Wow I am really looking forward to this Hearthstone expansion, well I guess I mean to get more cards. I think the concept with holding dragon is really awesome and I don't say that because I am a general suck up to Blizz or that I used to work there etc.
No I really think its a great game design concept for digital card games, I have worked on card games and one issue you will find a lot doing that is that people are still thinking like its a real analog card game. I have also designed board game card games for that matter as well and then you have a lot of other issues, there is a lot of math issues that Hearthstone can avoid or rather Hearthstone can force more probability stuff into the game, which some people hate some people like (I would say its clearly to make it more accessible for casual players, which is a good thing!)
But, the star of this and I really do think that the Hearthstone team does this is that they have started making cards that would not work in a traditional card game like Magic the Gathering or that they would work, kinda. Like they could work but they would have to have other rulings, they cant follow the rulings that Hearthstone has right now on them.
All the Dragon in hand are like that. In Magic, that would be a classic "Reveal X creature in hand" so you would have to show it. Here in a digital game they can actually ignore that. And that is actually a huge thing, because its not like they could not use the Reveal function. Just let the player pick I want to reveal this card in the hand and show it, like when you mill someone over 10 cards. Its clearly technically possible, its pretty much already programmed into the game. thats no issue, the point here is that the game has been designed to not show that on purpose.
And that would never work analogy as there you would have to show so you actually know the player has a Dragon so a whole concept around that I really like. The hand thing is clearly then much stronger then it is in other card games, so its actually more worth to play. Other examples then which aren't from this expasnion but I think show that they design is going in the right direction si cards like Unstable portal, yes its super random more random then any analog card game is, mainly as the effect is not possible without having a computer to truly random any card.
Thats a great card design utilizing the fact its a digital card game. This also brings up other cards like Gang Up, which is probably my new favorite card as I love Mill, gonna talk about that more in my next article on the first wing. Its a card that will put copies on target card in your deck. There is a lot of copy cards in Magic, A LOT. Ok a lot, in blue but they let you copy stuff and put it on the board. This copies and put it in your deck thats another thing thats super hard to do with analog card games. So I really like these new cards, they are very nice.
Lastly I think one big thing is that people can start defending their playing this game over magic etc;) I am comparing this game to magic a lot and other games for that matter (but Magic here as I think most readers will recognize the cards from that game the easiest). This kind of design really does make Hearhstone stop being a "light version" of magic as it goes into using more and more mechanics we will never seen in Magic. As I play both these game regularly I think thats very good as it really makes the gameplay experience on this game a lot more exciting and fresh.
