Spellweaver - Or how to successfuly make a CCG

Now that I have started talking about digital CCGs, let us continue? How about that? Today I will tell you about the Bulgarian CCG Spellweaver. The game is made by Dream Reactor and at its very start (closed beta) it quickly gathered quite a bunch of followers. Process that continues even now when the game is live.

I plan to miss the general talk about CCG as a genre and tell you more about what puts Spellweaver apart from the others. In other reviews you will read that it is a mix between MTG and Hearthstone and while it is not incorrect there is more precise description and that will be Hearthstone ( because of its lightness and quick games) and Might&Magic: Duel of Champions ( because of it two lane board ). From Duels is also taken the idea about the characters abilities, but here you can even upgrade them during play. Spellweaver is...how to say it...the Warcraft of CCGs. It is a mix of a lot of good things which complement each other and sum up to a good game. 

Another interesting mechanic which makes the matches short and quick is the ability to see the top 5 cards and if there is a Shrine ( the ones which give you mana ) take it and put it in your hand. That really helps with the mana problem a lot.  Mentioning mana is important to say that there are two requirements for playing cards - magic levels and mana. Both are given by the Shrines and you choose what to get when you play one. Special Shrines will also give new skills to your heroes.

Oh, oh! I almost forgot and it is important and different from other CCGs. The creatures in Spellweaver have one more stat - speed. You can even build your deck around it. Speed is important when you try to block because slow creatures cannot block faster ones. Forgetting it made me lose more games than I want to confess. I want to also mention something about I am not sure how I feel. That is the art style of the game. Spellweaver has this baroque theme going for it and while it is rather unique and fitting for the game it somehow annoys me it looks good but at the same time...enough of this you got it! Or not...anyway!

Now that we are done with what sets the game apart from the others let’s see what else it has to offer. First of all there are six factions each with its own playstyle and story. Dream Reactor has done a lot to flesh out a whole world with its own story and lore. Each faction has its own kingdom on the map and your faction will decide your starting deck. With time you will be able to buy other starting decks and with that unlock other kingdoms and more quests to do. There is competent vs AI mode and unraked against people. There are bossfights which will reward you with rare, powerful cards. Despite all those ways to play singleplayer Spellweaver is more PvP oriented and it is obvious from the fact that you get better rewards for winning PvP matches instead of PvE. There are also Tournaments organized regularly.

Spellweaver is well done, beautiful, infused with a lot of hard work and love CCG which is obviously done by people who know their games and their CCGs even more. The team is ambitious and motivated, they have clear idea what they want to do with the game and what they want to implement. If you have not found your CCG (everyone needs one) try Spellweaver, it might be what you are looking for!

Where to find: 

Official site

Steam

HEX: Shards of Fate - What Duels of Planeswalkers should have been

I have mentioned it so many times that I don't think there is need to say it again. What I have said so many times, you ask? I am huge CCG fan! Aah, you remember now, good! Let us continue then. Today as you can guess from the title I will talk about HEX: Shards of Fate which recently got it's main feature going at last. And this is the PvE campaign. Does it rings a bell? Probably not, I do not think that many of you are old enough to remember the 1997 video game based on Magic: The Gathering where you were able to roam around, fight monsters, improve your deck and in the end test your skills and cards against the final bosses. But there was such game and it was awesome. After I played it time passed and kind of forgot about MTG until few years ago when Duels of the Planeswalkers rekindled my interest in the game. Sadly DoP was nothing like what I was craving...

For this reason when I heard about HEX I was all over the idea. I had no patience to get my hands on this game and at last relive this moments of joy. Roaming a world, defeating opponents in card duels while at the same time improving my skills and decks. But HEX does not rely only on classical, established as working mechanics taken from Magic. It also includes things of its own - for example equipment for your heroes or upgradable cards which get new abilities. Not to mention the gorgeous battlefields, changing depending on the area in which you fight never breaking your immersion.

HEX is PvE centered CCG and as such it offers few ways of play. The first is the standard PvE versus AI. Your enemy might from any faction and will use various decks and strategies. Decent game mode if you want to just try the game or the new deck you have built up.

