On the limits and influence of Palm Island

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been playing a lot of In Hand games lately. And that means I’ve been revisiting Palm Island, which is the poster child of In Hand games.

Palm Island definitely didn’t invent In Hand games. But it did give the idea a kick in the pants. I honestly would say that a third of the In Hand games I’ve seen post Palm Island were clearly Influenced by it.

Something I want to do this summer is get the color files printed so I have the ‘full’ games and get the ‘full’ Palm Island experience. I’ve spent years with the low ink demo and I’ve wanted to see how much deeper the game gets.

However, when I actually looked at the files, I realized that most of the cards are for the two-player version of the game. As a solitaire player, the only new element are feats. Which turn the game essentially into a campaign but doesn’t seem like a major mechanical shift.

And I know that the basic framework can be tweaked just a little to get significant changes. In Battle for the Carolinas (which I have started replaying and really enjoying), you need different cards at different points in the game. You need maps and compasses to find the battlefields but then they need to become men and weapons. It creates a different tempo than Palm Island.

While Palm Island has a very solid structure of resource management and infrastructure development, it is ultimately very simple. The individual actions are very simple. This is not a bad thing.

Between the random shuffle of the cards and the limit of only being able to store four cards, Palm Island does has variabily and tough choices. But it’s presented in such an accessible way so that the initial learning curve is just about keeping the deck in your hand the whole time. It’s great for casual gaming.

But now I’ve been seeing that the si one structure is one that can be built on. And, while games like Battle for the Carolinas shows that other folks are doing this, the fact that Portal Dragon will be publishing Palm Laboratory and have mentioned Palm Galaxy shows that this was intended.

And even as I become more and more aware of the limitations of Palm Island, I am playing it more often. I keep on going back to it and having fun. There is a good game there.

Palm Island is not the definitive In Hand game. It didn’t create the genre. But I think it is an important milestone and has helped there he better games ahead.

The Revolutionary War in the palm of your hand

 Battle for the Carolinas is a solitaire war-themed game that is designed to be played with a deck of cards that you hold in your hands the entire game.

Okay, it’s not even an elephant in the room because the designers openly admit that Palm Island was a huge influence on the game but Battle for the Carolinas is so much like Palm Island that if you’ve played Palm Island, you can pretty much pick up Battle for the Carolinas cold. Which is not saying it’s the same game with different pictures.

As someone who has played some Apocalypse World hacks, I would instead say that Battle for Carolinas is a Palm Island hack. It uses the same basic framework to do its own thing. It’s like comparing Dominion to Thunderstone.

Here’s the basic gist. You are going through the deck. You can turn up to four cards into resources by turning them on their side. You spend resources to upgrades cards, which either flips or turns over cards and makes them better. In Battle for Carolinas, your goal is win three skirmishes and two battles which means completely upgrading those cards.

Now, I have a very generous definition of war game. I do consider Memoir 44 a war game and some days I even consider the Battle for Hill 218 a war game. Battle for the Carolinas doesn’t pass even my loose definition though, simply because it has no conflict. You can’t actually lose a battle. You just haven’t won it yet. 

That doesn’t mean I dislike the game at all. Quite the contrary, I’ve enjoyed my intitial plays. However, it is entirely a resource management game.

Here’s the real question: do I like it better than Palm Island? Which one would I rather play and which one would I recommend? The answer is: I don’t know. I have not yet tried playing Battle for the Carolinas with either the variant rule sets or the expansion cards. I also have only played the black and white demo version of Palm Island. I haven’t made a copy of the full game (yet).

I will make this observation: there are more paths to victory in Palm Island, different avenues to gain points and the initial shuffle will help you figure out what is your best option. In Battle for Carolinas, whether you are playing for points or achievements, your end goal is the two battle cards and that is what you are working towards.

Another significant difference is that Battle for Carolinas has spoils. When you completely upgrade a skirmish or battle, it becomes a potent set of resources. In Palm Island, that doesn’t happen. In fact, some cards stop being potential resources.

I suspect that the full version of Palm Island will be the better experience but I also think I will have fun exploring the variations and expansions in Battle for the Carolinas.