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Sneak Peek: The Card Game of Oz from Game Salute

Feb 7, 2013

With Disney’s Oz: The Great and Powerful on the horizon L. Frank Baum’s universe (Baum did author fifteen Oz novels as well as numerous short stories you know…) is going to be on a lot of minds and Game Salute is launching a new card game based on the author’s magical creations. As part of what Game Salute is calling the Storyline Game System, in The Card Game of Oz you’re an “Author” rewriting the epic Oz tales and you’ll compete to be the first player to finish writing your story before your opponent.

The first core edition will contain decks which are called Story Packs and tackle the characters and events found in the initial novel in the series, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I have to say I’m pretty intrigued by this new title and a print and play version is available for download prior to the Springboard funding launch on February 14th.

From Game Salute:

Over 100 years ago L. Frank Baum introduced the world to the wondrous Land of Oz. With The Card Game of Oz, coming in 2013 from Game Salute, you can experience these familiar characters, fantastic locations, and disturbing creatures as never before imagined.

The Card Game of Oz is an Epic Card Game utilizing an innovative new game system we call the Storyline Game System that adds strategy to your challenging and fun adventures through Oz.

The Springboard campaign for The Card Game of Oz is scheduled to launch on February 14th, 2013.

In looking through the rules, I see game is played through a series of Location cards which are laid out in the center of the table. These locations are selected at random and each player will place their Title card at opposite ends of the playing area – the Story Line – as each person looks to move a character onto their opponent’s title card. Each player then draws five cards from their deck to make up a starting hand.

The cards in the deck are broken into Characters, Effects, Events, and Objects; Locations are set to the side in their own mini-deck called the Location Folio.

To begin a turn, a player will roll the included custom dice and tally up their number of Story Points rolled. With these points, an Author may draw cards from their deck, move characters to a new location, change a location card on the table, or pay to bring a card from their hand into play. Players can perform as many actions as they like as long as they have the available Story Points.

The game continues until one player moves a primary character onto their opponent’s Title card at the end of the Story Line. This doesn’t mean the player will automatically win as the total Vitality of the player’s characters in play (along with any bonuses or penalties from cards in play) outside of the character who landed on the Title card, and the Author with the highest Vitality total is declared the winner.

Once players are familiar with gameplay, The Card Game of Oz will allow gamers to vary their decks by carefully selecting their choice of characters, effects, events, objects, and locations for inclusion. The options will, of course, increase with the release of further expansions to the base set. Although The Card Game of Oz is primarily a two player game, there are rules for including more players to the mix as well as solitaire play.

Stay tuned for more about The Card Game of Oz as this looks like one to keep an eye out for and I’m interested to see more of the classic world of Oz outside Dorothy, Toto, Cowardly Lion, and so forth come into the gaming consciousness.

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Jeff McAleer

Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...