The second mode of PvE is the Arena. This is your standard arena, gauntlet or whatever you call it. The more victories you achieve better the reward at the end. Here you have 20 wins maximum, 3 loses and all your enemies are AI. These AI though are a lot harder and with better decks than the ones from the previous mode. Other difference in HEX's arena is the way it is structured - the 20 matches are divided in 4 categories and at the end of which there is a boss. The rewards from the Arena are mainly currencies and unique items for your heroes.

The third way to play is the main reason why so many people were so impatient to try Shards of Fate - the PvE campaign which can be played even solo. In it you choose a race and a class. The combination between these two will give you different bonuses. Your race choice also decided the story and your starting deck until you collect enough cards to build your own. The PvE campaign is the only way to play the dungeons, being alone or with your party of friends. In the game you will find also other RPG "social" functions as Guilds and neutral factions which will act towards depending on your action through the campaign.

The may be only big negatives of the campaign are the boring looking map and the dialogues in which your decisions does not seem to be of great importance. But if you can look beyond those you will find one very interesting mash-up of RPG and CCG.

Now that we mentioned all things which set HEX: Shards of Fate apart from the other CCGs let me tell you about some other things you will find this already pretty great game. There is Action House where you sell and buy cards. There are of course boosters, sadly sold only for real money. Talking about boosters and cards I almost forgot - cards are separated in PvP and PvE categories which honestly I find for little strange and hinders the game more than anything else... Oh, oh! I forgot the most important thing! HEX: Shards of Fate is absolutely free to play and you will hardly find yourself pushed to buy boosters unless may be you want to get super competitive and win tournaments. 

If you are like me and RPG and CCG/TCG are two of your favorite genres then this is without doubt the game for you! Try it, it is nothing like the others.

Where to find it:

Official site and Download

Oxenfree - Time is not what you think it is

A group of friends have the tradition at the end of the semester to have a party at Edwards Island - an old military base. But this year a surprise is awaiting. In the game you take on the role of Alex who has to manage not only her personal problems such as her stepbrother and the ex-girlfriend of her dead brother, but she also has to fix the whole nightmare that is soon to be unleashed upon the group of friends. It sounds like a teenage mystery/horror movie and it is exactly that, but turned into an adventure game. Did Night School Studio managed to create something good from such a cliché? Let us see.

Tune in...

Everything starts really innocently with Alex's friend Ren taking her and her stepbrother to check out the nearby cave where at certain places if you tune to certain frequency, anomalies occur. Pushed by their curiosity Alex and Joshua go deeper in the cave where they tune in and cause a fracture into reality and even speak to ghosts trapped on the other side. Now, don't worry, this is like the first 20 minutes of the game so nothing's really spoiled. You'll come across this whatever you do. After your conversation with the ghosts your whole group is scattered through the island and now you have to get them back together and get out of there before things get worse.

Time and space are hazy terms in Oxenfree

Oxenfree is adventure game where you interact mainly with other characters through dialogues. Depending on what you say you will reveal different parts of the story, of their past and in general will provoke different emotions or reactions. All of this affect other's attitude towards you in future. 

The story goes around the sinking of an American submarine near Edwards Island and its now haunting crew. Why they have sunk, who did this, why are they back, what do they want? All those questions stand before you and you will have to find the answers if you want to save yourself, your friends...oh and your brother. What do you mean he is dead? Anyway!

Through the game you will be brought back in time, stuck in time loops, see your friends die, live, being possessed, transferred to other dimensions and in the end...the end depends entirely on your actions and decisions. I really want to tell you the story and all the secrets and hidden details but that means to spoil it for you and I don't want to do that. This will mean to ruin for you this great, tense, filled with mystery game. Oxenfree is one of those adventure games that when you finish them and see the ending you got you will think "But what if I have said this other thing..." and replay it again. Not to mention that with each playthrough  you will find more and more. And then there is even more, Night School Studios have hidden game related information even in this real world of ours. 

If you are into this kind of things, if you like to hunt for mysteries, hidden signs and talk to ghosts then Oxenfree is definitely for you. I haven't seen adventure game with so much to uncover in a long time. 

