In honor of Blizzcon 2013, I thought I would share my thoughts on Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard's in-development digital-only collectable card game for Mac, PC, iOS and Android. I was lucky enough to score a closed beta code to access the game prior to release and have been enjoying kicking the tires on this free-to-play tactical/strategy game. As noted in other posts, I have some experience with the CCG genre from Magic the Gathering to Wheel of Time and others, so I may use some jargon in the rest of this review.
Earlier this Summer, Blizzard announced what I think is their first free-to-play offering, Hearthstone. At it's heart, Hearthstone is the digital evolution of collectible card games (though not the first given the release of Mohjang's Scrolls). The object of the game is to use a deck of 30 cards to defeat a computer or human opponent by reducing their avatar (a character from Warcraft) to zero life.
Each player in Hearthstone starts the game with the tutorial where you get to try the game as one of the nine avatars that are available in the game. Each avatar has a unique set of cards (as well as shared cards) they can use to build their deck - during the tutorial the deck is pre-set. To play you start with a hand of 3 cards (4 if you go second) and "cast" cards from your hand using the mana you get from mana crystals. Each turn you can take as many actions as you like from casting cards from your hand to attacking with minions (creature cards) or using your avatar's special ability (such as a fireball that does 1 damage to a specific target for 2 mana crystals). Creatures have the usual health/attack attributes as well as abilities that trigger when they are cast or based on certain actions in the game. There are even abilities and cards that give your avatar attack and armor allowing them better protection and the capability to attack your opponent directly.
Unlike other CCG, the resources used to cast cards is relatively fixed starting with 1 mana crystal and gaining another every turn until you reach a maximum of 10. This takes the randomness of drawing resource cards from your deck out the game, meaning that decks are smaller (30 cards) and games are typically played much faster than other card games (5 - 10 minutes on averages - sometimes longer). It also allows the player to focus on tuning their deck to the strategy they want to follow.
At the start of the game you have a single avatar to play and a deck of 30 basic cards. As you play, you gain experience that levels up your avatar, unlocking new basic cards until by level 10 you have unlocked all basic cards for that avatar. There are 3 play modes, Practice, Play and the Arena to choose from. When first starting out, you can play practice games against the AI and when you beat a given avatar opponent the first time you unlock that avatar and deck to play. Practice is also the place where you can test decks before trying them against human opponents.
The Play mode is 1 v 1 games against human opponents that the game tries to match you agains skill wise for a competitive game. You gain experience from those games as well and can also earn medals over time to help rank you for future matches. In the Arena, you pay gold (the in game currency) to get to basically build a sealed deck where you pick 30 cards one at a time from a selection of a few cards each pick. You then play with that deck until you have lost 3 times. The more game wins you have with your Arena deck before losing the last time, the bigger reward you unlock at the end. Also, Arena games do not have to all be played at the same time, allowing you to start an Arena game and then go back to it another day if you don't have time to keep playing.
The reward system, including Arena rewards, is based around gold, which can be used to start Arena games or to buy new packs of cards. Arena rewards can also offer packs of cards, gold or arcane dust. Each pack of cards (also available for real money purchase) give you 5 new Expert cards for your collection with at least one of them being guaranteed rare, epic or legendary (more valuable). The arcane dust reward can be used to upgrade cards into other, often more powerful cards - Expert common, rare and epic cards can also be disenchanted (destroyed) for arcane dust. All of which can be used to expand your card collection and thus allow you to build more powerful decks.
The gameplay of Hearthstone will be familiar to any Magic the Gathering player while removing a little of the randomness that game suffers from due to the reliance on land cards for resources. All of the common strategies are present in Hearthstone - overwhelming creatures, control, card advantage, removal, etc. What makes Hearthstone a potentially great game is how simple it is to pick up and play alongside all of the depth of deck building, avatars, card crafting etc. The crafting mechanic, the ability to always find a human opponent and the quick game play is great.
How Hearthstone will stand out from other games like it will be the cross-platform access that is coming. The game seems built for a touch interface. I imagine I will be playing a game or two before bed every night once the iOS tablet app is available. During the beta I have also found no need to pay for anything as long as you don't mind grinding out games to earn gold (you get gold for every 3 competitive game wins against a human opponent) or completing daily quests (win a few games with a certain avatar deck or kill a specific number of minions). The free-to-play model (as implemented right now in the game) seems to fit very well, where you can wait to get more powerful cards/decks if you have the patience or, for those who want to be more competitive fast, you can spend to get the cards you need now. Hearthstone will be a hit and if you like physical or digital card games, pick it up immediately when it becomes available to you. Hearthstone gets 5 Mick Happies. See you in the Arena.
