With an eye on the arrival of Hearthstone onto the scene, many people discovered that the current scenario of Trading Card Games (TGC) is considerably large. than the traditional physical card games, equally as social (well, as social as you can get playing through a screen), and usually cheaper due to the fact that most of these games are Free-to-Play.
With a number of TGCs out there, from browser based Flash games to big client downloads, we thought we'd put together a list of some of our favourites that we highly recommend you check out:
Might and Magic: Duel of Champions
It is possible that Hearthstone will become one of the most important TCGs, even though it’s only in beta, but there are large communities that continue following other rival TGCs and they come in all different flavours, from the classic Fantasy Trading Card Games, to Sci-Fi and even one or two more originally themed ones. Riding the coat tails of Magic: The Gathering ™ most of the current TGCs are fantasy themed and focus on battling monsters, but there are games like Urban Rivals which go further and adopt a more modern day setting, albeit you’re still fighting monsters, aliens and mutants.
Finding out what works in regards to features is trial and error; whilst some of them want to redefine the genre and make their game more unique, this comes with a price and often scares TCG players, because they have systems that break too much from the usual and very few players are willing to try something new. Finding the balance between a casual browser based Flash Trading Card Game versus the likes of a more feature heavy client download TCG is an art in itself; one that many have tried and failed as their games seemingly appear and disappear overnight.
So what needs a good TCG? Well, it is difficult to say, but in our opinion, the key is that the game keeps being simple but flexible, there are always key elements that players want, the most typical example would be a large selection of cards; the more choice a player has the more unique they can make decks and tactics. Secondly we’d say the chance for getting powerful cards, either earned or at random; nothing makes a collector smile more than finally getting that big power card they’ve seen other people use so many times and use it against them. Finally the game needs a system that actually works, and with decades of Magic it is not difficult to understand why so few games risk to try something new (if it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it!).
Outside of that the features can be hit or miss. Some MMO games like to make the Trading Card Game aspect a secondary “feature” of their game, where on the flip side some TCGs take more MMO-esq features and add them as major components. Take a look at the likes of up-and-comer Hex: Shards of Fate, that introduces “dungeon raiding” and the chance to acquire gear that can be attached to your heroes and cards. Other TGCs like Battlecraft and Hearthstone even allow you to create items and cards, or have a PvE more than interesting history in which you face AI in the game.
Apart from the features mentioned above there are some characteristics which determine if a game its a success or a failure. Some MMO games make the TGC aspect a secondary game feature of their games, while some TCGs take more MMO-esq features and add them as major components. We can see a very clear example with Hex: Shards of Fate, that introduces “dungeon raiding” and the chance to acquire gear that can be attached to your heroes and cards. Other TGCs like Battlecraft and Hearthstone even allow you to create items and cards, and many games create a more PvE centric “story-arc” to their AI combat features as a staple as opposed to it being a simple process of beating up bots.
With more money and funds invested in the next generation of TGCs, with more developers trying to push the boundaries and trying out new things, the line between MMORPG and TGC is becoming more diffuse, and that's why we believe that the next few years are going to be interesting times in the TCG scene and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
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