Card Hunter Message Board

See the little guy in the bottom left of the header image there, excitedly throwing his arms in the air about bits of (digital) cardboard? That is exactly how good new cards being introduced to your favourite game feels. While my personal crack Magic goes through yet another spoiler season for its next release, extraordinarily generous free-to-play RPG/CCG hybrid Card Hunter is conquering new shores as well. For the unfamiliar, it combines a D&D style board game with a paper cut-out aesthetic and collectible elements to create an experience both Adam and Alec have sung the praises of. This first addition promises to bring “tough new campaign battles, bizarre new monsters and powerful new cards” along with some other sweet deets you can find below.

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Card Hunter will deal out "Attack of the Artifacts," the game's first expansion, later this month. The free-to-play browser-based game, which is also making its way to mobile, will deepen the deck-building strategy game with new adventures, cards and monsters.

Attack of the Artifacts isn't just for the solo adventurers getting in some Card Hunter between TPS reports at work. The expansion also adds league play where dungeon masters can "pilot monster decks and explore challenging new multiplayer boards to win prizes." Prizes include more pizza (the in-game currency), treasure chests and unique figures.
[Image: Blue Manchu]

Nice, Card Hunter is getting a tablet version. Blue Manchu's terrific tactics RPG/deck-building game Card Hunter always seemed suited to tablet devices, and now, it's finally happening. The tablet version will be a free-to-play app, similar to the browser-based original. The release date is still TBD.Read more...

Card Hunter, the RPG and collectible card game hybrid that launched last year, was one of the first "real" games we've seen for browsers, but even at the time it was obvious it would be best as a mobile experience. We weren't alone in that thinking: Newly-founded DropForge Games will be handling mobile porting duties.

"The number one request from the Card Hunter community has been 'when will this be on my tablet?'" said developer Blue Manchu CEO Jon Chey. "The game's design screams out for a tablet experience."

The mobile version announcement this morning didn't put its cards on the table about platforms or a release window. We followed up with DropForge VP Joe McDonagh who told us, "No release date confirmed. We're working on the plan right now but at a minimum we're going to release some new adventures for it. We're also going change the UI to optimize for tablet." [Image: Blue Manchu]

This is a Snapshot, a quick, un-scored review of a game we think you should know about. You encounter a free-to-play browser game. You decide to play it. Roll a D6 to see if it's any good...

A six!

Wow, that's really lucky. Roll again to see if forced microtransactions or time limits will prevent you from enjoying it for a long session...

Another six?! You're unstoppable. Okay, roll one last time to see if you're crazy...

Three in a row? The odds are incredibly unlikely, but you've stumbled across Card Hunter, a free-to-play, browser-based, deck-building strategy game that will devour every last second of your free time if you let it.

Card Hunter is looking to expand its deck of tricks, coming off last week's solid launch that saw the team at Blue Manchu struggling to keep up with demand for the free-to-play game.

"We were so overrun on Thursday and we had to implement a queue. I think it's the first time in history people queued for a Flash game," said Joe McDonagh, writer/designer on Card Hunter. "We're a really small team and we're seven different cities in four different times zones so it's been really tough. But the time difference actually worked in our favor, because someone's always awake and working on improving the server performance."

McDonagh tells Joystiq that the first thing the studio plans to add is "some sort" of tournaments to multiplayer, following that up with more single player adventures, too.

"Obviously, there'll be some new cards too," said McDonagh. "It's been an amazing first seven days for us. We've had just under 100,000 players. That's mind-boggling to us."

Unless you’re reading these words on a device that doesn’t allow you to play Flash-based browser games, there is absolutely no reason for you not to toddle into another tab and start playing Card Hunter right now. If you have a terrible time, you can always come back, read the rest of this post and then jump straight into the comments to tell me how incredibly wrong I am. The rest of the post, you see, is made up of paragraphs of praise for one of the finest games of the year.

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This week's surprise breakout game has been Card Hunter, a free-to-play, browser-based (don't stop reading!) mash-up of board game HeroQuest and card game Dominion. The game has plenty of pedigree, and features a fun storyline, which has up-and-coming Game Master Gary dealing with his older brother Melvin, who knows better than anyone else how to play Card Hunter.

The game's servers are currently getting hammered, but put on your +2 cloak of optimism and you may get to try it out.

What's everyone playing?

Remember when Alec played Card Hunter’s multiplayer? Back when he couldn’t even beat the game’s own creators on his first go at it ever? What a joke, right? I mean, practically anyone could do that. I would, but I’m too busy decimating the world’s most sophisticated chess-playing computer with both my brains tied behind my back. You, though – you should absolutely brush up on your Card Hunter skills, as a) Alec still lurks in the shadows, waiting to suck all potential victims into the black night of his vengeance and b) it’s a really great game from former BioShock developers. The free-to-play pen-and-paper/TCG game fusion is now available in easily accessible browser form. Go slay dragons with a vicious series of paper cuts!

