Kongai

Kongai is a card game created by David Sirlin and run by Kongregate. The game was in closed beta until July 10. Since that date, Kongai has been available to the general public.

Building a Deck
Before you start playing, you should build a deck (note that you may also play with a random deck, rather than constructing one yourself if you prefer). You can build either a three-card deck or a five-card deck, and there are game types that correspond to each type of deck. You may earn cards in one of three ways. The first way is to beat a weekly challenge on the kongregate website. Once you are in the beta you may also pick three starter cards. Finally, when you win a match in the beta you have a 2% chance of getting a random card.

There are two types of cards, characters and items. There are currently 20 character cards, which are split into four groups of five. The groups are Green Amazons, Black Vampires, Brown Villagers, and Purple Martial Artists. Click on a group to see the characters in it, as well as what items they can equip. Alternatively, you can look at a full list of all the characters here.

Item cards are split into five groups. Four of the groups are color themed and may be equipped only by characters of the same color. The final group is gray, and these items may be equipped by any character. Each character may be equipped with a single item. The item each character has is chosen when the deck is built and cannot be changed. Thus, in order to build a full deck you will need at least three characters and at least three items. You may not put multiple copies of a single character into your deck, even if you have multiple copies of them. However, you may equip multiple different characters with the same item, provided you have more than one copy of that item.

Gameplay
Each round of gameplay has two phases: the movement phase and the attack phase. Both phases happen simultaneously for both players, so you do not know what your opponent will do until after both of you have picked your moves.

During the movement phase players may either pass, move close, or move far. Moving close or far costs 50 energy. If one or both players move close, then the range is set to close at the end of the movement phase. If one or both players move far then the range is set to far at the end of the movement phase. If one player moves close and one player moves far, then the range remains what it was at the beginning of the movement phase.

During the attack phase, each card may either attack, intercept, switch out, or rest. Each card has 4 attacks to choose from, though depending on the range some attacks may not be available. Consult the pages for individual character cards to learn what their attacks are and when to use them.

If you switch out, your current character is moved from play to your deck, and you may pick one of the characters in your deck to replace them. Switching out is countered by intercepting.

If you intercept, and your opponent switches out, you deal 35 damage to them and their character does not switch out for that turn.

Resting causes you to regain 20 energy (in addition to the twenty you regain every round).

At the end of the round you gain 20 energy.

For more information on the rules of Kongai, see Kongai Rulesheet

Kongai links

 * Kongai FAQ (by Bruce)
 * Kongai changelist (by David Sirlin, designer of Kongai)
 * Kongai card list (by Sausaletus Rex)