1) It's really good. 2) Don't think so. Haven't tried, though. You can play the single player mode after you logged in, and get rewards (cards) at every level. 3) The multiplayer is flawless and cross-platform. Still, it's not via GC, and it's not asynchronous. 4) You can customize your deck of cards. 5) The UI is kinda good -- still playing the standalone PC version --, but the texts are a bit hard to read. 6) The game is REALLY good. Get it when it's out.
I played in the beta, it really is a great polished game. It plays a lot like Riese:Battle for Eleysia so if you have that game, you will feel right at home with this. I really can't wait for this to be live.
Ok, I need some help here. How do you know which cards can be used with which Cabal Heroes? I currently use the Danann Covenant deck (green) and my deck is made of Green and Blue cards but I won a Gas Attack (red) for leveling up but I can't put it into my deck?
It's not very well communicated, but there are two sides: Bearclaw Brotherhood (Blue) and Danann Covenant (Green) are on the other, and Vril Society (Red) and Order of Zahir (Yellow) on the other. You can mix the cards of the cabals on the same side, but your hero makes cards from his or her own cabal cheaper to play. In the booster shop the sides are called Primal and Dominion, and I think the descriptions there tell which cabals belong to each side. So to use Gas Attack, you are going to need a deck with either Franz Tausend or... I don't remember the name of the Vril hero right now, but the red one
So after playing the game for a couple of days on the PC browser and standalone version I have some initial impressions that I'm posting as they are pretty much independent of the platform. I will say that its obvious the game has been optimized for playing on mobile devices so I can't wait to get my hands on the app. When you register your account you choose one of four Cabals and receive a starter deck of thirty cards that you can begin playing with right away. The starter deck will be made of a mix of one of the two umbrella factions Primal and Dominion. This is actually much more important than I initially understood as you can't build decks outside those factions. For instance Primal consists of the Danann Faeriefolk (green) and the Servants of the Bear (blue) and you if you choose the Danann initially as I did then you will only be able to include any blue or green cards that you buy or are rewarded with in your deck. The game basically consists of playing your cards on to a game board, accumulating resources to play more cards and accumulating Domination points as a win condition. The second win condition is to move one of your played cards on to your opponents Stronghold which is essentially their initial deployment position. Choosing to start a single player game you are given a choice of four opponents of varying level and more importantly each will be on a different choice of board. The boards have some nice variety to them and vary from being symmetrical giving neither player any advantage to the more interesting, deliberately unbalanced ones, giving one player immediate access to resources or more resources or plentiful deployment options. In single player the AI will always get the advantageous position on the board which is great as it increases the challenge. I have only played about ten ranked matches but it seems that you only play on the balanced boards (actually is seems like you always play on the same one or two boards but I'm sure that's just my experience. The multiplayer seems good, only had one disconnection and as you loose rating for a lose people seem to stick around until the end which is good. So far so good. The game is fun to play, immaculately presented and the art is beautiful (even if the flavor text for want of a better phrase is lacking in flavor). My criticisms are all basically the same thing and boil down to doubts about longevity when the cost of the buying new cards is so very very high. As a reformed MTGO addict (one day at a time) what I don't know about frittering vast sums of cash away on Online Digital Objects probably isn't worth knowing (you really wouldn' t want to either). And as much as want to try new Cabals and tinker with my deck and try out silly weenie builds or mono green faeries or bear spirit ramp decks the cost of the cards either as individuals or boosters is prohibitively high for a CCG and a real barrier to entry for me. Influence, the games currency is roughly 108 per AU dollar at the $5 buy in and 118 per dollar at the $10 buy in (greater buy ins offering increasing value are available). A common card is 30 Influence, an uncommon, 60 and a rare 125. Starter decks for each Cabal are available for 600. I would estimate that to make my starter deck competitive I'd need to spend say $6, fine. All I've got though now is one pretty good deck which while fun gets boring. What I really want to do is have fun, try new Cabals, build silly decks etc. However each new starter deck will put me back another $6 and then another $6 if I want to be competitive and then more for the fun stuff. Even if I just want to try out all the starter decks it's going to be $15-20. Personally I think the costs are double what they need to be. If the starter decks were $3 each and boosters a buck / buck twenty I would have already spent $20 without batting an eyelid by now just trying things out, and would probably be playing it now rather than writing about it. As it goes I haven't spent a cent yet because the entry points are simply to high. Anyway this is a awful lot of words for a game that isn't even on the app store yet. I hope the devs take a look at their model and revise it if the costs turn out to be a barrier to building the committed and active player base a game of this quality deserves.
