Card Hunter

[RooksBailey]

Funny, I was just lamenting the lack of a good PC game port of D&D.  Found out about this game while checking in on the Scrolls beta.

http://www.cardhunter.com/

Card Hunter is an online collectible card game with some twists:

    It's free to play and you can win cards by playing the game.
    Search dungeons to find treasure and then equip your loot to build out your decks.
    Use your cards to move your characters and battle monsters' decks.

We're taking two great flavours and combining them into something new. Classic fantasy adventuring meets collectible card gaming!

Tired of pressing buttons while grinding away at quests? Card Hunter is all about skill – your skill at deck building and playing your cards. Tired of paying for endless new card sets? Card Hunter lets you win by playing, not by paying.

The previews have been very positive.  From Inc Gamers (http://www.incgamers.com/2013/06/card-hunter-preview):

Card Hunter is so good. So good. Good enough that I'm enthusiastically shouting about it in a preview. Good enough that I'm pretty sure I'll wind up spending money on it at some point.

...

The premise is this: you're Some Guy or Some Girl, playing a board game that looks suspiciously like the result of Dungeons & Dragons having a kinky three-way with Warhammer Quest and Magic: The Gathering. There's a dinky little board and huge stacks of cards, and your screen actually displays a table littered with D20s and pencils and snacks. The game continually references that you're sitting in a basement, and your GM – and his older brother, and occasionally the pizza delivery girl – regularly talk to you. The player figures are little cardboard representations slotted into plastic bases. There are more references to D&D, tabletop gaming, and pop-culture than you can shake a Tarrasque at.

Most of the actual gameplay takes place on individual boards that represent whatever challenge you're facing. If you've decided to adventure through a lizardman temple then you might have, ooh, three battles – one on the outskirts of the temple, one in the entrance, and one in the inner sanctum. Each will be on a different board, with different enemies in different places, with different obstacles and obstructions, and with different scenery; the first might be an ambush in which you start off surrounded, while the last might be a boss fight against a few rather tough foes. Each will require you to move your little figures around, turn-by-turn, and attack enemies or hold victory locations or whatever. Finish the battle, and you get both loot and experience.

So you've got the usual RPG tropes: you level up, you buy new equipment, you sell old equipment, and you determine how each character should be built for each battle. You've also got the usual turn-based tactics tropes: you need to carefully move characters and plan things out in advance; you need to use your limited resources to the best of your ability; you need to consider the direction each character is facing and their ranges and line-of-sight.

And then you've got the CCG stuff, because unlike most turn-based tactics games, you don't have a big list of actions to choose from. Every round, each of your characters gets a hand of cards representing what they can do this turn, and these cards are determined by their equipment. Every piece of equipment has a few cards associated with it; if the character is wearing it then those cards are shuffled into their deck, and there's a chance they'll turn up in the character's next hand.

Which adds in a further element of forward planning. This turn your warrior has a Chop card, which does a hefty amount of damage to two adjacent enemies – but there's only one enemy in range. Should he use it now to kill that one enemy, or should he hang onto it for next turn when he might be in a position to take out two at once? After all, next turn he might just get some armour cards or a weak Simple Bash, or even a few movement cards. You don't know. And anyway, what does the rest of the party have? What are they likely to get? Can you afford to take the extra damage from another enemy, particularly if he draws a high-damage card? Should you hnnng my brain hurts.

...

Yes, this is free-to-play. Yes, it has microtransactions. Yes, it has "card" in the title. But if you've ever played D&D, or enjoyed XCOM, or Jagged Alliance, or Silent Storm, or Final Fantasy Tactics, or Fire Emblem, or Shining Force, then this is right up your alley. It's not often I give a hearty recommendation in a preview, and I admit there's still time for developers Blue Manchu (formerly of Irrational Games, which is saying something) to screw it up, but – right now, in its beta form alone – Card Hunter is easily worth your time.

Keeping an eye on this one!

Vid: 

And this one shows some gameplay:

[TheCommandTent]

Yeah been watching this one for a long while now.  Looking forward to it be released.  I am tempted to try and get in on their beta but I think I just want to wait for the full game.

[Arctic Blast]

I spent probably 10 hours or so playing the Beta not too long ago. It is a lot of fun, but you will run in to roadblocks where your gear isn't good enough for a specific adventure.

