Kard Combat is available now, free to download for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad in Canada (worldwide release coming soon). Here is the original post: My name is Hamish Millar, a producer at Hothead Games, and I’m thrilled to exclusively announce our new iPhone and iPad game, Kard Combat to Touch Arcade fans. From its humble beginnings in concept art and a “name that game” competition posted on a blog, the idea has quickly grown into a full game, ready to launch! Kard Combat is a free to play, dueling card game set in a world where powerful magi battle each other for supremacy every thousand years. Features • A full campaign to the top of the Tower, including battle-specific cards and win conditions. • Tons of cards and upgrades to collect that carry over to other game modes. • Four unique magi, each with their own card sets and play styles. • Free to play, with multiplayer coming soon. Game Design Kard Combat is a brutal, faster-paced spin on the dueling card game genre. It is the evolution of a high pedigree of strategy games including Astral Tournament, Spectromancer and Magic: The Gathering. In fact the creator of Magic: The Gathering was one of the game designers. For more detailed information, you can check out the FAQ at www.kardcombat.com The Future of Kard Combat We’re plan to support a Kard Combat community with tons of new content and our plans are also listed on the Kard Combat website, but we want to hear what additions to the game you would be most excited for. Please post your thoughts and ideas here or you can post in the Kard Combat thread in the Hothead forums here.
I'm very interested to hear more details, especially if Richard Garfield was in the design team. Edit: I just red the FAQ. The game looks like Spectromancer for iPhone. I could find a corespondant in Spectromancer for all demo cards shown. And that is not a bad thing!
The Kard art on the website looks amazing. Please keep the info flowing. A little bit goes a long way to keeping everyone interested in the game. Here is some interesting background information. http://www.arcanathegame.com/?p=23 Name of the game has changed though.
I'm intrigued. Estimated release date? Even a "best guess" would be good information to get out there.
That's some good sleuthing Vernimator We had a "name that game" competition a while ago that got some good press and then went quiet for a while to knuckle down and get the game finished. It is quite similar to Spectromancer, which I think is a good thing too. I love the different play styles of the classes and many of the combinations of creatures and spells. We've set the game in an entirely different universe and made some subtle design improvements. I'll talk about that in more detail soon. As for a release date, right now we're looking at some time in the next couple of months. Stay tuned for more information on that. There's still a fair bit left to do, and we'll soon be in that balance between wanting to make the game perfect for ourselves or shipping it earlier to get the feedback we need to make it perfect for you. Great to see this thread getting some comments. I'll be posting here regularly for you guys as we lead up to launch.
Kard Combat images Hi everyone I work with Hamish looking after the marketing at Hothead...so first off im pleased to see the thread get some attention We will have a plethora of game and card art and trailers to show off and competitions we want to run so keep an eye on Kard Combat website for this info. I thought I'd post some of the released art here so others can see it in the thread. There is more on the game's website with more to be revealed soon but here is a taster of my favorites so far. Enjoy!
These are just my favorites from the art we have released on the website but they don't necessarily represent an overall theme. We have a lot of art/card variety which we will be sharing over the coming days/weeks...
Thanks. From over 2 years of being on Touch Arcade, and being a developer myself, the number one thing you could do to establish a good following and keep your loyal soon to be fans happy is visit here often. Little tidbits of info, a screen shot or some card art, or heck even just to say our shoes are all gooey from stomping out bugs in the code will go a long way. If it's a month or two from release that's fine. Just don't treat us like mushrooms and keep us in the dark. You've been to the Orions 2 thread. Nuff said.
