Redemption is a collectible card game based on the Bible. It involves Biblical characters, places, objects, and ideas. The object of the game is for players to use their Heroes (good characters) to rescue Lost Souls by defeating their opponent's Evil Characters, with the first player to rescue five Lost Souls winning the game. Redemption was first published in July 1995 by Cactus Game Design and its creator, Rob Anderson, continues to develop and produce the game and is the final authority on rulings. Game play The object of the game is to rescue the required number of Lost Souls (usually five) before the opponent does. To rescue a Lost Soul, a player must initiate a rescue attempt by playing a Hero. The opponent then plays an Evil Character to block the rescue attempt and start a battle. In a battle, players take turns playing Enhancement cards to make their characters stronger. When both players have finished playing Enhancements, the player whose character's Strength is equal to or higher than their opponent's Toughness wins the battle; if the Hero defeats the Evil Character (either by having higher Strength or by removing the Evil Character from the battle via a special ability), the Hero rescues the Lost Soul. After the battle, the winning character remains in play and can be used again on the next turn, and the losing character as well as all Enhancements played during the battle are discarded. Unlike popular trading card games like Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, Redemption has no built-in resource system; that is, players are not required to meet any requirements or pay any costs in order to put cards into play. Restrictions or penalties are instead placed on the special abilities of the cards themselves in order to balance game play. One unique aspect that sets Redemption apart from other CCGs is that while every deck contains both good and evil characters, the game is only won by using good characters. Evil characters can prevent the opponent from winning, but they themselves do not have a chance to win the game. Card Types Most types of cards are indicated by an icon in a box in the card's upper-left corner. Certain cards have more than one icon. Lost Soul: These represent people who have fallen from the path of goodness and need to be saved. When a player draws one from their deck,