App Review – Dominion (Steam)

(Edit: 1/25/24: Update on pricing, from Temple Gates Games. The expansion bundle is $99.99 USD on Apple/Google. On Steam it’s a ‘complete-the-set’ bundle with a 15% discount. Later on in the expansion, you could buy individual expansions, apparently (after I stopped playing) and thus you may already have some of them)

I have to admit it right up front.

I’m not a huge fan of the classic deckbuilding card game, Dominion (published by Rio Grande Games).

I know a lot of people love it, and it is a classic for a reason.

But I’m more of a fan of the (admittedly more random) “a row of cards that you can buy/defeat which is then replaced by a random new card” like Ascension or Shards of Infinity.

If I am going to play a deckbuilding game with pre-arranged stacks of cards to buy, I’d like it to have something more, like Trains (somebody please make an app for this, or implement it on Boardgame Arena, please?).

Why am I talking about this?

Because the app for Dominion, published by Temple Gates Games, is coming out on February 1 and it is simply amazing.

I had access to the beta version of the game a long time ago (a long time…it was in beta for a while) and really enjoyed it. But I kind of fell away from it after a while.

Temple Gates graciously gave me a copy of the game and all 15 expansions (along with promo packs) to test out and give a fair and honest review.

I’ve played multiple solo games and also am in a couple of online games and I have to say that it’s working really well.

Whatever bugs were around during the beta appear to be gone (though as I said, I’m not an expert on the game so can’t comment on any rules bugs).

Let’s take a look under the hood!

Just as a brief summary in case you’ve never played Dominion, it’s a deckbuilding game where there are stacks of different cards (randomly selected and depending on which expansion(s) you are using) that you can buy from.

You can play one Action card on your turn, though some cards will let you play multiple Actions.

Then you play your Treasures (money) and can buy one card. Again, some cards may allow you multiple buys if you can afford them.

You are trying to collect victory point cards to your deck. Most of them (and all of the basic ones that are always available) don’t do anything except clog up your deck, so you don’t want to start buying them until you get the rest of your deck built up to be efficient.

The game ends when one of the VP stacks is depleted.

Setting up a game is really easy, and you have a number of different AI possibilities as well as play-style combinations.

You can really customize the type of game you want to play.

Warning, though. Just because you choose “Learner” doesn’t necessarily mean the AI is a cakewalk.

Especially if you’re me!

But the combinations are really nice to have.

The AI has almost surely developed since the beta, as it is a kind of neural network that is supposed to learn as it goes.

And it’s had a long time to learn.

The UI in the game is just great.

All you have to do to see a card and what it does is right-click on it (I’m not sure what you will have to do on Android/iOS, but I’m sure it will work similarly).

This gives you everything you need to know about the card, or the Ally, or whatever you’re right-clicking on.

Doesn’t matter, it’s a right-click!

The layout of the main table makes it easy to see everything, from the stacks of cards available (which you can right-click on to blow up!), the “always there” cards on the left side, your hand, and whatever else you’re going to need to see.

The app also walks you through the sequence of play, from playing any Action cards you have, to then playing your Treasures, and then (if you’re playing the Nocturne expansion) highlighting any Night cards you can play.

Everything lights up when you can use it, which is handy. The tiny text (maybe it could be a little bigger?) under the market stacks tells you what the game is waiting for you to do (in this case, play Actions).

If you’re not sure what’s happened previously in the game (more useful in an asynchronous online game, but also could be useful in a live or solo game!), there’s the handy “log” button on the bottom right (the fact that it’s a picture of a log still amuses me).

Speaking of the “log” button, it used to be in the Menu, meaning you had to make an extra click in order to see it. I’m glad to see that during the beta, they moved it to the main screen so it’s just one click.

The other button down on the bottom right is the Kingdom button, showing you all of the Standard cards and all of the Kingdom cards that are in this particular game.

I have nothing but good things to say about the UI and how crisp and clean this game looks on the screen.

The background of your main “table” changes depending on what expansions you are using too, which is awesome.

The artwork is wonderful and everything is readable.

While I was active in the beta, the online multiplayer hadn’t been implemented yet, so I couldn’t test it.

In the finished version, the online multiplayer comes with all of the standard modes and choices, but is also pretty easy to set up (though Temple Gates still uses Friend Codes to make friends on their apps, which is only slightly less annoying than Dire Wolf Digital’s “+1234” codes).

You can do an easy “Quickplay” which will just hook you up with an opponent (either Ranked, Unranked, or whichever the game decides), or you can put yourself in an asynchronous queue which basically does the same thing but with asynchronous instead of live.

Setting up a private game is also very quick and easy, letting you choose the expansions you want to use (I think the Quickplay it must be random, based on the expansions that each player has?).

As you can see, you can choose untimed if you’re playing with a friend who you trust, or you can set a timer.

Or even play live!

I have limited playtime with the online right now, but it’s very smooth and silky, it has a “Next Game” button if you’re in more than one game with turns waiting (surprisingly not all apps have this!), and setup is a breeze.

Dominion is coming out in an interesting fashion.

The base game is free (just like Ascension, actually) and each expansion will be available to buy from the outset.

None of this waiting for each expansion that we Ascension fans have had to put up with.

Of course that means the cost could be pretty hefty upfront if you’re a completionist and want everything all at once.

By putting all of the current expansions out immediately (15 is all of them, right? Or are there more still????), Temple Gates also avoids the eternal question that everybody has had for their other also great apps, Roll for the Galaxy and Shards of Infinity:

When are the expansions going to come out? Are they ever going to come out? Pretty please?

(Shards of Infinity, as awesome of an app as it is, really needs the expansions, or at least the first one)

Dominion will not have that problem!

All in all, I have to say that Dominion is an extremely polished and well-done app that Temple Gates should be proud of.

The app gets out your way and just lets you play the game, but helps you along as well if you’re not as expert at the game as some people are.

It loads extremely quickly, lets you get to your games very fast, and is just a ton of fun to play.

I mean…as many tons of fun as you find Dominion anyway.

With this app, though, maybe I’ll actually play it a lot more and get better at it?

Dominion fans can rejoice: they finally have a great digital version of the game they can play, after many terrible and aborted attempts.

Dominion will be out on Steam, Android and iOS on February 1.

I mentioned this above, but many thanks again to Temple Gates for giving me a review copy of the game and its expansions