter’s cards are best used sparingly. In addition, a randomly allocated suit acts as a multiplier, bestowing double points when used in a hand, and two ‘trashes’ exist to remove individual cards.
The Vegas mode, unlocked on clearing the entire board three times, gives you a virtual bank account, awards cash prizes only when using the multiplier hand, and ups your overall payout multiplier on clearing piles from the top two rows. Subtly different strategies are required for success, hence the initial lockdown – it’s very easy to otherwise burn through your limited funds.
Crack Vegas and hit $800, and you can try your hand at True Grit.
A brand new mode — Instant Tournament — comes to Sage Solitaire! Try to get your best score on a specific deal, and then see how you stack up against everyone else in the world who played that exact deal!
Insta also brings with it a new scoring mechanic: The 5 Card Bonus. Build up your bonus by making any hand, and then score it by making any 5 card hand! But watch your trashes, any time you trash your bonus will reset!. Click here to download this game now.
Now enjoy these card games with your iPad.