[Review] KARDS - The WWII Card Game

[H O L D F I R E 流]

Game information
Devolopers: 1939 Games
Realesed: 15 Apr, 2020
Genre: Casual, Free to Play, Indie, Strategy

Platforms:   Windows10 

Card Game meets WWII KARDS, The World War II Card Game, combines traditional CCG gameplay with innovative mechanics inspired by classic strategy games and real battlefield tactics. Take command and challenge other players in grand-scale warfare on the ground, air, or seas. KARDS is completely free to play with all features available from the start. You can earn all cards through regular gameplay, daily missions and an extensive achievement system. Why should you play KARDS? KARDS blends familiar trading card gameplay that make it easy to learn and are combined with innovative mechanics that provide strategic depth and tactical diversity. The innovative frontline mechanics allows you to better protect your support assets and take the battle to your enemy. Rush your enemies with Blitzkrieg tactics, gain air superiority or dig in for bitter defensive warfare until you outproduce and outgun your enemies.

 

A Historic Brawl:

KARDS - The WWII Card Game enters into a difficult battlefield of established digital card games. Like MMOs, it's hard to pull players away from games that they've put vast amounts of time and finances into. Most MMOs and digital card games only succeed by having a ready audience, like how the recently released Legends of Runeterra brings in League of Legends fans. KARDS offers 2 interesting aspects that might draw in new players. The first is that it's a factually historic card game, using famous regiments and equipment from World War II. The second is that it plays like a strategy game and the different types of equipment feel like they operate like the units they represent. Artillery doesn't take damage in return, tanks can move and fire, fighters defend against bombers and the different factions feel uniquely like the forces they represent. KARDS 5 main factions KARDS includes 5 main factions and 2 additional ally factions. Pick a side in KARDS Creating a deck in KARDS begins with choosing from 1 of the 5 main factions (British Empire, Germany, Japan, Soviet Union, United States) and adding an ally faction (which includes the 5 main factions, along with France and Italy). After a brief tutorial, you'll be asked to select a faction, which will give you a starter deck for that force. To gain starter decks for the other factions, you need to beat those decks in AI mode, with each unlocking as you do. Defeating all the AI decks and gaining all 5 starter decks actually gives you a very good base to start your games, and before you spend any further money, it's actually a very good experience exploring each faction in PvP. You'll notice the remarkably thematic art, visuals, and sound throughout these early matches. They all work together to capture the feel of the war in spectacular fashion. The colors and artwork match the designs of the time, the playing board feels like a table in a bunker and each unit type has a unique visual effect when they attack. Some cards also have unique and visually awesome effects when played, like shadows of bombers flying over during a board wipe.

KARDS borrows mechanics with many different card games. You start with 1 resource, increasing by 1 each turn as you draw a card. The big difference comes with the activation cost of each unit and the frontline feature. Units have a purchase cost and an activation cost. The purchase cost is the cost to bring a unit from your hand onto your board and the activation cost is the cost to move and attack with your unit each turn. This means that each turn is a balance of bringing new units onto the table and using the ones you have.

 

The second standout feature of KARDS:

is that units deploy to your support line, next to your HQ. In order to attack your opponent's HQ, you need to be on the frontline. Only you or your opponent can have units in the frontline, so if you want to move your own units there, you first have to destroy all of your opponent's units on the frontline. Most units can only attack the row in front of them (support to frontline or frontline to your opponent's support line). So to keep your own HQ safe, you need to control the frontline. There are several different types of units, and they all have unique features representing the way that type of unit would operate on the battlefield. Infantry units are the most basic unit, generally only moving or attacking each turn. Tanks can move and attack, paying their activation cost each time. Artillery can attack anywhere on the battlefield and won't take damage in return for attacking. There are also bombers and fighters, units that can also attack anywhere on the battlefield, but fighters take damage back and bombers only take damage back from fighters. This gives KARDS a strategy feel, fitting in between classic CCGs like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone and hybrid card games like Duelyst. Core unit types in KARDS. Each unit type in KARDS offers a distinct feature and way of operating. Fund your army in KARDS KARDS is a free-to-play digital CCG and includes purchases of digital booster packs of cards. There are currently 2 sets available, the Core Set with the 5 main factions, and the Allegiance Set which adds in the France and Italy ally forces. Free cards and packs can be earned by completing challenges, with daily challenges and set objectives. KARDS also offers seasons, with rewards being allocated for placement during the season. Most players aim for the Officer's Club, which opens up when you reach the highest rank with 3 of the 5 main nations and where you can play against other elite players and earn top rewards. With 7 different factions, it feels hard to mainline a single faction, as you might not open cards for those in the packs. The rarity of cards also dictates how many you can include in each deck, with the rarest Elite cards only allowing a single card in the deck. Elite cards are expensive to craft and rare to draw in packs. This means that creating specific decks is difficult if you're purely free to play. But creating powerful decks with more common cards feels a lot more balanced than in other CCGs. This creates a great desire to play and earn the rarer cards, rather than them being readily available. Spending on packs improves your access to cards instantly, but a true F2P account in KARDS still gives a competitive and enjoyable experience. Running a F2P account does mean that your best deck might not be your faction of choice.

