SexStone is a lewd “strategy card game” with a fantasy theme.
Adult Content?
(F) nudity.
Censorship?
No. Woot! Woot!
Hours of Gameplay?
Thirty minutes.
Patch Available?
No, not necessary.
Gameplay: overview (2/5★)
Deal as much damage as possible with two rounds of randomized hands and turn-by-turn gameplay. Each player has two “rows” where they may place cards. The row in which you play cards will affect the way they deal and take damage. You must play a card every turn, until both players have no more cards to play. Then if it’s not already “round two”, both players redraw their hands. The goal of the game is complete “round two” with the highest point total. Each card you place on the board (or in Magic terms, each permanent) is worth a point. Each point of damage you deal is worth points, and each creature (I’m sorry, “organic [sic]”) is worth a designated amount of points when destroyed. There are three major card types; “attackers” deal damage, “healers” restore hit-points and “skills” are effectively more-powerful, single-use “attackers” and “healers”. Attackers either deal “melee” or “ranged” damage; melee damage can only be dealt to adjacent cards, and ranged damage can target any one row. Some attacks can target multiple adjacent cards, making them ideal for sweeping heavy board presences. To maximize your damage, it’s important to exploit your enemies’ weaknesses by avoiding “resistances”. It takes a hint of “wits and tactics” to win games of SexStone, but every game plays the same. There’s only one good way to play each card, and whoever draws the biggest bombs is sure to win by a landslide.
Sexual Content: overview (1/5★)
The cards have boobs on them — poorly rendered boobs, might I add. Though you can’t spell “SexStone” without “sex”, there’s no sex to be seen. A few of the character models look decent, but most of them are uncanny women. Entropy Digital Entertainment writes,
This game includes special adult themed cards containing nudity and other special surprises that will both make you laugh and excite the game play to a whole new level.
Make me laugh? Is SexStone supposed to be a comedic game? The artwork fails to “excite”, and it failed to make me laugh. Listen Entropy Digital Entertainment, if you need a 3D artist look no further; DatWombat ain’t free, but shitty artwork means shitty sales.
Story: overview (1/5★)
There is no story. However, all cards offer some sort of biography. Most of them only offer generic, poorly spelled descriptions, but a few have poorly spelled story tidbits. No, I’m not willing to suffer through documenting whatever pathetic excuse of a “story” Entropy Digital Entertainment has to offer. It’s clear they don’t care.
Sound: overview (2/5★)
I was surprised to hear no music. I don’t usually listen to music when I play games, but I think card games should absolutely have tracks. I don’t think people enjoy flipping cards to silence. The sound effects are okay — they served their purpose, nothing more.
Visuals: overview (2/5★)
The titlescreen looks stupid. It’s nicely arranged, but the half-naked lady looks a little derpy. There doesn’t appear to be any form of “options” or “settings” screen to adjust audio or display preferences. The “QUIT” button is non-functional. If you want to restart a game (before completion), you’ll need to close and reopen the application. The user-interface is somewhat confusing, it takes some time to learn how to read your cards. This game desperately needs some form of “tutorial”. The simplistic playing board looks out-of-place behind the cards, which feature high-detail 3D artwork. Overall, I found this artwork to be generic and mediocre at best.
Verdict: don’t bother (1.5/5★)
I don’t recommend this game. Frankly, SexStone is a terrible card game with uneventful artwork. No matter the difficulty, every game plays the same; you whittle down your opponent before unleashing wave-after-wave of board-wipes. There are no interesting mechanics or interesting card synergies. You can’t build your own deck, and there are numerous cards that are strictly better than the next. In a good card game, every card has its place — in a game like SexStone, there are cards that might as well be automatic wins. Given the plays that are encouraged by the rules and mechanics, if you were to play against real players (as opposed to the “AI”), you wouldn’t know when to concede until they play their last few cards. It’d suck playing against people, because the winner would likely be determined by a few over-powered cards. There is no gallery or sexual content, and the nudity sucks. Unless you find yourself entranced by the riveting gameplay, there is no incentive to keep playing. It’s not like there there’s a story to unwind or “booster packs”. I sincerely hope Entropy Digital Entertainment makes good on their promise, “Check back regularly as new cards will be added and interesting and undiscovered characters and winning strategies will be revealed.” SexStone has the capacity to be an “easy to learn but hard to master” game; but it needs a lot of love (and love making) before anybody should try to learn and master.
