Thanks for showing us MtGPQ at PAX

windfallstar

I just got home from PAX and I wanted to express my gratitude for you guys at D3 and Hibernum. It was great getting to try out an early build of the game, even with the bugs. I really appreciated the opportunity to talk directly to you about the game and your comments made me rather optimistic for the future. I'm sorry I don't remember any of your names, but maybe you remember me? Apparently I was the first to play against the 10th stage opponent. I was also around the MtG area pretty much all weekend and was carrying around a large tube to hold the uncut sheet towards the end of the convention.

PS, I won't complain if the AI continues to buff my creatures once the game is released.

shobi6669

Any details people who saw this in action can share? Especially how it works/plays in comparison to the original PQ or the current Marvel Puzzle Quest? I am heavily into Marvel PQ but I am interested in this and I have a feeling it could drag me away to MTGPQ if it is good. Any news at Pax regarding release dates or the like? Thanks in advance!

Cheers!

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

windfallstar wrote:

I just got home from PAX and I wanted to express my gratitude for you guys at D3 and Hibernum...I'm sorry I don't remember any of your names, but maybe you remember me?

Yes, we remember you. Thanks so much for coming by at PAX and playing MtGPQ. And grats on being the first to get so far in the demo!

windfallstar

shobi6669 wrote:

Any details people who saw this in action can share? Especially how it works/plays in comparison to the original PQ or the current Marvel Puzzle Quest? I am heavily into Marvel PQ but I am interested in this and I have a feeling it could drag me away to MTGPQ if it is good. Any news at Pax regarding release dates or the like? Thanks in advance!

Cheers!

Okay so the developer reiterated many times that the final details are all still under development, but I'll go ahead and describe what we got to try.

Gameplay is quite reminiscent of an actual game of Magic. You play as a planeswalker with a deck of cards and you and your opponent have a certain amount of health. The first to 0 loses the game. You start with cards which are creatures, spells, and enchantments. Making matches earns mana and once you make enough mana you cast the spell. Different planeswalkers have affinity for certain colors, so depending on which planeswalkers you play as, you can get bonus mana for matching certain colors and a penalty for others. The colors don't matter for actually casting the cards.

Gameplay is mostly centered around creatures. Creatures have power and toughness like they do in magic and some have abilities. They will act independently once you cast them so there's no real micromanaging required. Different creatures have varying stats and abilities which causes them to behave in different ways. Some creatures will always attack your opponent's life total directly. Other creatures will always attack your opponent's creatures. There are creatures that will block your opponents creatures when they attack your life total. There's probably one or two other behaviors that I'm forgetting at the moment. In any case, there's a good variety and I think it'll be fairly intuitive after playing for a while.

Other cards are non creature spells which do pretty much the same thing that they do in magic. Some deal damage to creatures or opponents, others buff creatures, I think there was some that draws cards, etc. Finally there are enchantments which, when cast, create a special tile that provides a persistent effect while it remains on the board. Unlike the countdown or web/lock/trap/etc tiles in MPQ, these tiles have a counter and which goes down when matched. When the counter reaches zero, the tile finally goes away. For example, if you have a tile with 3, then you need to use that tile in 3 matches before it disappears from the board.

So the board has the 5 colors of magic that you expect, and an additional "color" of planeswalker tiles. Planeswalker tiles provide mana to use planeswalker abilities. Planeswalkers always have their abilities available and you don't need to draw into them as you would with the other cards in your deck.

The developer, and once again I am so sorry that I forgot your name, mentioned that they plan on having features that you would expect in traditional mtg such as deckbuilding, expansions, etc.

shobi6669

thanks for the description, it sounds awesome, can't wait to see it in action.

windfallstar

shobi6669 wrote:

thanks for the description, it sounds awesome, can't wait to see it in action.

Oh some details I forgot:

In the demo, the AI would take L and T shaped match 5s, and match 5s would not create a critical tile. But they do still give you an extra match. They said they were considering bringing back to the MPQ AI where it doesn't take match 5s in those shapes because the extra matches are extremely powerful in MtGPQ. Since you just need to get to a certain amount of mana to cast your spells, the extra matches and cascades can easily swing games if they're not careful.

Cascades are really satisfying though. Sometimes one match turns into 3 spells and you just win the game. Actually I guess that would feel even worse than the cascades in MPQ. IN MPQ, if the AI gets a crazy cascade it might not matter if the colors don't match their abilities. In MtGPQ, it doesn't matter what color the matches are in a cascade, mana is mana and will cast the spells.

Pongie

Any trading aspects?