Arcomage
| Company type | Video game |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Predecessor | Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor, Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (minigame) |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Founder | Stickman Games |
| Products | Arcomage (digital card game) |
| Owner | The 3DO Company |
Arcomage is a digital card game created by Stickman Games and published by The 3DO Company. It initially appeared as a minigame within Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor (1999) and Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (2000), where players could engage in gambling or complete quests. In 2000, 3DO launched Arcomage as an independent release, featuring options to play solo against AI opponents or compete with others through LAN or TCP/IP connections. The game's fantasy setting aligns closely with the themes of the Might and Magic series.
Gameplay
Arcomage is a two-player card game played on a virtual tabletop, where each participant controls a deck, a "tower," a "wall," and resource pools that shape gameplay and winning conditions. Players take turns drawing cards to maintain a hand of six, then use or discard cards depending on their available resources—namely "bricks," "gems," and "recruits"—which are produced each turn according to their respective rates ("quarry," "magic," and "dungeon"). Certain cards grant extra actions during a turn.
Victory objectives differ depending on the tavern setting, requiring players to adjust their strategies accordingly:
- Destroying the opposing player's tower completely
- Achieving a predetermined tower height
- Gathering a specified quantity of resources
Core player attributes include:
- Quarry: rate at which bricks are produced
- Bricks: resource used to play brick-related cards
- Magic: rate at which gems are generated
- Gems: resource used for gem-based cards
- Dungeon: rate of recruit production
- Recruits: resource spent on recruit cards
The card selection broadened in Might and Magic VIII, introducing varied effects. Examples include:
- Faerie (recruit): inflicts 2 damage, permits an additional play, costs 1 recruit
- Portcullis (brick): increases wall by 5, boosts dungeon production by 1, costs 9 bricks
- Sanctuary (gem): raises tower by 10, wall by 5, and grants 5 recruits; costs 15 gems
Reception
The reception of Arcomage was mixed. Jeff Green from Computer Gaming World criticized the game for its high degree of randomness and noted few changes from its iteration in Might and Magic VII. Meanwhile, Absolute Games described it as "boring" and incomplete, pointing out the lack of features such as card trading or online leaderboards.