BattleCards!

[yendi]

Does anyone else remember the section of Good Omens in which we find out about Newton's luck with owning computers? How he'd buy machines that seemed great, but would be discontinued within a week?

That was me for a while. I was a major booster of Atari's computers (had an 800 and a 1040ST), I had a Turbografx-16 as my primary videogame system, a Gamegear as my portable, etc. I don't regret any of those decisions, but let's just say I've been wrong about The NExt Big Thing a few times.

Which brings me to 1993.

I'd heard a lot of advance hype about collectable trading card games. And one day, I walked into Titan, and there it was: A new collectable trading card game called Battlecards, from Steve Jackson Games.

The cards were pretty nifty, and the idea behind them was that you would scratch off parts of the cards to reveal stat points when playing against other folks. If you won (each scratch-off spot would be either a hit or a miss, and whoever lost their hitpoints lost their card), you would scratch off the treasure chest, and you could send in treasure for prize cards.

It was a pretty nifty concept, and I enjoyed it for a little bit. I thought it was much niftier than the other CCG that came out a few months later, and which I bought one pack of, shrugged., and then ignored for over a year.

Ten years later, Magic: The Gathering is the biggest money-making machine this side of the US Mint. And Steve Jackson's website doesn't have a single mention of Battlecards.

Yeah, I can sure pick 'em.

Comments

[lovingboth]

Did you see http://www.livejournal.com/users/lovingboth/133595.html ?

I keep meaning to look up the MtG's patent.

Hey, the Atari 800 was great! :)

[yendi]

Actually, that was the post that got me thinking about Battlecards again.

Yeah, the 800 was great (and had a good lifespan, too). It's a shame so few folks remember it nowadays.

[mfree.livejournal.com]

heh, there's an Atari Mega ST 4 out in the garage that *might* still work...

[yendi]

I wish I still had mine. What a great system.

[mfree.livejournal.com]

heh, you can have this one... I'm sans keyboard, monitor, mouse, and time/space...

[aussie-nyc.livejournal.com]

Atari 400/800 had the far superior version of Star Raiders. I miss that game.

Mythos was the CCG for me. Does that still exist?

[yendi]

I don't know if it still exists, but I've still got three or four decks of it.

[gmslegion.livejournal.com]

I think SJC also dropped the ball on Illuminati. When the CCG of that came out, we had to completely re-adapt the "buy your own cards" rules so that we were playing "old Illuminati with new cards" as much as possible. I mean, nobody wanted to buy the freaking things. And the expansions stank.

[yendi]

THe expansions did stink. But the original CCG was actually pretty nifty. It just came out during the initial post-Magic CCG glut.

[gmslegion.livejournal.com]

The problem I had then was that I did not know anyone who'd identify themselves as a gamer. Illuminati was a fun social activity which a dormmate had in college, and I later bought my own set when I moved out. Nobody who played with us - there were about 8-10 of us - would have considered making their own investment in it, and certainly not the expense that getting all the decent cards in the CCG entailed. Far simpler to just let me buy all those damn packs and assemble a new deck with modified rules.

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

I had and used an Amiga computer solely until 1996 when I graduated from college and finally broke down and bought a PC.

[bardiphouka.livejournal.com]

somewhere I do still have my amiga 500 I think. And one of the people at work still uses his for gaming.

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

Oh I still have my Amiga 2000 in a closet somewhere, complete with video toaster. And I could probably fire it up right now and still use it to get online. I used to use it for telnetting, IRCing, usenetting, and even some web browsing.

[bardiphouka.livejournal.com]

mmmm..toaster=)

[galdrin.livejournal.com]

I miss my Amiga .. and "Bards Tale", and "Conquer the Stars", and "Full Metal Planet", and "UMS ("The Ultimate Military Simulator"), and "Blitzkreig".

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

Steve Jackson games are cool :) I love Chez Geek

[kaine-maxwell.livejournal.com]

I still got my old Atari 2600 somewhere myself.

[gmslegion.livejournal.com]

My 2600 is plugged up and the kids just love playing it. I can't keep the cartridges (50-60) in the box for love nor money; they're strewn everywhere.

[kaine-maxwell.livejournal.com]

What games you got? Your kids play Atari...sweet!!

[gmslegion.livejournal.com]

Adventure, Dragonfire, Pitfall, Asteroids, Space Combat, Berzerk, Chopper Command, ET, Tunnel Runner, Dodger Cars, Demons to Diamonds, Frogger, Enduro, Missile Command, Pong Sports, Combat, Home Run, Haunted House, Firefighter, Superman, Air-Sea Battle, Warlords, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Astrosmash, Dark Cavern, Star Raiders, Demon Attack and a big pile in the floor. No paddles to play Warlords though.

Heck, I wish I had me a Thunderground. I loved that game.

[kaine-maxwell.livejournal.com]

Ah, such classics!!

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Kinda like me and TV shows. -_-

[mycroftca.livejournal.com]

Sold out my $8000 worth of MtG cards some years ago for over $12000; I just barely missed the peak (if I'd been smarter, it might have been over $30000)....