Addicted to Packrat

I have managed to waste SO much time playing the card stealing game Packrat on Facebook in the last week.  I can't believe how addicted I am to it.  I am about the last person you'd expect to get jonesin' on a computer game.  It's just not my style.  But there's something about collecting these little cards.  Some of them are so cute.  I just have to have them for my very own.  But then of course you get one, or one set, and then you need the next one, and the game goes on and on.

It's pretty simple, really.  When you start playing, you get a handful of low value cards, of all different "suites."  The ones to the side here belong to the Bee's Knees suite.  There are maybe 15 suites going at any one time.  Your goal is to get five different cards of the same suite, so you can put them in your vault where they will be "safe" (i.e. no one can steal them).  In order to do this, you can either steal them from your Facebook friends, steal them from the Packrat Rats, or buy them from the markets with the point you earn stealing cards from friends (as you toggle between screens, pop up points will appear that you can collect).  The low value cards of every suite are easy to collect.  The rats have them all and they are cheap to buy in the markets.  However, if you want to get the whole suite, you have to keep playing and either make new cards by collecting a recipe of three other cards or you have to build up enough credits (and get through enough levels) to buy them in the markets.  High value cards are expensive, and some of them you can only get through pop-ups which occur with invites or when you get to a high enough level.  

You get points from stealing.  You get points from inviting friends.  You get points from trading up - stealing a higher value card and dropping a lower value card in its place.  The games challenges lie in the scarcity of some cards and the opportunity of your friends to steal your cards - sometimes just when you need them most. 

Anyway, I've wasted hours, and I mean hours, of time on this game and am only on level 23.  I have yet to get all the cards in any one set.   But I'm determined.  The last two days I've been playing frantically because two of the current suites are expired or expiring. 

So I you want to see me outside of this blog, come on over to Facebook.  I'd love to send you an invite to this obsessive, compulsive dream - Packrat.  

tags: packrat  online card games