Less than a week ago, deckbuilding game Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer introduced its latest big-box expansion, Storm of Souls, to the world. To celebrate the game's recent successes and look back on the development saga, I spoke with Justin Gary himself. Ologists who've ever been zapped by a Prodigal Sorcerer or summoned a mighty Shivan Dragon need no introduction to Justin Gary, but here's one anyway: A decorated Magic: the Gathering champion, Gary has recently turned his game-fu to the challenging task of creating and managing a game design company. That company, Gary Games, is responsible for the wildly popular deckbuilding game. Ascension launched in August 2010 and hasn't stopped picking up steam since its initial release, making this the perfect time to speak with Gary about the project. The main buzzword in our discussion was accessibility. No matter who you are, Ascension can be your game--and here are seven reasons why, plucked straight from my interview with Justin Gary, with my own thoughts and experience spliced (spliced!) right in.
1. Ascension started out as a labor of love among friends.
Gary says that the initial idea for Ascension came from his experience with Dominion, an early success in the field of deckbuilding games and an important milestone for later entries in the medium. Though he enjoyed playing Dominion, he found its gameplay somewhat static--which didn't jive with his background in trading card games (TCGs). That's why he devised Ascension as a more dynamic alternative to what he saw in Dominion. As Gary tells it, Ascension's first test was surviving a group like your own gaming squad:
Most of what I made was for me and my friends to play. It wasn't originally intended to be something I was going to release as a product. It sort of feels like a draft format: You can get new cards coming up all the time, you're not 100% sure what cards are going to be available, but the choices you make influence what's available for your opponents. And then that changes their strategy, so you have to adapt to what they're doing... it creates a really interesting and dynamic system.
2. Ascension is Gary Games' first deckbuilding game, too!
Putting together Ascension in time for its GenCon release in 2010 was a "mad rush," says Gary, but the dream team of Magic hall of famers and talented designers managed to get it together for a convention debut. Gary:
This was my first totally-owned game out there—I'm putting my name on the box. We had this all-star team pouring blood, sweat, and tears into this, and people responded. We sold out of our initial print run in less than a month.
The team's enthusiasm appears infectious: More than any other game I've worked on, Ascension has the best ratio of demo to “OK, I wanna buy this game.”
3. There's an iOS version, so you can practice and play with your friends remotely.
When I spoke with Gary, the Return of the Fallen expansion, which had already been in play on tabletops, had just made the jump to the digital game: We had thousands of people rushing to download it, and I know because most of them have challenged me to matches of Ascension online, said Gary. The iOS version of Ascension is a faithful adaptation, and it's the perfect way to hone your skills and explore the cards even when you can't get together with your fellow Godslayers IRL.
4. The barrier for entry is minimal, but the TCG fun is for real.
I'll let Gary handle this one:
One of the challenges of playing TCGs is that they take up so much mind space and wallet space that it's very hard to play more than one. I know very few people who are really into more than one TCG because it'll take up all the disposable income and thought process you give it. And so it's very hard to create a new TCG that's similar to Magic, or somewhat different: “Why am I gonna play this instead of Magic?” Or Yu-Gi-Oh!, Redakai, whatever. With a deckbuilding game, commitment is much, much smaller. I can play Magic for a while, and then stop and say, “OK, I'm gonna play a game of Ascension now,” or play a couple games and jump back, and that's an easy thing to do. We're releasing two expansions a year, something like that—the burden to the player is very little.
But the rewards are big-time:
The play experience of a CCG—the ability to craft your deck and have a different game every time—is so phenomenal. You think about the revolution when Richard Garfield created Magic, and it just took the world by storm. Deckbuilding games put all that into a single box.
5. The game has its own original fantasy world--and you can decide its fate.
I don't mean you can play the game and tell your own story of the Godslayer--I mean you could actually become the Godslayer, with your very own commemorative card to prove your honor. Here's the deal: Ascension's storyline starts with a war between the five gods--one of the divinities, Samael, (a.k.a. the Fallen) has decided to betray his fellow gods in a bid for conquest. The gods unite to defeat him but end up sundering the world; they're each banished to their own realms in the war's fallout. Several thousand years later, Samael returns with designs on the mortal world. The gods must stop him once more, but they can't do it themselves for fear of another global cataclysm. Instead, they recruit champions--and that's where you come in:
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is the story of you, as the players, all working together to try to defeat the monsters and defeat Samael—but the one of you who earns the most honor earns that title of Godslayer. One of the really exciting things about this for us is because we created this world, we can do whatever we want with it. Last summer, we had our Godslayer Tournament at GenCon. We actually had to cap the tournament at 144 people—it was the largest boardgaming event they had there. The winner was crowned the Godslayer and will receive a card commemorating him in a future expansion of Ascension. It's this really cool thing where players can actually be part of the world.
6. Ascension expansions mean there's always something new to try.
The two Ascension expansions thus far--Return of the Fallen, a small-box expansion meant to be combined with one of its bigger counterparts, and this month's Storm of Souls, a more stand-alone big-box expansion--have added new rules and new challenges to the original game:
In Return of the Fallen we added a mechanic that allows cards to influence the board as soon as they came into play, we had more ways to interact with the Void and new strategies that developer. Storm of Souls introduces an entirely new card type, Events, which change the rules of the game, and trophy monsters, which give the monster hunting player a lot more decision-making—they can choose when they want to get the monster reward. Of course, every time you introduce any new card, the whole playing field will be different as players discover how that card fits in, what new strategies it unlocks.
Gary hinted at more Ascension news on the way in February or March, so you can bet there will be no rest for the world's Godslayers this year.
7. The game is designed to hook even your non-gamer buddies.
Says Gary:
Ascension is one of the greatest games for non-gamer friends, slowly introducing them into the gamer world. It's not as much of a direct-conflict game: I'm not trying to lightning-bolt you, I'm not trying to mess up what you're doing. I'm just trying to build my strategy. That's how I look at Ascension as the gateway drug of the gamer world... though I don't think we're going to use that as a marketing tagline.
I've had a blast playing Ascension and I'm sure you will, too. Check it out at the Gary Games website and stay up to date with the deckbuilding game's latest developments.
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Follow Josh Harrison on Twitter: @geekologized.
