Dungeons & Dioramas: Card Hunter at PAX 2012

I’m not going to make a dedicated “post PAX 2012 review,” since I believe Mr. Spurr is going to be covering most of the titles that I was excited about. However, I mentally called dibs on writing about Blue Manchu’s Card Hunter the moment that I saw it on the Expo floor. This game was plucked directly from my heart: it’s a card-based tactical RPG with an extremely sharp style that lovingly riffs on early 80’s Dungeons & Dragons. I couldn’t help but wait to get my mitts on the demo they were running, but does Card Hunter deliver on a modern, fun game that uses old school ideas as a theme?

Modern Gameplay…

Card Hunter is half deck building and half tactical RPG. The tactical RPG is instantly familiar: your team is squared against another team on a grid. You position your team carefully, make attacks, and try to be the last team standing. However, the actions that all combatants can take, heroes and monsters alike, are strictly determined by the four cards they draw into their “hand” at the beginning of every round from their own customized deck. All attacks, movement, defenses, and special abilities are cards. When all possible actions have been expended, a new round begins with a freshly drawn hand. An “I-go-you-go” back and forth forces you to strategize: do I move my dwarf up right now, or do I shoot a long-range magic attack first with my wizard to allow the enemies to approach the dwarf first?

Your heroes all boil down to decks of cards that are defined by the gear they’re equipping, save for their hit point total. Each piece of equipment is a suite of cards, the sum of which constructs your deck. Equipping a dependable sword might give your hero’s deck three moderately powerful attacks and two defensive parry cards, while a more powerful but less reliable axe would give four very powerful attacks with one negative “trip” card that hinders the hero when you draw it. You have to weigh each individual “packet” of cards against each other while creating a functional hero that works well within your team of three. It’s straight forward, instantly understandable, but harries my nerd brain with possibilities.

This system is tight and polished. The demo at PAX did a great job of highlighting what the game was about: it had an easy tutorial encounter, had me equip a new piece of equipment to equip so I can see how customizing decks work, and ended with a surprisingly tough fight against a dragon. While the demo was just a taste of what’s to come, the system already delivers fun, crunchy, and surprising tactical RPG skirmishes.

Oh, and this is a browser game. This was running in Chrome on the expo floor. And it’s going to be free. Give yourself a moment to let those sink in before moving on.

..with Old School Style

Card Hunter is a nuanced homage to old school late-70’s-early-80’s Dungeons & Dragons. The title screen of the demo was a shot of a kitchen-table-esque wooden surface with a bowl of fried snacks and a red can of no-name soda. A box sat betwixt the snacks, a box with the name of the mission printed on it top, stylized like an old module from D&D. You clicked, the lid of the box came off revealing dice and graph paper, and you could start your mission. By the time my mission started, narrated by “Game Master Greg”, I was already in love.

The tactical maps you fight on are all two-dimensional isometric grids in the style of modern “battle-mats” from Paizo. Every combatant on the tactical map is a literal “piece”, a 2d paper cut out on a circular stand, much like at a D&D table. The pieces hop around as you move them like board game chits, they’re moved off the map into kitchen table limbo as they’re killed. There’s even a few cosmetic polyhedrals off to the side just to remind you, in case you forgot for a moment, that you’re playing a table-top inspired game.

I cannot communicate, with my limited vocabulary, how much the art direction in the game appeals to me. Clear, bold, colorful illustrations clearly inspired by Original D&D’s style bring the game to life, quite a feat when the game itself is largely about static paper minis. This game is my mind’s eye when I think of high fantasy adventures.

A Natural 20

I’m going to echo Tycho: when I am asked what my favorite “thing” was from this year’s Expo floor I didn’t hesitate to answer with Card Hunter. Not only does Card Hunter successfully pair a love for fantasy’s roots with a legitimately fun tactical-RPG/deck-building game, but the game speaks to some fundamental part of me. Immense potential, the promise of gaining new cards, the tactical RPG multiplayer combat, its powerful presentation! It is just too much for me to handle. This was my favorite game at PAX, and I don’t think I’ll exhale until I get that beta invite.

Quick aside: When I stopped by the Card Hunter booth (both times) I didn’t realize that I was bullshitting with Jon Chey, the game’s Director. (Teaches for me not to ask for names and titles while I’m at PAX!) Talk about accessible, awesome, passionate folks making games.

All pictures are from the Card Hunter website.