Player Preview - Duelyst

Title: Duelyst
Developer: Counterplay Games
Status: Open Beta

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1N6zmM1
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1MZKyvO

 

 

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the multiplayer turn based strategy game, Duelyst, developed by Counterplay Games, a small start-up studio consisting of a couple of industry veterans. Duelyst has you playing as a commander, able to summon powerful monsters and conjure devastating spells as you try to defeat your opponent on the battlefield.

The game plays out on quite a small playing field being a 9x5 grid starting with only 2 units in play, the 2 opposing teams’ commanders with 25 point health pools each that when depleted will have that commander lose the game. There are also these 3 floating mana orbs that can be captured to give you extra mana to use for a turn. The game borrows a couple of mechanics from Hearthstone as Duelyst is a card based game including its mana system were you start with 1 mana to use a turn, then 2, then 3 and so on. The first cards you draw can also be mulliganed for another so as not to end up with a hand full of 7 cost minions. During your turn you’ll be able to move all your minions already on the field up to 2 spaces horizontally or vertically but only one space diagonally making positioning and placement of units extremely important. On top of that any minion that you try to spawn onto the battlefield can only spawn adjacent to one of your other minions with a valid strategy being to overwhelm your enemies commander and not allow them to spawn in any minions.

Each minion in the game has an attack value and a health value and when in combat the enemy gets a chance to counter attack so you have to weigh up each available attacking option to get the most out of your minions. Some of your minions will also have an additional ability or passive to take advantage of with things like provoke that essentially taunts all other enemy minions around it, disabling there movement until the minion is killed or rush that allows a minion to avoid summoning sickness, able to attack on the round it spawns. There’s a bunch more of these abilities as well as quite a few minion specific bonuses like spawning a 1/1 minion at the start of your turn or friendly minions summoned next to this minion gain 1/1 to their attack and health. There’s quite a lot to consider especially once you start adding in spell cards that are usually cheap on their mana costs but still extremely powerful completely changing the tide of battle. For example being able to attack with a minion twice in one turn at a 0 mana cost or giving a minion +3 attack for 3 mana. Finally there are artifacts that can only be equipped by your commander that can be extremely beneficial however they are fragile and can only withstand 3 attacks before breaking. Numerous artifacts can be equipped at the same time and can provide the commander with +4 attack or the ability to deal 1 damage to the enemy commander for every spell you play. To balance all these cards out you are only allowed to have 3 copies of the same card in your deck, preventing any kind of ridiculous plays likes a +26 attack commander that can 1 shot an opposing commander.

The cards that are available to you in your hand aren’t set in stone with the game allowing you to mulligan 1 card each turn which can be useful in getting rid of cards that are high mana cost and replacing them with maybe a better option. It’s best to this at the start of your turn as you may get a card you really want to use. At the end of your turn you will also draw 2 new cards into your hand providing fast games with lots of action. Both of these mechanics work well in never really leaving you with zero options for a turn, almost always able to get something out on the battlefield.

As you’ve probably noticed there a multiple different factions available to play in Duelyst, 6 to be exact, each with their own unique minions, spells, artifacts and style of play. Some opt for overwhelming your opponent with weak minions, while other rely on faction specific mechanics like Zeal, giving minions significant bonuses when near their commander. Finding one that suits your play style shouldn’t be too hard and trying them all out is incentivized through daily quests like win 4 games with ta certain faction. While each faction does have its own unique cards there are also shared common cards that can fill out your decks. Constructing your own faction deck will have you selecting 40 cards, playing for the first time though it’s probably better to just use the random decks as they will be somewhat balanced around the cards you have available and allow you to learn the game without being too overwhelmed. Once you do get some more cards you will be able to create decks that focus on particular play strategies like buff decks, Death watch decks and so on, very similar in how you can build hearthstone decks.

The main way of obtaining new cards to use in constructing custom decks is by using the games in-game currency of gold to purchase spirit orbs, basically a card booster pack containing 5 random cards, one of which is guaranteed to be a rare or better. These spirit orbs cost 100 gold each with you earning around 20 gold for winning a game plus extra gold from daily quests you complete. As you would expect, being a free to play game you can also purchase these Spirit Orbs with real world currency with one spirit orb costing you around $1.50 or your regional equivalent.

Duelyst has multiple game modes with the main ranked competitive mode being a seasonal ranked ladder that resets after each month. The ranking system works almost identically to Hearthstones with lower level wins gaining you a rank but the higher you go the more wins you will need to secure. Rewards are given out at the end of each month for ranking milestones that consist of 4 brand new cards added to the game plus gold and spirit to craft cards you don’t already have. Other game modes include the gauntlet, basically the Arena in Hearthstone where you choose 1 card out of 3 possibilities until you have your 40 card deck. This game mode is only available once every now and then though purely due to the games current player base and server stability but it will eventually become a permanent feature of the game, possibly even in the next couple of days. There is also a single player mode were you play both sides of the battlefield providing a place to learn mechanics freely. Lastly there is the training grounds that starts off with you learning the basics of the game through a tutorial but later introduces various amounts of challenges and situations that you will have to overcome, rewarding you with gold for each completion. The challenges are actually really well made and can take quite a while to figure out and there are plenty of them to complete if that’s your thing.