And that's it. It's worth it, it may have slow start but once the story get going you will finish it in one go, believe me! 

Where to find:

 Official site

 i8bit Store

 Humble Store

 scntfc store

 Steam

Quick Opinion - Stardew Valley, Rusty Lake Hotel, Secrets of Grindea, Dungealot Shattered Lands

Quick Opinion is something new that I came up with recently. The idea of these posts will be to tell you my thoughts on several smaller titles for which I cannot write a whole review either because the games are too small or simply because I don't have the time. This will not be a regular thing, but instead when small games gather up I will combine them in this Quick Opinion posts.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley as its creators describes it "open-ended country-life RPG." The story goes that you inherit a farm and the land with it. The land hasn't beed used for a long time and it is now your task to return it to its former glory. A lot of people say that Stardew Valley reminds them of Harvest Moon, game which I haven't played but if you have this is what to expect. To me Stardew Valley is a Facebook game without any of its negatives. No energy, no restriction, no paywalls - just the pure fun of farming, fishing, digging ore and talking to the people from the nearby town. If you like farming simulators and don't mind the retro graphics I think you will find your peace of haven in Satrdew Valley.

Official Site

Steam

Rusty Lake Hotel

I will be honest - I heard about Rusty Lake Hotel on a podcast that I follow and after short research I decided that it might be good. I got it and beaten it in like an hour. It’s a very short game yes, but is it worth it? It is if you like grim, morbid games, Grand Budapest hotel and point and click adventures. Your task is simple - secure dinner for the guests of the hotel, one that is worth dying for. Of course you will need to find the ingredients first...and I will let you find how on your own. I will only say that finding the ingredients is what makes this game grim and morbid...

There are also a lot of puzzles in the game and there lays the problem. Many of those puzzles are very unclear, vague and a lot of times I ended frustrated wondering what I have to do. There of course is the possibility that I was not bright enough for those, may be the smart people like you out there will like those puzzles and even find them easy, who knows? A quirky game...I'm a bit hesitant to recommend it because of its puzzles, but at the same time quite interesting with its atmosphere and artstyle. Your pick - I liked it.

Official site

Secrets of Grindea

Classical old-school, SNES RPG. So old-school that it doesn't even has mouse controls in the menus. In the game you are a young Collector (something like a Hunter from HunterXHunter if you have watched it) and you take your first steps in the vast and dangerous world. The story as always starts pretty innocent but quickly the plot thickens and soon you find yourself on the track of grand mystery. While investigating you will fight your way through various dungeons, stand against nasty bosses and find artefacts of great power...some of them living. There is a ton of collectibles and the secret to gather them is to grind a lot (you see what I did there?). May be the biggest pros of the game is its co-op mode as it a lot more fun with 3 more people not to mention quicker. Not exactly my kind of game, but if you miss your childhood definitely a game for you. Oh, the game is still in early access I almost forgot...

Official site

Get early access

Dungelot: Shattered Lands

It seems that this first edition of Quick Opinion will go under the mark of classically themed games. The last one is in very niche genre but also very big favourite of mine - roguelike. I doubt that you don't know what it is, but just to be safe - roguelikes are games usually turn-based dungeon crawls which extremely hard try to kill you. For this roguelikes heavily rely of RNG and dice-rolling mechanics. Well, Dungelot is all this but well mixed with good dose of humour and a lot easier progression curve than most roguelikes with unlockable classes and such. The game has a crafting system, a good amount of items, boosts and even a small "rest area" in which dungeon where you can rest, recover a little and continue with slightly better chances. If you are like me into the genre I think you will enjoy it.

Official site
Steam
Google Store
iTunes Store

SuperHot! - An innovative look at FPS

First Person Shooters were something big for me when I was like between 9-12 years old. We played a ton in internet clubs...yeah it was that long ago. Anyway, back then I really liked the genre but with time things somehow changed and I stopped playing those games. I think the last fps I played was Halo CE in 2006. That continued until this year when SuperHot came out. You will ask what this is?! Doesn't sound like anything shooting related! But to this I will say - does Hotline Miami sounds like one? It doesn't but look at it.

