Card Hunter: CCG combined with RPG Campaign

[ydejin]

Just found out about this really nifty sounding game, Card Hunter.  You create a set of adventurers, each represented by a CCG card deck, and go out on adventures earning new cards and expanding your deck.  The designers have a great pedigree with the team lead, Jonathan Chey, being an Irrational Games co-founder who was the lead designer on Freedom Force and also worked on BioShock, System Shock 2, and Thief.  They've got a lot of Irrational alumni on the team, and the Magic the Gathering creators are acting as consultants.

I heard about it on Friday and spent part of the weekend catching up on their developer diaries.  It sounds really great and has moved close to the top of my upcoming games I'm most looking forward to.

The general aesthetic is very interesting and it's designed to look like table top gaming:



Adventurers earn loot which comes in the form of equipment which is represented by more cards.  Choosing your adventurer's equipment along with some class and racial traits determines what your deck looks like:

Spoiler for Hiden:

There's an overland map, showing adventure locations, shops, taverns, and a home keep.



Adventures provide a series of connected combat encounters.  Here's a walkthrough on an adventure.

Diary 18 -- Black Oaken Heart
Diary 19 -- Into the Black Forest
Diary 20 -- The Trees Strike Back
Diary 21 -- Timber

The adventures are arranged like DnD adventures and they have a 1980s original DnD adventures design aesthetic, which I really like, having grown up in that era, although I wonder if it's a bit dated for a modern audience:

Spoiler for Hiden:

My main concerns are that it's F2P, although they insist it's not pay-to-win, and since a large part of the focus is on single-player, that may not matter all that much.  Also it's a browser game, I've never played a browser game (other than little Flash toy games), but that does suggest some major UI limitations that may make the game awkward to play.  They do promise to add iOS and Android tablet versions if it does well.

It's supposed to be showing at PAX at the mega-indie gaming booth.  I'd be really interested in reports if any of you are going.

[Bullwinkle]

This looks very cool.  I would get it for iOS if it doesn't take up too much space and wasn't too expensive (though I assume FTP would extend to the other platforms).

I would try the browser version, but it wouldn't be my primary choice.

I love the tabletop/old school D&D feel of it.

[ydejin]

This looks very cool.  I would get it for iOS if it doesn't take up too much space and wasn't too expensive (though I assume FTP would extend to the other platforms).

I agree.  Seems like it would make a great tablet game.