This Wednesday sees a “massive” update to the Star Realms app.

In an email plus a more detailed post we got the following warning:

“IMPORTANT: PLEASE FINISH ALL OF YOUR GAMES BY TUESDAY, MAY 16!

ALL IN PROGRESS GAMES WILL BE DELETED WHEN THE APP IS UPDATED

ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 17”

So what changes warrant this ominous warning?

For starters the app is getting a graphic update.

Apart from the new look, we are getting more cards:

• “53 All-New Colony Wars cards in the Trade Deck with fun, new mechanics
  
• Cards that can be purchased from the Trade Row and can immediately be put into play or into a player’s hand.
  
• Blob faction has a new ability to “acquire a ship of cost x or less for free”.
• The Stealth Tower card that comes with Colony Wars allows you to copy any base in play!
  
• Two new chapters in the ongoing campaign, each with six missions!”

In their infinite wisdom the way levelling works is changing:

“Currently, we have a lot of players that are “Forever Fives” – stuck at level 5 (that’d be me). This isn’t much fun, so now, if you make it to level 6, that will be your floor. If you then make it to level 7, that will be your floor, and so on. Sounds more fun, doesn’t it? However, it should be noted that now challenges won’t count towards your level or weekly or monthly leaderboards, but they will still count towards your overall number of games played, as well as your win percentage.”

So this change is going to be controversial. I welcome the moving floor. However the majority of my games are challenges against friends and the odd mystery Internet person I’ve never met, but been playing for a long time now. So basically if I want to level up I am forced to play random  games. Otherwise if I don’t want to play random games whatever level I’m at the end of Tuesday I’m stuck at. Wow that sounds fun!

Another big change is real time games! I’d go read the post for this one. I think it will replace the 3 minute games. Which I hardly ever played. I’ve seen some welcoming this. Mainly from those that stream games. I might start doing that myself. Who knows? The whim might take me to show the world just how bad I am at the game!

So I need to complete all my current games by Tuesday, make sure I don’t drop below level 6 (I don’t think I can push it up to 7).

You can read the whole announcement HERE.