Anyway, we are here to talk about SuperHot by...SUPERHOT Team. The game started as game jam in 2013 I think, it drew a lot of attention and this year from a demo it became a full game on the market. There is a story in the game and its idea is interesting, but very short, so I will not talk about it at all. Skipping the story part let’s take a look at the gameplay - what is SuperHot and why so many people are interested in it?

When you launch the game the first thing that will get your attention is the DOS styled menus, this is theme and story related so I will not go into details but it is interesting touch to the game. After you finish the story mode which is a bit more than two hours (it depends how much you die :D ) you will unlock all sort of challenges and unlimited mode to test your newly acquired skills. Are you impatient enough already? Ok, ok...sorry.

What made so many people interested in SuperHot is its core mechanic - the game moves only when you move. My first though when I heard about it was " Oh, so it’s a turn-based kind of FPS?". Well, it’s not it’s more like infinite bullet-time FPS. Often the game will put you against multiple enemies with better weapons, coming from different directions, coming out of cars which try to hit you and so on.  You will have to plan your moves carefully as there are no hit points in this game while at the same time you will also have to be quick and able to adapt as here enemies will shamelessly spawn behind you and in places where you have already checked. 

The game doesn't grab with its look. The menus are DOS like and the other parts of the game have strange rectangular art style with enemies seemingly made of red glass which shatters when they are hit. But it grabs with its gameplay. It really does! It’s a great feeling when you complete a level, when you run by your enemies slashing them with a katana while dodging swarms of bullets. You feel badass! Powerful! Good! Like the main character in an action movie. And then you die, because as we know "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer". It is an interesting and unique, from what I have seen, mix of a puzzle and FPS in almost equal measure.

Easy to grasp, hard to master, satisfying, clean gameplay.  A ton of replayability. I loved it!  If you are too looking for adrenalin filled title which at the same time offers something new SuperHot is your game!

Where to find it:

Official site

Steam

"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer" is quote from Red Hook's game Darkest Dungeon

Crashlands - Return of the survival

I think I have never mentioned it before but I used to be into Minecraft a lot! I loved it! Later Terraria came by and liked this one even more, I even still play it from time to time. Since then I have tried a few games of this type more famous of which are Don't Starve by Klei and Starbound by Chucklefish. But why I'm telling you this? Isn't this whole genre thing of the past with the market being overflown with such games? Well, I don't know honestly, but I'm mentioning these games because today I'm about to tell you more about one new game which fits perfectly among the mentioned above. This is Crashlands by Butterscotch Shenanigans. I still have not beaten it, so this is just first impressions after around ten hours of gameplay.

Fluxed with Hewgodooko and Juice

In Crashlands you take on the role of Flux who together with his robot friend Juicebox are working for intergalactic delivery company and are in the middle of important delivery when their ship is destroyed by the alien Hewgodooko. Flux and Juicebox manage to save the cargo before crashing on unexplored planet but now they are stuck there and their boss won't be happy if they are late with the delivery.

From here the story continues with you helping a lot of locals who have different problems some related and some not with your quest which is only to get the parts needed for you to build a device with which to call for help.

Roaming Woanope

From all of the mentioned in the beginning games Crashlands reminds me mostly of  Don't Starve, but with the strong equipment crafting element of Terraria. Similar to those two you will go into the wild to gather materials, craft tools and weapons also you will learn more and more about the strange world in which you have dropped. Butterscotch have managed to create vast, colorful world for you to explore. World filled with bizarre but unfriendly wild animals as well as strange nature worshiping locals. The art style of Crashlands is one thing that sets it aside from Don't Starve and Terraria. I mean both of those games look very well in their respective art styles, but neither is so bright and in both there is feeling of loneliness, even in Terraria where NPCs will come join you through the game. Here you're accompanied by Juicebox everywhere, talking with him all the time exchanging jokes, receiving advises. Also the locals will speak with you and give you quests. The game sets a totally different mood while you play it. Its more...lively! Mentioning the quests...

