In 1993 a new type of game was published – collectible card games. The first was a game that is still in print, Magic: The Gathering. This new game consisted of combining trading cards with card games.
This was a new idea. Trading cards had been about for a long time, and card games such as poker, blackjack, bridge etc. were an old idea. But to combine them into something new was hugely popular. Seeing the success of Magic: The Gathering prompted an explosion of CCGs during the 90s and as a teenager, I took my first step into a new gaming world. Deciding which to play was a task by itself, as we were still in the first boom and it seemed every TV franchise wanted a CCG as well.
There was X-Files, Highlander, Hercules, simply anything that was popular seemed to be made into a CCG at this point, so finding one that not only did you like but others played could be a challenge at times.
I knew a few people who played Star Trek CCG, but I never really got into it. We did try Star Wars but never got beyond starter packs.
I collected the Tolkien game Middle-Earth: The Wizards, a CCG where you play as one of the 5 wizards trying to thwart Sauron. Later expansions introduced the 9 Ringwraiths and even had The Balrog before the line was discontinued. I only knew one other person who played it, but it’s still a popular CCG with an active fanbase despite it being out of print for over 20 years.
Eventually I found my favourite CCG – Babylon 5.
Babylon 5 was a mid-90s sci-fi show which, unusually for the time, had a 5-year story arc. Based on the space station Babylon 5, the show had diplomatic and political themes with many different factions, and the CCG reflected this. Starting with the base game the 4 main species – Human, Minbari, Centauri and Narn – were the first factions you could play.
The win of the game was to increase your influence points to 20 while stopping your opponents doing the same. You could do this using conflicts, even going as far as declaring war with another player. This produced some interesting endings as alliances were made, broken and remade over the course of a few turns. Later releases introduced more factions, allowing up to 10 players all competing with each other.
I have fond memories of playing Babylon 5, but as with a lot of CCGs eventually it went out of print. At that time some big hitters came out, the most notable was Pokémon. To me, as I entered my 20s, Pokémon and similar games seemed targeted to children, so I lost interest in CCGs and moved on to other games.
But those children are now adults and some of the old games are still around as popular as ever, so it may be worth taking another look to see if I can recreate the excitement by matching wits with other card game enthusiasts.
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