Thanks for the advice Vernimator. If Orions can get such a huge thread without being very responsive then there's certainly hope here because we love talking to our fans and keeping them informed. This morning I'm writing scripts for some trailers for the game. Yesterday we decided to include gameplay in our teaser trailer (not all teasers so this, it seems) so hopefully that will give people a much better idea of how it plays. For those new to the thread, here's another piece of art we're really proud of. Have a great day and then a great weekend everyone. Hamish
Just want to say: I love the art so far. I mean LOVE. What a wonderful tone and feel it has. I want to know more about the game! (for the record: the Orions 2 thread is that long because of Orions 1. Many other threads for games that ultimately gained a large following, such as Dungeon Raid or Cat Physics, started out really slow, with just a few people on board. But in some cases, like with Dungeon Raid, it was the developer's interfacing with, and responsiveness to, the few hardcore followers that allowed the game to gain traction and, after some well-chosen updates, explode)
If you read through the 1000+ posts you will find the VAST majority of them are negative in nature due to the extreme lack of response by either the developer or the publisher. The only real input we had was from Beta Testers and they were very concerned about saying much of anything so as to not break their NDA's. You can sum up at least 900 of the posts as sheer frustration. So far in just a few days you and your team has given us more input, feedback and information then we ever got from the dev/pub of Orions 2 in it's entirety of that thread. Ok, I'm gently stepping off my soap box and taking a deep breath.
Richard Garfield was involved with the creation of Kard Combat? Truly? If so, consider me a day one adopter. Hell, if not, as long as you come clean with your potentially misleading marketing, consider me a day one adopter regardless This looks truly interesting. I *love* the artwork. Such a pleasant respite from Shadow Era's generic WoW-inspired scantily clad fantasy heroines with a survivability almost as low as the cm2 of body coverage of their armor, impractically bulky armor pieces which look like they've been designed by a hedgehog with an extra penchant for spikes, generic fantasy beasts of 50% fur and 50% teeth, and absolutely no signs of any particular cultural context or macro-perspective world-crafting. In the end, I'm guessing your implementation of multiplayer will determine the long-term fate of Kard Combat. Look to Shadow Era and Urban Rivals for two iOS CCGs with vibrant, large, active communities, and with many strong points and clever implementations. My hope is that multiplayer in Kard Combat will not be restricted to just simple online duels, but present a way to progress, build decks, trade cards, buy cards for winnings, dominate leaderboards, etc, all the trappings of the CCG genre.
If it does track closely to spectromancer, I think that's a good thing (i'm playing spectro in between writing this). i like spectro's Single Player tourney mode and campaign with all the cool, albeit brief, back stories of the different wizards and the unique conditions to battle.
Thanks for the great responses everyone. To address some of the points, here are my thoughts as I was reading them. Richard was definitely involved. That's not just marketing spin. He wasn't the only designer but he was one of them. He's a great guy - very softly spoken but also a total legend. Nice point about us not just going with large-toothed beasts and scantly-clad women with pointy ears, etc. One of my original marketing lines was: "No prancing night elves. Just a fight to the death." The thing about the elves is definitely true but the card art warranted more than just focusing on the fight in the end. The game is quite similar to Spectromancer. We have streamlined some things from that game specifically for IOS, with Richard's blessing. In general, I think I'll be totally open about everything here, and I'm the producer so you're getting the information straight from the source The one comment that interested me the most is regarding multiplayer. I, too, believe that the future of Kard Combat lies in multiplayer. Initially, we will just be releasing duels with OpenFeint leaderboards. Beyond that, there are many things we are considering, including drafting, tournaments, deck building, wagering and sending custom challenges using cards that are unique to the campaign to create unique scenarios (think cards like Fetid Swamp from Spectro, if you're familiar with that). Finally, a huge thing on my mind is the model by which people will purchase the game. Right now there is a virtual currency that people can earn in Single Duels (free) and then spend to unlock battles in the campaign mode, where you earn your items and rewards. I do have some concerns about that though. In particular, I'm interested to know what people think about virtual currencies versus trial-to-unlock experiences.
Today we're looking at adding a new feature called the "Treasury" where you can view all of the Kards and items you've collected in the campaign mode. Nothing like a last minute feature request from the producer! I did always like the bestiaries in the Final Fantasy games that included them.
