PixlBit

I'm not able to play as many iOS games as I used to but every now and then something pulls me in. Missile Cards, at first, did not. It is basically a turned-based card-based take on Missile Command. There is a deck of cards and four open card spots. A new card flips over every turn and moves down the conveyor towards being reshuffled back into the deck or going into play. Attack cards (guns, missiles, lasers, etc.) do the former if you don't pull them into your available arsenal (you have four slots of your own) and hazard cards (mostly meteors and missiles) do the latter. When a hazard enters play, it enters the top of the play area. At the bottom of the screen is your base and sub-bases. You job is to use your attack cards to keep your base from being obliterated. The weapons and hazards have numeric values and you have to meet or exceed the hazard with your weapon to destroy it, though you can whittle a hazard down with multiple weapons if necessary. (There are a few more wrinkles but that's the gist.)

What frustrated me initially with Missile Cards was the whims of the RNG gods. Since this is a card game, you never know what the order of the deck will be and sometimes that bites you. If a bunch a hazards come along and few or no weapons, you are screwed. There is nothing you can do. But there are also games front-loaded with weapons, leaving you fully stocked to deal with whatever comes your way. Most games, however, fall in the middle and can be quite tense. But even a lost game is fairly short and there are often secondary objectives you are still fulfilling, so it doesn't feel wasted. Missile Cards definitely has that "one more game" quality that kept me coming back even when I was initially frustrated, and I became better at dealing the game's irks and began to really enjoy it.