Rage Frenzy is a turn-based card minigame featured in RAGE. It is first introduced by Hendrik at his card table in "Second Chance" in Wellspring, and later by Teague in "Fez" in Subway Town.
To play the game, Nicholas Raine must have his own deck of cards. Most of the 54 Collector Cards are found in different locations throughout the Wasteland, and some are the quest rewards. Also there is the Starter Deck that consists of five cards and can be bought either from major vendors (Coffer and Jani) or at one of the card tables run by Hendrik and Teague for $50.
Description[]
Rage Frenzy is a turn-based card game. The idea is to build a deck with cards that the player collects throughout the game. Each card shark offers three difficulty levels, at increasingly larger play costs. The difficulty level chosen determines the points available to be used for building a deck.
Each card has a cost associated with it, and the maximum number of cards in a deck is 12. So, it's advised to spend points wisely and avoid too many points remaining and too few cards.
The game starts with both the player and the opponent flipping the top card from their decks. All cards enter play in a guarded state reducing incoming damage by 50 percent rounded down. Once a card performs an action that card is no longer guarded, and it receives full damage from any incoming attacks, unless the chosen action was to re-enter the guarded state.
There are several different types of cards. Melee cards only attack cards directly across from themselves. Healing cards may choose to heal a damaged card or enter the guarded state. Ranged cards may select their target, however if the opponent has a vehicle card in play, the vehicle must be targeted first. Vehicle cards generally have higher hit points and can only guard, making them great defensive cards. Finally there are Bomb cards that damage all cards in the opponent's play area when they enter play. Bomb cards do not stay in play, but are instead discarded after taking effect.
The turn consists of performing each of the cards' actions from left to right. If at the end of the turn the player has fewer than four cards in play, they must flip the top card from their deck and place it into play. If the flipped card is an explosive, the card performs its action and is discarded. Otherwise, it is the opponent's turn. The discarded cards are removed at the beginning of the turn, and all cards move to the left to fill in any open spots left by the removed cards. The player wins by destroying all of the opponent's cards. Winning awards them the initial wager, and losing costs them the same amount. In the event of a tie no money is lost or gained.
Card properties[]
Points[]
The points that are shown on the middle bottom of the card (see example card) indicate the card's deck-construction cost. Upon building a deck the player only has limited points available, so the player is limited in choosing the best available cards to play in the card game. Choosing a higher value card will limit the amount of cards the player can play in the round, but still, the card is stronger.
Attack and Health[]
To defeat the opponent's cards the player must have cards with a level of attack, which is shown on the left bottom of the card. Vehicle cards don't have a level of attack.
All cards except Bomb cards have a level of health which is shown on the right bottom of the card. Health is drained by the attack of the opposing cards. When the health of a card reaches zero the card will be removed from the table.
Extra properties[]
Some Melee and Ranged cards may have extra properties, like receiving less damage, increasing damage and health of other cards and stunning an opponent card. This extra buff is listed in the center mid of the card. The example on the right shows damage it receives is reduced by 1.
Vehicle cards all have the same buff: opponent's Ranged cards must target and defeat this unit first to be able to target other cards. Since Vehicle cards never attack, they always enter guarded state every turn, enhancing their defensive capabilities.
Some Bomb cards can only attack a specific faction or card type, which is named in the center of the card.
Tactics[]
- Building a deck with only Melee and Ranged cards with a relatively high point value and buffs usually results in a strong deck. However, it's recommended to stay away from the cheapest Melee or Ranged cards because they're weak and the enemy can easily master these cards and will extend their own cards in play, which makes them stronger in the further progress of the round.
- It's recommended to choose cards with a good attack and defense capabilities while remaining a relatively cheap value.
- To build the most effective decks, obtain every card available. They are listed in the natural order they are obtained on the Collector Cards page. Note that some cards will become permanently unavailable if they are not obtained at the right time; see the Collector Cards page to see "permanently missable" cards.