There are currently only 2 modes of play. Standard battles, where you use a created deck and battle opponents, earning stars and moving up the ranks with the main faction of the deck you are using and Draft mode, where you create a deck from a random selection of cards and earn rewards for the number of wins you achieve (to a maximum of 7) before you suffer 3 losses. Draft mode is most CCGs is a skill leveler, based on your ability to pick cards that are good in draft mode, rather than your access to the expensive cards available, but it feels less so in KARDS due to the quality of the more common cards. Draft mode in KARDS is still a great experience and challenge and also a great way to get rewards and build up your own card collection.

Alright, so right away let’s talk about what stood out most to me about KARDS. That, my friends, is the level of immersion you experience whilst playing this game. Immersion can be a difficult aspect to nail for any game, but for a card game, that difficulty is raised even higher. The soundtrack and the art design mesh perfectly to create a very natural environment. The cards each have blurbs on them with historical information about the units on the card, and for a World War II history nut like myself, that was really cool to see – not to mention how much it added to the experience of making decisions while I was playing. From the moment you get into a game, and hear the old-timey music playing on the radio, and you look at the table and the design of the cards, it’s absolutely great. Every minute detail works together very well to build an engaging game, aesthetically speaking. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. How does the game play? Very well, is the answer to that question. When you first start playing this game, you’ll pick your starter deck and run through the tutorial. Now something I thought was really cool, was that in order to leave the tutorial, you have to beat AI players from the main factions of the game, barring the one you chose for your starter of course. This is great, because it’s an efficient and effective way to familiarize players with the different types of cards and tactics available to each faction. After you finish up with them, you can begin the main game. There are a lot of options available to you at this point. You can of course jump right into a battle with another player, or you can dive into the deck building process. As you can expect, this system was given the same deep love in it’s production that the rest of the game was. There are a litany of combinations you can create and, as you progress, the game rewards you very well, allowing you to create your perfect deck very quickly. There’s also a very neat recycling system, which allows you to break down excess cards, and use the resources gained from those to create whole new cards. Card packs are rewarded when you hit certain goals and earn achievements, but if you’re the impatient type, there is a store where you can purchase them, either with your own money, or the in-game gold, which is also awarded for completing tasks and other objectives. However, this will never be a necessity to fully enjoy the game, and to do well in your matches. The game is excellent about rewarding the player, and you should have no problems excelling, whether you spend money or not. The game also features a fairly interesting levelling system, which sees you rising through the ranks of your chosen faction, seemingly peaking with the ever-enticing Officer’s Club, reserved for players who achieve the rank of Field Marshall in three different factions.

Now let’s talk about the matches, and about the different ways to play. There’s the regular Battle mode, and then there’s the Draft. In Battle mode, you’ll be placed into a match with another random player, both of you using your decks to best the other, the main goal in each game being to destroy the other player’s headquarters. If you spend too long in matchmaking, which doesn’t happen often, as the game has a quickly growing user base, you’ll be placed into a match against an AI player, where you’ll earn the same rewards as if you were playing against a human. Great consideration from the devs considering this is outside of the player’s control. Either way, you both start with your base hand, and as per usual you’ll draw a new card at the beginning of each turn. The cards themselves have a value at the top, which indicates how much they cost to play. As the game goes on, your max play points, referred to as Kredits in game, rises.

 

 

Now let’s talk about the matches, and about the different ways to play. There’s the regular Battle mode, and then there’s the Draft. In Battle mode, you’ll be placed into a match with another random player, both of you using your decks to best the other, the main goal in each game being to destroy the other player’s headquarters. If you spend too long in matchmaking, which doesn’t happen often, as the game has a quickly growing user base, you’ll be placed into a match against an AI player, where you’ll earn the same rewards as if you were playing against a human. Great consideration from the devs considering this is outside of the player’s control. Either way, you both start with your base hand, and as per usual you’ll draw a new card at the beginning of each turn. The cards themselves have a value at the top, which indicates how much they cost to play. As the game goes on, your max play points, referred to as Kredits in game, rises. In the style of Hearthstone, this makes the pacing feel very exciting, as you both get to throw out more and more powerful cards as the game progresses, giving it a really intense feel. Because of the way it’s constructed, all the battles feel very competitive, which makes for a great feeling when you win. The variety of units makes a big difference for the battles as well, as you’ll have regular infantry, tanks, planes, and ships, that can all be played in a bunch of different ways, allowing you to maximize their effects. The battlefield is well-constructed, and features a pretty interesting frontline system, which makes for a lot of fun action as both players jockey for advantage. The Draft mode is similar in the way combat functions, with one main twist; you draft your entire deck from a selection of random cards. Once you draft your deck, your gauntlet begins. The goal is to make it through a series of matches with this improvised deck without sustaining three losses. As you continue to win, you’ll be given better and better rewards in the form of card packs and gold for the store. I really liked this mode, and it made the stakes of each game feel even higher than before, as you have to use tickets to play draft mode, which you have a limited amount of. It’s high risk, high reward, but there’s no risk that you won’t feel rewarded after each victory.