SUMMARY
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MANILA, Philippines – While there are a number of online role-playing games available these days, one growing segment among online games is the strategy card game. Requiring a good grasp of tactics and game mechanics and far less emphasis on reflexes, the fun of a good card game comes from outsmarting your opponent.
While some of you may be interested in online role-playing games, others may find more to love with that genre of gaming. That idea in mind, I thought, “Why not introduce a free-to-play strategy card game this week?”
Blizzard, the makers of the Warcraft strategy games and the World of Warcraft online role-playing game, have a proposition for you. Would you fancy joining people around the world in a friendly game of cards?
Introducing Hearthstone
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a free trading card game that everyone can play by signing up for a Battle.net account and downloading the game.
Unlike a traditional card game like poker, you’re not out to score wins by creating a winning combination of cards for a final show of hands with your opponents.
Instead, Hearthstone tasks players with building decks of playing cards based around a particular character class from World of Warcraft, which they can then take to battle against a computer opponent, or against other players from around the world.
Fight the computer or others, win card battles, and make your deck of playing cards more powerful by adding and removing cards that best fit your playstyle: that’s the premise of Hearthstone.
The best part is, it’s easy to learn the basics, but mastery will take a bit of practice and some dedicated play time to achieve.
Basic mechanics
The game places you in the shoes of a particular Hero from the game’s universe, with a Hero Card depicting your class and 30 hit points – representing your effective amount of life for a match – for both players at the start of the game.
The objective of every match is to take down the opponent’s Hero Card. To do this, players have to whittle down that Hero Card’s hit points points to zero by placing cards on the game board that can be used to attack the enemy. Each attack that reaches the opposing Hero Card takes away some of your opponent’s hit points. By successfully striking at your enemy’s Hero Card repeatedly and defending against the opponent’s attacks, you can eventually achieve victory.
These can include minions, which can defend and attack an opponent or that opponent’s minions. There are also spell cards that can deal damage, heal hit points, and a number of other effects that can help the player or make life harder for one’s opponent.
Different class types have completely different styles of beating their opponents, so a measure of skill, luck, and patience is needed to take home victory for your side.
For instance, decks that use Mages tend to come with spell cards that deal damage or transform powerful minions into much weaker ones permanently. Hunters, on the other hand, excel at taking on opponents by making certain types of minions stronger while doing some minor damage directly to the opponent every so often.
Watch a Hearthstone duel between a Mage and a Shaman below:
Crafting cards
Hearthstone also comes with its own crafting system. The game says players can “disenchant” cards and then use the magic from those disenchanted cards to craft an entirely new card that a player really wants.
Outside of game lore, what this actually means is that players can choose to lose cards and gain a set number of points in return, then use those points to redeem a particular card they want for the Hero Card and play style they want to adopt.
The exchange rate is not the best, as you may burn through a lot of cards just to get something you want, but as a fan of having options, I’m pleased that the ability to do exchanges exists.
Accessibility and free play
As mentioned earlier, Hearthstone is a free game. Players can choose to support the game’s development and the company’s continued success by buying booster packs, basically a set of 5 random cards with special rare cards per pack, using real money.
Booster packs can be bought with gold earned from beating opponents and completing objectives from regular play. Those with some disposable income may consider using some extra money to fund Heartstone development.
The game provides booster packs in increments of US$2.99 (two packs – 10 cards), $9.99 (7 packs – 35 cards), $19.99 (15 packs – 75 cards), or $49.99 (40 packs – 200 cards).
While you could buy a booster pack or 40 to speed up your acqusition of special cards, the game doesn’t really need big purchases to become great at playing. Aside from crafting cards, you can simply play with what the game provides you, as you get free cards every day and for achieving things through play.
More importantly, the game and its cards are balanced in such a way that there is no overpowered card that can be played. No amount of rare cards will be able to trump a skilled player with the right type of regular cards and a good sense of the game’s mechanics.
View Hearthstone’s launch trailer below:
Recommendations
I tend to think that Hearthstone would fall squarely in the category of a fun game that coincidentally can be helpful in teaching certain skills to kids, provided they have someone watching them and offering guidance and boundaries. I certainly don’t want younger players (or even older players) obsessing over winning or becoming virtual champions of an imaginary world.
As the game doesn’t have a formal chat function with opponents, parents also don’t have to worry about trash-talking and other sorts of online craziness. Everyone can treat each new game like a random puzzle, and you have everything you need to beat it: your cards, your skill and, hopefully, your strategies.
The cards look great and are well-designed, the game plays smoothly on macbooks or most current PCs, and parents can play games and bond with their kids just by discussing gameplay and tactics
Hearthstone takes a well-known gaming franchise, turns it into an accessible and friendly card game that requires very little investment to get a lot of fun and, perhaps, a bit of learning.
It’s a recommended addition to any computer gaming library, and I encourage anyone with a passing fancy for any sort of card game to have a duel or two with a real-player when they get past the tutorial – Rappler.com
Gaming Freedom seeks to introduce people to new games that provide hours of enjoyment without breaking the bank. Victor is a long-time online games enthusiast, and enjoys sharing games recommendations to people who think gaming is always a costly hobby.
Previously on Gaming Freedom:
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