RE: We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.
09-15-2013, 04:36 AM
So, I've been playing Card Hunters! So far, I like it. Thoughts below:
Wow, I am not that good at coherently and concisely writing about games!
Show Content
SpoilerSo, Card Hunters is a browser-based game where you play a tabletop game in your friend's basement.
The game plays like Final Fantasy-Tactics-y grid-based tactical RPGs, with Baten-Kaitos-ish card fighting a Paper-Mario-ous sense of your-characters-are-almost-entirely-defined-by-their-equipment-so-if-you're-stuck-on-a-battle-you-can-rebuild-them-from-scratch-between-battles-osity. All actions in the game, from moving to attacking to spells, are done by playing cards from your deck. Unlike other deck-based games, your cards come from your equipment, and each piece of equipment bound to a handful of specific cards. Some of these cards are better than others, but in general, if you try to switch to a different card of the same equipment level because one of its cards is really good, it'll also come with a couple of weak cards, or even a detrimental card you're forced to play.
The aesthetic of the game is all about the basement-tabletoppiness, the characters all looking like cardstock cutouts on cardboard board, with soda and dice hanging around the background of the screen. Because your friend is just learning how to DM, the main campaign is a series of prepackaged quick campaigns, each of which is just a few battles wrapped in generic fantasy flavor. Around these battles, there's a more interesting narrative of your friend learning how to run games and meeting the cute pizza-delivery girl. I'm hoping this is a running narrative with characters that actually develop, but it might be something like a limited set of randomly chosen scenes where you keep seeing the same ones over and over.
There's also multiplayer. I haven't really tried it much, but if you like turn-based strategy multiplayer you'll probably like this. There's, like, ranked multiplayer and a ladder and stuff, it's fleshed out, whatever.
The game is free-to-play, but don't let that bother you. The paid stuff is just cosmetic upgrades, a couple rare items, a few extra quests and the ability to farm ~30% faster. You can get either everything or mostly everything through normal gameplay, and if you do want to support the developers, there's a $25 package that gives you everything you'd even want to pay for. It's not really pay-to-win (although I imagine paying would help); during the beta, two of the top five players hadn't paid a cent.
The game is also browser-based, but that's not a huge issue either. The campaigns and shops restock once a day, but for at least the first dozen or so dungeons I've played, I've made it through without having to go back and grind, and I haven't needed to wait the 24 hours to access a previous dungeon again.
The difficulty is well-managed so far. I've died a few times already, but I've also only died a few times so far. Each dungeon gives you a few continues before you have to restart the whole adventure. It's probably not helpful that I've been trying to play a party of three dwarves. (Each of your party members can be a dwarf, human or elf, which come with a tradeoff between hp and movement speed, and later on come with special racial bonus equips. Dwarves are the slowest, so I'm kind of getting outpositioned a whole ton. On top of the classes, you choose between warrior, mage, and priest, which equip different items and therefore use different cards, and therefore can use different cards.
My biggest complaint is with the tone. Although the game gets the detritus around RPGs well (or at least the stereotypes about the detritus around RPGs), it kind of misses the point of the role-playing game. There's no chance to play a role. The game eschews all the talking and characterization parts of an RPG to just talk about the combat systems. In addition, having the characters' abilities just defined by the items you equip, and not by any choices I've made in the game, leaves me even less attached to my little paper dudes.
There also appear to be a few issues with the server, especially because this is the opening weekend. For now, expect a 10- to 20-minute wait before you can log on. (There's a timer to let you know.) In addition, the game sometimes stalls completely after your turn; this even happened once right after I won a difficult battle, forcing me to replay it. Fortunately, toggling between windowed and fullscreen seems to jog the game into moving to the next turn.
Anyway, you should probably try this game out. It's free, and at least the first few hours that I've played are pretty fun.
The game plays like Final Fantasy-Tactics-y grid-based tactical RPGs, with Baten-Kaitos-ish card fighting a Paper-Mario-ous sense of your-characters-are-almost-entirely-defined-by-their-equipment-so-if-you're-stuck-on-a-battle-you-can-rebuild-them-from-scratch-between-battles-osity. All actions in the game, from moving to attacking to spells, are done by playing cards from your deck. Unlike other deck-based games, your cards come from your equipment, and each piece of equipment bound to a handful of specific cards. Some of these cards are better than others, but in general, if you try to switch to a different card of the same equipment level because one of its cards is really good, it'll also come with a couple of weak cards, or even a detrimental card you're forced to play.
The aesthetic of the game is all about the basement-tabletoppiness, the characters all looking like cardstock cutouts on cardboard board, with soda and dice hanging around the background of the screen. Because your friend is just learning how to DM, the main campaign is a series of prepackaged quick campaigns, each of which is just a few battles wrapped in generic fantasy flavor. Around these battles, there's a more interesting narrative of your friend learning how to run games and meeting the cute pizza-delivery girl. I'm hoping this is a running narrative with characters that actually develop, but it might be something like a limited set of randomly chosen scenes where you keep seeing the same ones over and over.
There's also multiplayer. I haven't really tried it much, but if you like turn-based strategy multiplayer you'll probably like this. There's, like, ranked multiplayer and a ladder and stuff, it's fleshed out, whatever.
The game is free-to-play, but don't let that bother you. The paid stuff is just cosmetic upgrades, a couple rare items, a few extra quests and the ability to farm ~30% faster. You can get either everything or mostly everything through normal gameplay, and if you do want to support the developers, there's a $25 package that gives you everything you'd even want to pay for. It's not really pay-to-win (although I imagine paying would help); during the beta, two of the top five players hadn't paid a cent.
The game is also browser-based, but that's not a huge issue either. The campaigns and shops restock once a day, but for at least the first dozen or so dungeons I've played, I've made it through without having to go back and grind, and I haven't needed to wait the 24 hours to access a previous dungeon again.
The difficulty is well-managed so far. I've died a few times already, but I've also only died a few times so far. Each dungeon gives you a few continues before you have to restart the whole adventure. It's probably not helpful that I've been trying to play a party of three dwarves. (Each of your party members can be a dwarf, human or elf, which come with a tradeoff between hp and movement speed, and later on come with special racial bonus equips. Dwarves are the slowest, so I'm kind of getting outpositioned a whole ton. On top of the classes, you choose between warrior, mage, and priest, which equip different items and therefore use different cards, and therefore can use different cards.
My biggest complaint is with the tone. Although the game gets the detritus around RPGs well (or at least the stereotypes about the detritus around RPGs), it kind of misses the point of the role-playing game. There's no chance to play a role. The game eschews all the talking and characterization parts of an RPG to just talk about the combat systems. In addition, having the characters' abilities just defined by the items you equip, and not by any choices I've made in the game, leaves me even less attached to my little paper dudes.
There also appear to be a few issues with the server, especially because this is the opening weekend. For now, expect a 10- to 20-minute wait before you can log on. (There's a timer to let you know.) In addition, the game sometimes stalls completely after your turn; this even happened once right after I won a difficult battle, forcing me to replay it. Fortunately, toggling between windowed and fullscreen seems to jog the game into moving to the next turn.
Anyway, you should probably try this game out. It's free, and at least the first few hours that I've played are pretty fun.
Wow, I am not that good at coherently and concisely writing about games!