Infinite Armies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Infinte Armies

Designer	Greg Porter
Publisher	Blacksburg Tactical Research Center
Players	Two
Setup time	< 3 minutes¹
Playing time	~ 20 minutes
Random chance	Low
Skills required	Card playing
¹ Game setup may take much longer when players first develop their cards.

Infinite Armies is a customizable card game for two players. It was created by Greg Porter, and published in 2005 by Blacksburg Tactical Resource Center. It follows on the success of the collectible card game genre, but establishes its own niche by focusing more on card and deck customization. It breaks from the traditional collectible card games by allowing players to fully design and customize their own cards. Players do not even buy cards, but print their own. Whether this is a viable business concept is still being tested, as most card games rely heavily on sales of cards and the continued publication of new cards.

The heart of the game is a PDF file called iArmy Builder, which uses the funcions of the Adobe Acrobat program to allow players to create and print their own cards using any graphics files they like. The first versions focused on traditional modern armies, with tanks, infantry, airpower, etc. But in theory, a player may base their cards on any idea they like, such as spacecraft, fantasy, cartoon characters, or even photos of friends and family.