Other features of the game include a small amount of statistics showing various lifetime achievements in the game like amount of ranked wins, Gauntlet wins and longest win streak. You also have your current ranked season progress and most played faction displayed here. In the near future a normal or casual game mode will also be added to the game so you don’t always have to play in ranked matchmaking if you’re maybe trying out a new deck and don’t want to lose ranking.

Altogether Duelyst is a really cool tactical game that allows for quick pick-up and play sessions much similar to Hearthstones pick up and playability. The games combination of both the collectible card game and turn based strategy genre provide for more strategical gameplay, weighing up both what plays you have available in your hand and what you can do positionally on the board. If you’re looking for a more involved experience than say hearthstone were you not just thinking about the cards, then Duelyst is definitely worth a look. If you’re more of a Turn based strategy kind of person then Duelyst is still worth checking out but it doesn’t really excel at that part of the game.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Duelytst. The game is currently in open beta for PC and mac, and will eventually be coming to iOS and Android devices at a later date. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time.

Player Preview - Blood Bowl 2

  

Title: Blood Bowl 2
Developer: Cyanide Studios
Release Date: 22/September/2015

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1QOvRg3
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1ZTt4bk

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the turn based strategy game, Blood Bowl 2, developed by Cyanide Studios, the same guys behind Styx: Master of Shadows and Aarklash Legacy. Blood Bowl 2 has you managing and playing as your very own Blood Bowl team, Blood Bowl being like gridiron or American football but just a little bit rougher and set in the Warhammer universe.

The game plays player by player for one team and then switching over to the other team. Everything you do in Blood Bowl is tied to a dice roll weather you’re blocking an opponent, performing a throw or even just trying to pick up the ball which for some teams can actually be surprisingly hard to do. Most teams are made up of 3 different types of players with their own specific uses. You have your frontline that are your strongest players aimed at preventing any of the opposition players from breaking through to your ball carrier while attacking or to break through your enemies frontline to get to their ball carrier while defending. Blitzers that are aimed towards supporting other players due to their high mobility and finally backline players that are great at using the ball and scoring but are extremely fragile and need to be protected. 

For most of the game you will be attempting blocks on opponents, an aggressive action that can have 5 different results. On the low end you can push an opponent backwards, selecting 1 of the three possible locations for them to end up which is important when trying to clear a pathway for your ball carriers to get through unscathed. Then you have the 2 different successful tackles were your opponent will be downed, these two tackles work very much the same however there are player traits that can dodge the push tackle. Finally there are the failed tackles, the sides of the die you never really want to get. For both down your tackle will be successful against your opponent however in the process of the tackle you will also be downed. The worst result you can get though is attacker down. Your tackle will fail on the opponent and instead they will knock you down. Failing a block will result in a turnover so it’s best to leave 1 die blocks till last and get all your movement and double die blocks out of the way first. 

Having one of your players knocked down is bad for multiple reasons, the worst being that you have to roll on that players Armour Value to see if they receive an injury. If you fail the best outcome is to be stunned, the player will remain on the field but be unable to make an action for one turn. Being knocked out the player will be removed from the field but can make it back after a touchdown or halftime if they roll successfully on a 50% chance roll. Getting an actual injury starts off by having a player missing a game but can have players stats decrease or be out for multiple games and of course then there is the absolute failure state where the player can actually die which can be devastating if you have levelled up the player multiple times. You can purchase an Apothecary outside of the game that basically acts as a reroll on any injury a player may receive, you can only ever have 1 of these so it’s best to save it for the major stuff like deaths or stat decreases. If there are no injuries, knock outs or deaths then you just have the downside of the player having to spend some of its movement getting back up while it also counts as an action so you won’t be able to block with that player unless you blitz for a second action. Each turn you will only be able to blitz one player allowing them to move and block rather than just one or the other. Removing a player from play on your opponent’s side is a massive advantage especially if they have no players in reserve as now you have a numbers advantage. While you can perform blocks in the hope of knocking out a player or injuring them you can also push them off the field and into the crowd to remove them from play. This also has the same chance of injury as being knocked down.

Every player on the field has stats in four different categories that will help or hinder them in certain actions. These 4 categories consist of Movement Action, representing how many tiles on the field you are able to move in one turn. Strength, the number used in any blocks a player is involved in. Agility, used for dodging out of enemy players tackle zones and finally armour value that is used to determine if a player is injured when knocked down. It is possible to increase these stats during a level up however you will need to roll extremely high. To level up a player they must gain star player points by performing certain actions during a game including touchdowns, knock outs, injuring a player or performing skill based actions like passes. Once they reach the level up requirement you roll two die to determine whether or not you get an additional skill or statistic. Most of the time you will only be able to unlock another skill for your player in their specialisation like strength, agility and passing. Skills are an extremely important part of the game and can give your players significant bonuses like a re-roll on a failed dodge roll or if you roll a both down during a block you can get a skill that negates the knock down effect on your player. Reading through all of these skills and picking the right one is extremely important as players don’t level up all that fast especially some of the more specialized players that require up to 5 times the Star Player Points as normal players to level up.

