Initial Reactions to Kongregate’s Card Game
The virtual card game I'm designing for Kongregate.com was finally shown in public at PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. Here's a video showing player reactions. Incidentally, I've heard some of these same positive comments about Yomi, my physical card game. It seems like I have a lot of cool card games that you can't actually play yet.
You'll be able to play Kongregate's game soon enough, and I'll even post an article about its design after my series of articles on writing and thinking.
--Sirlin
September 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
That’s awesome!
September 12th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Looks pretty legit, keep up the good work~
September 12th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
How many negative comments did you get about both Yomi and Kongregate’s card game then?
September 12th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Haha, stop teasing us Sirlin. When’s the game going to be released?
September 13th, 2007 at 2:15 am
So, where can I get the code for the PAX card? I’d imagine you would be able to generate those codes yourself?
September 13th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Trotim: I haven’t seen all that much feedback on Kongregate’s game, so that video was pretty encouraging. As for Yomi, I get mostly positive feedback saying how addicting it is and all. Several Guilty Gear players prefer it to Guilty Gear, lol. I do get a few negative comments that it’s too complicated, even though it’s as simple as I could possibly ever make it. Waaaaaay simpler than Magic: The Gathering, for example. Anyway, I’ve done as much as I can to streamline it and make it a card game for people who don’t like card games.
I don’t know how to get codes for the PAX card and I don’t know when the game will be released. I’m just working on new cards for it right now. It seems internally they want to redesign the entire UI, so who knows. I’d prefer to release it sooner than later.
–Sirlin
September 13th, 2007 at 3:15 am
I played this at PAX and it’s certainly a very interesting game. The only problem that I have is that it can be very difficult to earn points on Kongregrate’s website. I really just want to play this Card Game, but I don’t want to have to play a million other homemade flash games just to “buy” the cards. I suggest allowing smaller increments of points to be earned for trivial tasks in the game, and reward the current “achievements” that are quite difficult to award more “points” Allowing people who want to quickly get into the card game to earn few points and buy enough cards to make at least a playable deck. (ideally you could earn points in the card game, to buy more cards in that game instead of having to play the other games.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:11 am
I never got to go to PAX (and didn’t know anything about Kongregate being at it) so I never got to get the card. I personally wish that the challenges would take a full week to switch to the next card. I still haven’t gotten a character card yet, myself.
On a side note, I’m making a 4chan card game that I would like to upload to Kongregate, but I don’t know Flash at all and have no artistic talent to design the cards, so I’ll need someone to do both.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Tim: The question’s been juggled in the forums, but I think the conclusion is that the Kong points will not be used to purchase cards, but other Kong things like merchandise or something. Up to now, you’d have to beat the weekly challenge, but there’s been hints about being able to get old cards (without spending points).
Also, there will be a “Starter deck” for people who are new/don’t want to bother doing all of the challenges.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:58 am
First off, you can only get the PAX code by having attended PAX and received one of the promo Tefari cards. Second you do not need points to earn cards, every week there is a different challenge that earns you a card. The challenges are imo quite easy and you can find numerous links to guides that will help you complete the weekly challenges (including my blog, see the link below). Also, they DO take a full week to switch to the next card. Also as Hitaro said there is a planned starter deck to help new Kong members out.
If you are interested in constant news on the Card Game, I have a blog dedicated to it: http://kongccg.blogspot.com/
Sirlin I was also wondering if you had an opinion on allowing both the regular Tefari and PAX Tefari in the same deck. There was some debate going on about whether this should be allowed, and I was wondering if you were aware of it?
September 13th, 2007 at 9:07 am
r3p3nt: I’m aware of the debate. You are absolutely not intended to have two versions of Tafari in a deck. Promo cards should have same gameplay, different art for collectability, but only one of a character per deck. If the two versions of Tafari had different gameplay at PAX, that’s only because we’re in the middle of balancing him to make him more in line with the rest of the characters.
–Sirlin
September 14th, 2007 at 1:57 am
I just caught my typo. I meant that I wished that the challenges WOULDN’T last a week.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Cool! I’m very glad to here that.
September 15th, 2007 at 4:43 am
I worked at the PAX booth, and, honestly, I didn’t hear any criticisms of the card game. Not everyone stayed at the booth for more than a few seconds, but of those who really sat down with the game, most people seemed to enjoy it a lot. Those who were indifferent to the game simply moved on to another booth. So, yes, of the people who actually played the card game at PAX, that video is pretty representative of the player reaction.
I completely agree that it would be ridiculous to allow 2 Tafaris in the deck of someone who has the promo card, and the current plan is to NOT allow this.
We’re still finalizing the details of the starter deck, but it is our desire to allow anyone to play the game immediately. Of course we want to use the cards as a way to encourage people to keep visiting Kongregate and playing games, but our goal is to balance the cards in such a way that having a bunch simply gives players more deck-building options rather than more brute power.
You can also read a bit more about the card game on one of our forum threads: http://kongregate.com/forums/1/topics/1644?page=1
September 19th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Based on:
http://kongregate.com/forums/1/topics/1644?page=1
It’s probably feasible to compute a game-theoretic solution to the game. Of course, 3v3 is easier to work out than 5v5 or 5v5 with items, but taking this into consideration, it should be possible to identify the cards that provide ‘brute power’ rather than ‘more deck-building options’.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I highly doubt that NateTG. How good is “can’t be stunned” relative to “opponent can’t switch out” relative to having a medium damage attack that’s a bit more energy efficient than usual, and so on. There will be disagreements on that for many years longer than the game will actually be played.
You can’t just compute what’s best because it’s too complicated. I think an expert gamer using judgment and intuition would beat a mathematician by many years at figuring out what’s best. That’s my two cents, anyway.
–Sirlin
September 25th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Dammit sirlin now you’ve gotten me hooked on Kongregate. Anyway, can’t wait to play the card game.
September 30th, 2007 at 8:16 am
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