SolForge

I've been playing a bit of SolForge recently. It is free-to-play, and an open beta is available on Steam, so I can recommend it without any qualms.

When I first started playing, the interface was heart-breakingly slow. You would wait three times as long for the game to load as it took to assess and play your hand. It's better now, though still not exactly quick.

I say "heart-breakingly" because the game has been enjoyable since I started playing it. The gripe most new players seem to have is that a starter deck isn't very strong, leaving the player helpless against the CPU's much stronger cards. In my case, I've played enough to have one good deck and one mediocre deck, so the problem isn't one which can't be overcome. You'll need to collect a few stronger cards before taking on "hard" CPUs and online players, so it's not well suited for an immediate binge.

But that plays into the game's charm. It's the kind of game you can play for a few minutes to an hour (at most), and then you'll be more than ready to go do something else. You can come back tomorrow for a daily log in reward and a chance at strengthening your deck, play until you win three games for another daily reward, and then move on.

If you want to play multiple games at once (if you're going to play online, you do), you'll be back and forth between games and the main menu constantly. It would be better if you could have a window open up for each game so that you could keep an eye on all of them at once. I'd love to see that happen in the future.

New cards are coming out and surely some changes are coming to old cards (grimgaunt predators are way OP). The game is still in its early stages and all the problems are certainly not ironed out just yet, but it's free-to-play and games are quick enough that you won't have much trouble keeping the daily rewards coming. The game is easy enough to play that it can appeal to a casual gamer with enough strategy to appeal to old-school tabletoppers. I'd say this game is definitely worth a try, and if you like it you can recommend it to gamer and non-gamer friends alike.