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There’s something entirely infectious about the whimsy with which Card Hunter presents itself. There’s absolutely no attempt to be cool, it’s an unapologetically, ridiculously geeky game designed to play off the decades of history surrounding the hobby. Alec echoed as much in his preview back in June and now we can excitedly reveal that you can all get your mitts on it on September 12th via any web browser you care to mention. While the inevitability of my own endless fascination presses heavy, you may require further convincing. Read on.

The developer pedigree on show is immense – the parts of Blue Manchu Games not composed of ex-Irrational and Looking Glass, which is most of them, are Magic: The Gathering heavyweights such as Richard Garfield. What that man has forgotten about designing games would likely fill my head to bursting, nevermind the multiple brilliant games he’s helped put together.  And hay, it’ll be free to play and supported via purchases of additional characters and adventures, as well as a subscription system that buffs rewards, so you don’t really have an excuse not to try. If it grabs your fancy but you’re not one for this business model, there’s also a ‘Basic Edition’ on offer for $25 which provides a number of extras including all available single-player content.

Want it now? The beta is still available to sign up for over on the official website.

I've been looking forward to playing a finished version of the tabletop/deck-building tactical RPG Card Hunter since I first played it at PAX last year. If you'd like a new in-depth look, check out this video, in which one of the game's developers takes on Alec Meer of Rock, Paper Shotgun.Read more...

I am speaking to you from beyonnnnd the graaaaaaaaaaaave. Said grave being ‘exhausting 24 hour child care’ and said beyond being ‘the sabbatical I am supposed to be on until October.’ While the tiny beast is distracted by a brief milk-daze, I shall seize the opportunity to quickly share with you this video of me playing upcoming TBS/CCG/boardgame delight Card Hunter (which we last wrote about here) against the developers. I’m roundly beaten, naturally, but at least I very nearly manage not to sound bitter about it. Myself and Card Hunter dev Joe McDonagh also quasi-interview each other as we play.(more…)

Ah, that’s the stuff. I couldn’t have wished for anything more stabilising during a week when the games industry seems of the verge of eating itself. A game about games, a game where all this came from, a game about the purity and the silliness of escapism, a game about boardgames, card games and pen and paper roleplaying games. Console scenesters might have their Monster Hunter; on PC, we have Card Hunter. Card Hunter, I heart you.(more…)

It’s entirely possible to do a good many things with cards. You can stack them, scatter them, throw them, boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew, etc. And after humanity realized that Card Stew was a disgusting affront to tastebuds everywhere, people even started playing games with them. Slowly but surely, though, the phrase “card game” took on a rather unsavory stigma – relegated to pitch black basement dungeons and videogames without punching or explosions. But the mad card and mustache scientists at Blue Manchu have engineered a means by which to hunt cards, and the end result – Card Hunter, naturally – is quite a different creature from standard cardboard slip trading fare. Basically, if you normally flee at the sight of anything with “card” or “TCG” in its description, this might make a believer out of you yet.

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One of the games my greedy little brain is currently most anticipating, now that my previous most-anticipated games have arrived, is Blu Manchu’s Card Hunter. A boardgame/CCG mash-up from one of Irrational’s former bigwigs and a cartel of highly experienced devs, its focus is on recreating cheerfully dusty boardgame socials as it on coming up with some tight strategy/roleplaying mechanics.

I’ve been able to play the demo made available on the show floor at PAX, but without having to experience the unbridled horror of being in the close vicinity of other human beings. It’s only two matches, but I liked what I saw, yes I did. I liked it very much indeed.(more…)

Card Hunter‘s got quite a lot going for it. For one, it heralds from a studio headed up by former Irrational co-founder Jon Chey. Also, that studio’s name is Blue Manchu. Everything else is secondary – even the card-battling RPG’s fusion of Magic: The Gathering-esque deck building, grid-based tactical battling, obsessive Diablo-style loot collection, and an honest-to-goodness dungeon master. Those things are, however, still pretty great, so watching them in motion is a thing I would advise. And you can do just that right after the break.

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#cardhunter I've become enamored of Card Hunter, which brilliantly combines a strategy tabletop RPG with a deck-building card game and comes up with something that feels both new and familiar. More »

#cardhunter Plenty of great games combine multiple game ideas into a single cohesive package. Persona mixed a dating sim and a party-based JRPG. Deus Ex combined sneaking, shooting and role-playing stats so successfully that it's still mimicked to this day. More »

Card Hunter, the lovely-looking PC-based CCG/boardgame/MMO hybrid from Irrational co-founder (and former Looking Glass man) John Chey, looks right up RPS’ street. So, I had a chat to him about the game’s inspirations, its conceptual similarity to Mojang’s Scrolls, why it might be first time a collectible card game manages to be successfully singleplayer, and why it’s an idealised version of the RPGs we played as children.(more…)

A live-action demonstration of this online game's mechanics.

Canberra - Irrational Games co-founder and Director of Development on BioShock, Jonathan Chey announced the founding of Blue Manchu, a new independent development studio dedicated to innovative strategy and simulation gaming and as well as a collaboration with Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering, on Blue Manchu's first game, Card Hunter...