Being a sequel let’s take a look at what’s new in the game. A campaign mode has been introduced that will have you leading the human Reikland Reavers team from the ground up to potential champions. The mode starts off as a tutorial to the game so any newcomers may want to start there as jumping straight into a multiplayer game may be a little overwhelming if you don’t understand the mechanics. Later on though the mode will start adding scripted events that are only available in the campaign mode like the referee taking out your players because he has a grudge against your team or one of the commentators joining your team for a game. The commentators also play a bigger part in blood bowl 2 delivering most of your team’s backstory and sideline drama between and during games in a comedic fashion that some will love but others may find it a bit corny. Stadium Customization is now a thing with 5 unique stadiums that can obtain upto 10 possible addons and will be used when playing at your home stadium. A player Marketplace has been added for online play where you can sell and buy players to create better teams however this feature doesn’t seem to be fully implemented yet. Lastly there is the cabalvision or replay feature that saves replays of your games that you can go back to and watch if you ever want or you can also watch current top tier games live.

Online play is definitely where BloodBowl 2 excels, however it’s not your typical matchmaking system. You will have to register your team as part of a league and then register that team as part of a competition within that league. Open ladders act as your main play anytime matchmaking ques but it’s the actual tournament structured competitions that will have you playing simulated rounds each week against smaller groups of players. Unfortunately you do have to go looking for these types of competitions and it’s not easy to find one that is currently taking new teams, something that could be improved by showcasing new competitions on the league front page. The official Blood Bowl league also seems to be the only league that offers Cyans after every game, the in game currency. Currently there is no use for these Cyans but customizable items for your team are planned to be purchasable with these later this year as well as being obtainable as rare random drops after a game.

Due to the aggressive nature of the game I do feel that some of the physically stronger teams like the Orcs or Chaos have somewhat of an advantage in getting players levelled up and just winning games by eliminating as many of the opponents players as possible. The more fragile skilled based teams like the High Elves and dark elves can perform some really great plays but there will almost always be a bunch of injuries during a game that will eventually cripple the team in the long run. Playing one of these more fragile skill based teams will require a lot of strategy and luck to be successful. It’s extremely obvious as well when you take a look at the top teams in any of the ladders usually consisting of Chaos, Dwarven and Lizardmen teams in the top rankings. Unfortunately due to this players will concede games if they are up against certain races so as not to lose any of their important players. Doing this though does have some negatives including that you don’t earn any star player points for your players to be able to level up, while the game still counts towards your players aging which will eventually lead to them gaining age injuries and eventually retiring. 

Outside of the main game you can purchase staff members for your team for added benefits, re-rolls being arguably the most important allowing you to re-roll a failed roll or block. The apothecary is on equal footing when it comes to importance especially later on when you have skilled players as it allows you to reroll injuries and deaths, you’re only allowed to have one of these so use it wisely. The next few staff members will help you on the random kick-off events, increasing your chances at good events for you through cheerleaders, assistant coaches and team fans. Right before you go into a match you will also be given the opportunity to buy other bonuses like another apothecary if you are playing against a strong team, a star player if you have the spare cash to purchase one for the game and a wizard spell which out of all the available purchasable bonuses can be extremely powerful, able to knockdown large groups of players in one shot leaving many injured if a 50% chance roll is successful. The wizard spell, more specifically the fireball spell is the only bonus that probably shouldn’t be in the game due to how powerful it is however it is quite expensive to purchase and it does only work half of the time. 

Other features of the game include a bunch of statistics regarding your overall performance as well as team specific statistics so you can find what your team is lacking and try to improve it via skill selection on player level-ups or just changing your play style. I would like to see player specific statistics as well though to keep track of certain player careers. If you want to play some friendly matches either against your friends online or locally you can, for online play you will have to have the person on your steam friends list.

Altogether Blood Bowl 2 brings fantasy and football together quite nicely having you sitting on the edge of your seat for every block and roll. You can become incredibly invested in your players and team with each match adding to their own unique narrative and if they get injured or die, it can be devastating. The almost complete randomness of the game may not be to everyone’s liking but the randomness can create amazing moments in the game. To get the most out of the game you will have to go looking for a good, consistent league that runs competitions in your time zone or get together with a bunch of friends and create your own league competitions. If you enjoy turn based strategy and the competitive nature of American Football or any sports in general then Blood Bowl 2 is definitely worth a look. If you’re sitting on the fence maybe wait for the patch due for the end of this year as some more features will be added to the game that may sway you on whether or not to get it. 

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Blood Bowl 2. The game officially released on the 22^nd of September on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One and is available on steam for $45 or your regional equivalent. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time.