- However, Rage Frenzy can still be played for fun and profit even with relatively few cards; just stick to the Easy or Medium decks to avoid getting beaten by the high-value cards in the Medium and Hard decks.
- It can be useful to consider faction bonuses when constructing decks. However, the strongest decks will be built primarily ignoring faction:
- Most factions are tiny (just three or fewer cards), reducing the chance that same-faction cards will be in play at the same time.
- The primary exceptions to this are the Settlers and the Mutants, of which there are numerous cards. However, the Settler cards are mostly weak cards. The Mutant cards are stronger and can benefit from Collector Card: J.K. Stiles, but more effective decks can be built with the same point cost.
- It can be more useful to have fewer strong (high cost) cards than more weak (low cost) cards. In fact, adding a weak card to a strong deck can weaken the deck considerably, because drawing the weak card will only delay drawing stronger cards. While playing Rage Frenzy, it's best to draw strong cards earlier because having more cards in play than the opponent can be critical to victory, especially Ranged cards that can combine their attacks.
- In particular, it's useful to have cards that have enough health to withstand one or two attacks. A card that can be destroyed when it is first drawn will usually only weaken the player's hand.
- Therefore, when constructing a deck, it's better to not use all the points/card slots available rather than add a weak card.
- For example, let's say you've constructed the deck you want, but you have 5 points and a card slot available. It's best not to add a 5-point card, which can reduce your probability of victory.
- Early on, when learning Rage Frenzy and while the most effective cards have not yet been obtained, it can be useful to experiment with Healing, Vehicle, and Bomb cards. However, later on it can be extremely effective to have only attack cards (Melee and Ranged) in the deck.
- Bomb cards can be tempting because they're relatively cheap. But consider that they may do very little or no damage to the opponent's cards in play, and drawing one will delay by one turn bringing in a persistent card, reducing the number of cards in play. As mentioned earlier, it is extremely useful to have more cards in play than the opponent, especially if they're Ranged cards that can focus-fire on the opponent's cards.
- Healing and Vehicle cards can be extremely effective if combined with attack cards. However, it can be relatively uncommon to have the right combination of cards in play at a given time. More often, Healing or Vehicle cards do not provide much benefit and only delay the introduction of more effective cards.
- Ranged cards can be much more effective than Melee cards, because often they can attack every turn, whereas Melee cards are sometimes idle and confer no benefit. Also, Ranged cards can focus-fire on a single victim card, enabling the player to select and eliminate opponent cards one by one.
- The primary weakness of Ranged cards is when they confront an opponent's Vehicle card, which can shelter the other opponent cards in play. But more often than not, they can focus-fire on the Vehicle card and eliminate it before too much damage is done.
- Having mostly Ranged cards can also make the card games themselves more interesting, since they require choosing a target card. Melee cards are less interesting to play because there is no decision-making involved.
- If played correctly, Rage Frenzy can be a fast, reliable, and convenient way to generate unlimited money. The player simply needs to create decks which can reliably defeat the opponent's deck. With the early cards, it's best to play the Easy game; as new cards are obtained, the player can construct Medium and Hard decks that will earn money faster.
- There is a classic exploit used in virtually all games that feature a gambling mini-game: save the game before gambling. If you win, then save again; if you lose, then reload your earlier saved game. This game discourages this exploit by costing you time: if you exit the gambling interface to save the game, then when you return to the card game, you have to listen to Hendrik's little speech again and then rebuild your deck.
- Therefore, to make money as quickly as possible, build a reliable deck (one that can win at least 80% of the time), and then play multiple games in a row, so you don't need to keep rebuilding your deck after each hand.
- Be aware: this game doesn't let you have more than $9999 at any given time, but won't warn you if you are at the limit. If you are getting close to the limit but want to play more Rage Frenzy, don't forget to buy items to reduce your supply of dollars. Ammo is always handy to have, but be aware there is also a limit on how much of each type of ammo you can carry at any given time.
Notes[]
- Winning some cash in the Rage Frenzy minigame counts toward getting the Achievement/Trophy "Minigamer".