Nice post. High cost has always put me off games like this. I want to support developers as much as the next man, but when the cost of playing a game escalates to ridiculous levels I'll simply stop playing it and move on to another game; there are plenty of excellent games out there that don't rely on me spending silly amounts of cash. Purchasing "cards" in games like this should not cost the same as physical cards for a game like, say, MTG. There is no additional cost of packaging, distribution and every other cost that is involved with dealing in physical goods. These are digital/cyber/call it what you will cards and the price should reflect that. I have no problem with purchasing starter decks and booster packs providing the cost is reasonable given the medium. High prices will drive the vast majority of people away from the game and make it appeal to the "nichest" of niche markets, that is those of us who are dedicated to these types of games and also have a high enough disposable income to properly indulge in it. I'm not passing judgement on Cabals just yet as the game hasn't even been released yet. But it'll be interesting to see how the developer handle the pricing side of things.
I'd like to provide some feedback on Async games. Ascension and Carcassone are excellent but they're not perfect. Some of my problems with it are: carcassone: -Annoying push notification voice, it's not like the other games like ascension or samurai where it's a distinctive but non-intrusive sound. -You can't join random matches. You can join live continuous matches but not random async matches. Ascension: -lack of multitasking. The game loads so fast that you don't really notice it but if you've played carcassone before you realize how sweet multitasking really is. -No way of knowing someone made a move when you're in another game. carcassone nails this. You'll be in one game and it'll tell you someone made a move in a different game. Furthermore, you'll see an option on the regular screen to go to the next game rather than back to the lobby. -No chat. Super important -No rematch option. Super crucial. If you find someone really good through random matches you would want to keep playing that person. Or for revenge lol. -No ranking system. Samurai and carcassone nail this pretty well. Carcassone in particular has different rankings for single player and friend rating. You can compare scores and stuff, very in-depth -no ability to add to your 'friend list'. Now some highlights that aren't really seen in other games -carcassone: you get messages in chat as a push notification too. I haven't seen any other game do this and its awesome b/c sometimes ppl will comment or something but still be thinking about their move. I like how you can have a conversation like that -both games(carc/asc): ability to see if opponent is online. Samurai does this too, but not as well as ascension and carcassone. -fast load times, both games (carc/asc) get you playing really fast from when you open the app. -both: support for badge, alerts, sound. It may sound average, but games that use openfeint dont support badges, and some other games are glitchy with their notifiction such that badges dont show up properly either. -Samurai: the one part i really liked about this game was that you can set a time limit on your opponent to play. that way if they dont make their move within the allotted time, you can tell the AI to make the move for them. This feature is super awesome and i think it keeps games going. -Samurai: ability to add to friend list I guess a matchmaking like samurai plus the functionality of carcassone would be perfect. Sorry if this was too long of a post but I hope it can be useful to you. Best Regards, owc Edit: i also wanted to add that the reason i personally dont play Shadow era is b/c of lack of async multitasking. Also, i stopped playing Orion's 2, not b/c of its glitches. But b/c the multiplayer died pretty fast, it was hot seat and not async.
This is key. When the app goes live, my first thing will be to buy a starter deck, and probably some individual cards. Then I'm done. Not gonna spend much after that, because I'll have two decks/factions to play with, and I don't intend to spend THAT much per "characters". Gonna stick to my two decks, level them up a bit in SP, and when the inevitable boredom hits, I'll wait for the possible expansions. However, at half price I would feel I get some value for my money. What's more important, I could be more experimental and easier with my purchases.
I've been following this thread because this game looks really good but the recent discussion about pricing has made me realise this is just pitched too high. Unfortunately I'm going to pass on this - just too expensive to get the most out of this game. Real shame. Jamie
@badmanj: I wouldn't give up on it so easily if I were you, because 1) it's free (with a 6 dollars voucher) 2) you should play the standalone version first 3) the game is too good (and entertaining as it is, without IAPs) to write off You can play the free version like forever, basically. And wait for the inevitable patches /expansions /sales.
Hmm, is there no way to earn Influence in-game, slowly but without spending real-world money, in the manner of Urban Rivals and Shadow Era?