The way it works is, as you play you get new gear. New gear comes with new cards that get added to your play deck. Every turn of the game, each character in your party will randomly draw a number of cards from their deck for that turn. Each turn is broken in to rounds, and in each round you can play one card TOTAL from one of your characters, then your opponent does the same. You can also pass a turn, and if both players pass the turn ends, each character discards down to two kept cards, and a new turn begins with a fresh hand.

If you are stuck with gear that isn't up to par, there are two ways to get new equipment : buy it or play multiplayer. Every single item you gain in MP you also gain access to in SP.

[Tpek]

When is it actually coming out?

[RooksBailey]

Thanks for the feedback, Arctic!  Sounds like fun to me, albeit I am a bit concerned about hitting a wall like you describe.  That is one of the reasons why I was never a huge RPG fan.  I hate it when I want to do something, but the game throws a challenge that is just too tough for me.  Sort of kills the role-playing vibe.  So I hope the difficulty spikes you describe are taken care of in beta.

I DID sign up for the beta.  Supposedly they are allowing "hundreds to thousands" of new players every day, so I hope to get in soon. 

When is it actually coming out?

This summer, according to the website!  So not too much longer.  :)

[SgtRock]

It's fun but, does this game have legs, I wonder? Single player, no random maps or even enemy placement, every replay of each campaign plays out the same each time. Too easy? haven't lost a campaign yet. There's no collection aspect, that surprised me. If only it had FOW, random enemies you can't see, traps, hidden areas, random maps and thiefs.

[Nefaro]

I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'm beginning to believe my beta app won't get approved before it's released. 

Will they have some affordable founder package program that lets you in early, like other FtPs?  I'm a bit saddened to hear the maps & such are just canned ordeals but it's still interesting enough for me to consider such a purchase.

[Nefaro]

I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'm beginning to believe my beta app won't get approved before it's released. 

Hah!

Not long after saying that, I check my extra email address and there is the invitation from days ago.

[RooksBailey]

I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'm beginning to believe my beta app won't get approved before it's released. 

Hah!

Not long after saying that, I check my extra email address and there is the invitation from days ago.

Lucky you!  I'm still waiting for mine.   >:(  Let us know what you think!

BTW: I was reading the forum the other day and somebody posted that they were making new maps and testing them out with the help of the beta community.  I don't think he was on the dev team, so maybe this game is going to allow community content?  That would be nice!

[Nefaro]

I hope it has some kind of editor for easy community content additions.  That's my only concern at this point - whether there will be enough content coming quickly enough after the game is released.  It would suck to have such a fun game run out of steam shortly afterward due to lack of content.

Does anyone know if the Multi-player is Co-Op or is it head-to-head only?  I've not even checked it out yet since I've been having fun with the single-player campaign.

Thus far I'm enjoying it quite a bit.  I've been playing it long enough to drop a $20 in the beta for a "pizza" (game store credits) that comes with the extra human fighter model as a promo.  It looks like their pricing is fairly reasonable as a month of premium is about $10 (which gives you an extra piece of loot after each victory).  The presentation is surprisingly good in portraying a boardgame feel and the card-based gameplay is enjoyable without being unwieldy.

Too bad there isn't some randomly generated scenarios & maps.. or at least randomly generated scenarios & monsters on the pre-made maps.  However, it looks like there's a a fair amount of campaign scenarios to start with and if we can replay each one every day, or with a different party, then it's a start.

I've been down on browser-based strategy games for awhile, but I think Card Hunter and Mechwarrior Tactics are preparing to break the shitty streak.  8)

[Tpek]

My main gripe with Mech-Tact is that there is no download.
I can't stand browser-play, and have barely got any hours into it due to this. :P

[RooksBailey]

Does anyone know if the Multi-player is Co-Op or is it head-to-head only?  I've not even checked it out yet since I've been having fun with the single-player campaign.

From what I gathered on the forums, right now it is only H2H but Co-Op is planned to be added ASAP.

Too bad there isn't some randomly generated scenarios & maps.. or at least randomly generated scenarios & monsters on the pre-made maps.

Yeah, I hope they implement that at some point.  That will go a long way in adding replayability.