If you aren't at all into real-world strategy board and card games, you probably haven't heard of Dominion. You're probably looking at the screenshot to the right, perhaps intrigued, maybe a little wary, but wondering nonetheless what in tarnation is going on. If you are a hobby gamer, though, then let me say just this: It's Dominion (yes, that Dominion), online! With multiplayer, and cards from all the official expansions! It's brought to you by developer isotropic, and really, if you just want to go check it out now, I understand. We'll still be here.

For the uninitiated, Dominion is a real-live, award-winning card game with a devoted following. I like to say it's a collectible card game without the card collection: It has all the deck building and combos of a classic CCG, but without the game-breaking, bank-busting, "gotta-catch-em-all" problems of the genre. Instead, everyone builds their deck from the same set of cards, so the game is more about strategically acquiring the cards available in the most effective way. Everyone starts with a few green Victory cards and some yellow Money cards. Money cards let you buy other cards, Victory cards give you crucial Victory Points but are otherwise useless, and Action cards let you do all kinds of things, like gaining additional cards or actions on your turn, or getting rid of useless cards, or penalizing other players. Every time you play through your deck, you reshuffle your discard pile and start over, so you can continue to replay cards as your deck gets bigger. The player with the most Victory Points at the end of the game wins.

There is more to the rules than what I've outlined here, and you will want to be pretty familiar with how the game is played before starting, as isotropic's port of the game doesn't offer much hand-holding. Luckily, once you've grasped the fundamentals, online Dominion is easy to jump into. Finding a game is as simple as picking a username (you can sign in with a Google or Yahoo! account, but you don't have to), selecting the number of players you want (I like the 2 player game), and waiting for a match to accept. Once you are in a game, you just click on a card to use it, or click on the "+$" to spend your coins and select a card on the left to buy. The game keeps track of how many actions and buys you have and when you need to discard, and you can hover the cursor over a card to see what it does. Some more esoteric features of Dominion online can be found in isotropic's FAQ, but a basic understanding of the rules is all you need to play most games. So give Dominion online a try! If you're already a Dominion fan, you know why you should, and if you aren't yet a fan, you just might become one.

Play Dominion online

Thanks to Dubdubdubdub for sending this one in!