This is my first time trying the AWS Card Clash game, which is a 3D virtual card game that helps learners gain knowledge of AWS Cloud architectures and provides an engaging way to learn about AWS services and solution design.
So, let's try to understand how to play this game by going through the tutorial first.
In the tutorial, the first architecture diagram is for creating thumbnails. There are three empty slots: Source bucket, Create thumbnail function, and Destination bucket.
To win this game, we must get the highest score by placing AWS Service cards from our hand into the empty slots.
The game will end if all empty slots are filled or if the deck runs out of cards.
In the screenshot below, there are 6 service cards in hand and 20 service cards in the deck.
We can see the current scores on the right side of the screen.
The blue one is your score, and the yellow one is your opponent's score. The player with the highest score wins.
Another important thing is your Energy Pool. You will earn 1 Energy point every turn. This energy point can be used to place a service card in the empty slots or to steal your opponent's already filled slots.
There is another way to earn energy points from the service cards.
A service card with a plus (+) sign in the top right corner will give you additional energy points. If it shows +1, you will gain 1 energy point; if it shows +2, you will gain 2 energy points.
You can drag and drop these types of service cards onto the gameboard once per turn.
For example, if we drag and drop the AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE card onto the dashboard, we will gain 1 energy point.
Next, the number on the empty slots shows how many energy points are needed to fill the service card.
The Source bucket and Destination bucket slots show 2, so 2 energy points are required.
The Create thumbnail function shows 1, so only 1 energy point is needed.
Since this game is for learning, you can view a hint for each missing AWS service (empty slot) by clicking on the slot.
You may see the hint (slot info) as below in the screenshot.
Source bucket
Slot info: Object storage built to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere.
Slot cost: 2 (which means 2 energy points are required).
Security cards: This shows which service card can be used to add security to this source bucket.
Similarly, we can view the card info of an AWS Service card by selecting the card and clicking the question mark icon in the top right corner.
This will display the description of the service. If the slot info and card info match, we can place the service card into the slot to earn score.
As you can see in the screenshot below, we will earn 2 points after dragging the AMAZON S3 card onto the Source bucket slot because the Source bucket requires 2 energy points, and it will give the same number of points as the energy points used.
However, if you place an incorrect service card in the slot, you will lose 1 energy point. So, make sure to add the correct service card to avoid wasting energy points.
There is a card limit of 6 cards on each player's hand. After each turn, the service cards will be refilled from the deck if your hand is not full. If there are unnecessary service cards for the architecture, you can add them to the discard bin by dragging them into the highlighted location.
If you don't want to do anything, you can click the 'END TURN' button at the bottom right to pass your turn to the opponent.
After your opponent's turn finishes, the service cards will be refilled.
I could not capture how the opponent played during the tutorial, so let me explain a bit. The opponent stole my AMAZON S3 by overlapping it on the Source bucket slot. This caused my points to be reduced to zero, and the opponent received 2 points.
To steal the other player's slot, we need to have enough energy points according to the Steal cost shown on the Slot Info. As shown in the screenshot below, the AMAZON S3 steal cost is 3 energy points.
Our current energy point is only 1 point, so we need to add more energy card by using AWS CDK energy card which has +3 sign.
Energy points will increase to 4. Then, we can steal the opponent's card from the Source bucket by dragging the same Amazon S3 service card onto it.
As we can see, we gained 2 points from stealing the Source bucket slot, and our opponent’s points have been reduced to zero.
To prevent the opponent from stealing, we can add security to the existing slot.
Adding security will also cost energy based on the negative number in the top right of the service card. As shown in the screenshot below, the IAM Security Card (AWS Identity and Access Management) will cost 1 energy point.
We may notice that the border color of the source bucket has changed to blue, which means this slot is already secured by the security card, so your opponent cannot steal it again.
After that, we can drag the unnecessary service cards into the discard bin, and we will draw 6 new service cards from the deck in next turn.
Click END TURN.
Again, I could not capture how the opponent played during last turn, so let me explain a bit.
Our opponent placed the Amazon S3 card on the Destination bucket and added a security card to it, earning 2 points. The border color of the Destination bucket changed to orange due to the security card, so we cannot steal that slot.
Now, it’s our turn.
What we are going to do is check the remaining slot, which is "Create thumbnail function".
Slot info : Run code without thinking about servers or clusters.
Slot cost : 1 energy point
Let's check the available service cards in hand.
We have one AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE(+1), one EC2, one AWS CDK (+3), one AWS Lambda, and two security cards (-1).
As usual, we can view the card info by selecting the card and clicking the question mark icon in the top right corner.
Among the available service cards, AWS Lambda matches the slot info because of the description:
"Lambda helps you run code without worrying about the underlying infrastructure......"
Drag the AWS Lambda service card onto the "Create Thumbnail Function" slot. We will gain 1 point because it costs 1 energy point.
All the slots are already filled, so we can click "END TURN" to finish the match.
GAME FINISHED
We can view the match summary after the game. The match summary will display the score percentage, energy spent, steals, and other details, including the stars.
The higher the score percentage, the more stars will be earned.
Thank you for reading the AWS Card Clash tutorial post.
Since this is a tutorial, the architecture design is very simple and serves as an introduction to studying AWS architecture and services through the AWS Card Clash game. There will be more challenges during the actual match, making it even more exciting to play and learn at the same time.
Hope everyone enjoys this post.
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