Shadowverse

Shadowverse

GENRE: Free to play CCG
PLATFORM: Windows / Mac / iOS / Android / Steam
DEVELOPER: Cygames Inc.

OVERVIEW

Shadowverse is a free to play card collecting game (CCG) that offers some unique gameplay mechanics. Battle as various classes and build up your deck to compete against AI challenges or real world players. With over 800 cards to collect, craft and unlock players have a wealth of strategy at their fingertips.

KEY FEATURES

- Collect and craft over 800 cards
- 7 available character classes
- Build your own decks
- Story, PVE and PVP game modes
- Unique card Evolution mechanics
- Free to play

GAMEPLAY

Shadowverse plays like many traditional CCG titles and allows players to build a variety of decks using different classes and various card types. With multiple character classes with unique traits and hundreds of cards to unlock players can create their own strategies based on their playstyle. The game offers multiple PVP modes as well as a PVE Story mode where players learn more about the world of Shadowverse and acquire new cards for their collection. The game is free to play with microtransactions performed primarily through the purchase of Card Packs which provide players with a random selection of cards for their decks.

CLASSES

There are currently seven primary classes in the game, each of which has cards unique to them that only they can use. As well as this there is an eighth Neutral class with cards that can be used by all classes as part of their deck. The seven classes are: Bloodcraft, Dragoncraft, Forestcraft, Havencraft, Runecraft, Shadowcraft and Swordcraft. The cards unique to each class heavily determine the types of strategy used, but also each class has their own ability, such as the Forestcraft being filled with multiple low cost units to quickly field an army. The Runecraft boosts her Spellboost cards each time a spell is played to overwhelm opponents.

DECK BUILDING

When building a deck players first start by choosing the class they wish to play, which determines the available cards for their deck. A deck is made up of 40 cards from three types of cards; Followers, Amulets and Spells. Followers are cards that are played onto the battlefield and can be used each turn to attack the opponent’s leader to reduce its hitpoints, or attack other cards to destroy them and remove them from play. Each follower has an attack value to show how much damage it deals and a hitpoint value to show how much damage it can take before being destroyed. Some Followers come with special traits that provide extra features such as the ability to attack on the same turn they are played, or a Ward ensuring that no other card or the leader can be attacked whilst this card is in play. Amulets are special cards that offer powerful abilities to boost allied Followers or hinder enemy Followers. Finally Spell cards are instant effect cards that can heal, deal damage and provide various other abilities.

PLAYING THE GAME

Very classical in gameplay each player draws three random cards into their hand from their deck and can reshuffle these cards. The player that goes second gets to draw two additional cards. Each player starts out with one Play Point, the resource used to play their cards, with each card having a specific Play Point cost. On each round the players Play Point pool will increase by 1 as well as replenish all used points, allowing players to play more cards each round or more powerful ones with higher costs. Players take it in turns to use up all their playpoints placing cards, ultimately trying to deal damage to their opponent’s leader character. If the leader character loses all their points then they are defeated.

EVOLUTION

Each player builds up Evolution points over the course of a few rounds; the player who goes first has two evolution points max and the player who goes second has 3. Evolutions can augment a card and make it considerably more powerful, increasing attack and hitpoints, adding new traits, and many more effects. An Evolution can only be initiated on a players turn and provides a different strategic element to the game.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT Cross-platform MMO CCG

O/S: Windows 7, 8, 10 / OSX 10.9
CPU: Core i3-3225A / Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 2GB
Video: GeForce GT 640 or Radeon HD 5770 / NVIDIA GeForce 320M
DirectX Version: 11