MOBA Inspired Game ELO Darkness Surpasses 200% Funding in 24 Hours

Sep 27, 2017

An interesting card game, from Reggie Games, is currently in the midst of a Kickstarter funding run. In ELO Darkness, players lead their teams of heroes in battle against other players’ teams in arena combat. The game play is card driven as each player’s deck represents their team. The game has already passed 200% funding in its first day and a copy can be reserved at the $57.00 level through October 24th.

From Reggie Games:

For those who haven’t heard about this project yet, ELO Darkness stems from the ambitious idea to combine the MOBA genre with unique card duel mechanics. Each player controls a 40-card deck representing his Team of Heroes (5 characters divided into classes) and including both generic Action cards and specific Hero abilities.

The game is designed for 1vs1 or 2vs2 matches, which are played on a fully illustrated gameboard featuring an epic MOBA inspired arena.

The aim of the game is to invade the enemy base, advancing step-by-step on the board, destroying the enemy towers and breaking through the opponent defenses from one of the 3 different lanes on the map.

Since there are no dice in the game, randomness is very limited also being mitigated by control factors such as the possibility to draw more cards when retreating from your position on the map.

Cards can be used for multiple purposes in the game: they can be discarded during the Farming phase in order to gain Experience points and gold (which is useful to buy and upgrade Item cards), or they can be played to advance on the 3 different battlefronts during the Combat phase.

The latter is resolved through a simultaneous action selection mechanism followed by a back-and-forth phase in which players alternate using Gank cards to increase their Influence on the lane and trigger powerful combos and synergies between the Hero.

The unique aspect of the game is the interaction with the map, which introduces interesting tactical aspects and really contributes in making the game more thematic and immersive.

Another feature that is really difficult to find in other similar titles is the huge amount of content offered in the game. For about $58 (€ 49), the box includes a total of 400 cards featuring 30 Heroes, 20 Item cards per player (with upgraded version each), over 130 Action cards, a thousand of tokens and two gameboards which are dedicated each to a different game mode.

ELO Darkness is a complete game, rich in content and with a high replayability. Players who delve into the deckbuilding and customization aspect can find a huge variety of combinations and possibilities.

For those who love miniatures, then, or for those who simply want to get the most immersive MOBA experience, there are sets of highly detailed exclusive Tower and Minion minis that can be added selecting the Platinum pledge level ($69, or $63 with the limited Early Bird!).

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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...