For a polished and appealing implementation of asynchronous gaming, these features or options will all contribute greatly: A well-developed chat system. Ensure that new chat messages: Show up across the screen once we enter the game in question, but also send their own push notifications. Furthermore, in addition to displaying new chat messages on top of the actual gaming area, also provide a chat log (accessed via a chat bubble icon or similar) were we can read the chat history. This is also probably where we will be sending new chat messages. For a very successful chat implementation, see Carcassonne. Informative push notifications. Preferably, the name of opponents should be included in the push notification, plus other information that will aid us in separating different on-going games from each other. (It is your turn in the game with Kyy Games will do, but It is your turn in the Epic-paced game on the Pangaea map versus 5 AI opponents and Kyy Games is much more informative, to use a Civ IV analogy.) For async games that result in really long and complex matches (Starbase Orion, the most sophisticated async game for iOS, is currently the only such game), custom naming of matches might be preferable. In-game notifications of new turns in other Cabal matches, plus a quick way to jump to these matches. UniWar does this best, with a button that sends the player to the next match with an available turn, and a badge that displays the number of available turns on top of the next match button. A custom and characteristic notification sound. (Not possible at the moment if you rely on Apples own async APIs) Options for turn timer expiration, to prevent players from withholding their turns for weeks, together with warnings of impending turn expiration sent via push notifications. ELO ratings. One of the best way to add a sense of progression and persistence (see further discussion below) to any duel-based game, and very easy to implement. Further progression and persistence. This is the aspect that the VAST majority of async games overlook. In the long run, async games tend to become a long blur of endless strings of matches, and this often leads to a sense of exhaustion, and a lack of purpose. Here is how to sex us up with purpose and context : Ideally, all async games would include some sort of semi-MMO/MMO-inspired campaign mode, where all matches won led either to some sort of progression (unit/army/character development, whatever is suitable for that particular game), territorial gain (for war and conquer games. Something as simple as a world map that displays ownership of territories based on matches won, a visual representation of player stats, would be enough to offer incentive for many players. An extended meta-game where matches won and territorial gain led to further in-game advantages would be something wholly unique, and really appealing), or at least visual upgrades (new unit appearances, colors, badges, medals, etc, whatever is suitable for that particular game). If not, ELO ratings, extended stats and a complete match history at least offer players a way to track their progress, and look back upon their accomplishments. UniWar does this partially well, with ELO ratings and detailed player stats, which tie in to the games community features (being able to send messages, view player profiles, etc). A TCG always has the possibility to tie card/deck progress (the TCG sense of progression) to matches won against human opponents (and AI). In a game where new cards are obtained through the use of some sort of currency, this progression and development occurs naturally, if winning games against human opponents earns the player currency. Shadow Era (soon to gain async support, but in this case, an example of a TCG) does this partly well, since multiplayer matches won earn the players currency to purchase cards. However, Urban Rivals (sadly without async support, but it would probably not compatible with the games prediction-and-subterfuge-based nature, which might require turn limits of less than a minute to work well) is the king of bestowing additional purpose and context upon multiplayer matches. Not only does winning earn the player currency to buy new cards, but also fulfills conditions towards completing a large set of missions, which in turn offer additional rewards. Furthermore, UR has many different automatic tournaments, leagues, ladders and rankings, which offer player both rewards and nice, visible stats/ranking positions for winning against human opponents. Together, all the added progression mentioned in the last bullet point adds up to longevity and an active community, which in turn leads to far greater chances for monetization (= more dough for devs ). If Cabals currently features no way to earn Influence through play alone (even if at a very slow and limited rate), you might want to rethink the business model. Most free2play games make MORE money if they offer a way to progress and enjoy most or all of the games content without spending real-world money, as opposed to locking most of the content away behind IAP barriers. Strangely, at least to traditional business sensibilities, most recent market analyses and free-to-play research point towards players being more likely to spend money on games with few or no absolutely content restrictions. It is no great surprise to us players, as many of us will not keep playing a free game where IAP eventually is required to progress or compete beyond the first day, but will gladly eventually part with our money for a game that has kept us entertained and engrossed for days or weeks. It turns out that in the 21th century, generosity is finally a reward in itself
At the moment you earn one new common card every level, one uncommon every five levels, and one rare every ten levels. According to the developers, the first update will include a new use for any unnecessary duplicate (and useless opposite-faction cards), and a subsequent update will include the ability to sell off those cards for Influence points.
Hi, Jamie. No need to write it off just yet; after all, the game hasn't even been released yet and it's free anyway so there's no harm in trying it out. If it turns out that I have to spend large sums of cash to acquire a half decent deck, then I'll call it a day; I hope that isn't the case, though, as Cabals seems like a pretty good game from what I can tell from the PC version.
You should really consider all the things Ayjona posted. Especially the part about player progression is crucial. It totally improves the player experience. I think the prices for the cards should be halved as well. That would push me to further invest in this game since i really enjoy the mac version. GOGOGO APPLE APPROVE IT
Thanks to everyone for the async feedback so far. Special thanks to Ayjona for your profound insights on async, monetization and progress. I would like to comment on latter parts. Cabals will evolve: Players will be able to gain currency through playing, inviting friends, selling and trading cards. Players will also be able to gain levels and prizes from quests, tournaments and duels. All in due time. We're dedicated to Cabals for years to come, this is just the beginning. -Mika
Excellent list, Ayjona! I want to mention one additional thing that I forget to include in my previous post on the topic of async "do's and don't's": when I enter a game in progress, I like to see a replay of my opponent's moves. I'm amazed how many otherwise great games leave out this feature. Without it, each turn is like a dry little puzzle, cut off from the flow of the match.