The biggest thing that separates Crashlands from the others are the quests. In the game as I already mentioned you will get quests and they are from what I have seen so far(around 10 hours into the game) the main progress mechanism of the game. You are free to explore the world without doing your quests but there are recipes which you won't be able to find. Interesting thing is the elaborate fighting system. Here unlike Don't Starve and Terraria or even Minecraft you won't be able to kill anything if you just stand there and mash the attack button. Every enemy that you meet will telegraph his attack in a way similar to the monsters in Wild Star for example and if you don't dodge you will be quickly stomped, bitten, electrocuted or poisoned to death. The fun starts when you aggro more than one enemy and your whole screen becomes ridden with attack patterns...

The crafting system is the same as the one in the two others - you gather materials, use the appropriate crafting station and voila you have a new item. Here you will also find the same random chance to craft different rarity of items as in Terraria. But unlike there here you get better and better when you craft one and the same item again and again.

I have not finished the game, but from what I heard it is pretty long so be prepared for some serious roaming, crafting and fighting - a charmingly bizarre world is waiting for you. But don't worry Juicebox will be there with you, not to mention that you can even tame pets who will fight for you. 

Conclusion

Crashlands is great addition to the genre even if you think that there are too many games like it. The game is colorful, lively and challenging, introducing some new and clever mechanics. With one of these it solves the biggest problem people usually have with the genre - they cannot find what to do. In Crashlands there are quests...and humor, a lot of it, not always good quality but in big quantities. Crashlands is great for those who enjoy the genre and are not tired of it and it is also great intro game with quests to help you progress when you are tired of farming ores or slaughtering nasty bugs. Crashlands - definitely charming.

Where to find it:

Official site

On Steam

iTunes Store

Google Store

Butterscotch shenanigans

Tharsis - Rolling dice and eating people on the road to Mars

Tharsis is a small game made by Choice Provisions and it's about the first manned mission to Mars. From the Tharsis region on Mars is received a mysterious signal. Quickly a crew is gathered and sent to investigate. On millions miles away from home their ship is struck by a meteor storm and it is severely damaged and two crewmates are dead. Now it’s all in your hands.

Or at least this is what the game wants you to believe. Actually you control very little in the game. Tharsis on its own is very simple. You have four crewmen each with its own special ability and number of dice. That's right you are rolling dice in this game, but let me continue. Tharsis is turn based game in which every turn your ship is struck by different misfortunes (events), to fix those you will have to complete their dice threshold. If you don't manage to do this there will be negative effects which can vary from minus dice for your crew to minus food, more stress, direct damage to the ship or to your people. 

Other important thing to know is that every section of the ship is different and important. There is a medical bay; there is a garden which produces food, flight control, and life support and operations room. Each of those sections can give you some bonuses if you send someone there to roll. This will force you to choose do you want to repair something or do you want to get something. And this I like, its a strong strategy element which can really change your game. 

Let me go back to the damage and fixing it. When a section of the ship is damaged, there, depending on the section will be some negative effect which will affect your dice and make them...malfunction. For example they may get in stasis and you will not be able to re-roll them or even be directly voided and disapear, other effects include things like wounds which equal the rolled number. When all of your astronouts have spent their dice and all unsloved events are resolved you will be given choices regarding the dispensation of resources like food, dice, stress and hull integrity.

It’s a lot like a boardgame honestly. And it really well manages to create the feeling of desperation and doom with things getting harder and harder, more crew dying and in the end...even eating some of them if things get extreme. There is also a solid dose of mystery with the signal from Mars and with advancing in the game you will receive more messages from the Red Planet. Definitely creates its own atmosphere. 

But..

Tharsis doesn't really know what it wants to be. It gives you hard strategic options and in the end the only thing you can do is rolling dice, which you cannot really manipulate. True when you see the dice almost getting the number you need but in the end failing its really frustrating and it creates the feeling of desperation that I mentioned but relaying only on luck to get you through this voyage is...optimistic at best. 

If you like space games and the travel to Mars interests you Tharsis definitely have something to offer, but only if you can endure the sheer randomness of the game.

Where to find it:

Official site

Steam Store

Humble Store