As we’ve seen this year on Kickstarter with so many projects being launched, getting your game noticed is becoming harder and harder. And simply having an interesting idea is not enough, you need to show people that your idea is not only concrete, but worth it. And today’s kickstarter is for a project that has spent a lot of time getting ready.
Faeria:
Faeria has been an idea of developer — Abrakam for about seven years, with the goal to create a mix of board game and CCG design. From looking at the kickstarter, you create a deck of creatures, structures, events and land cards for 1v1 play.
The hook is that you’re not just placing units on the board, but the actual land that they will fight on. And of course units can have terrain preferences and bonuses.
While gold is earn through general play, a second resource — faeria, can only be acquired by getting a unit to where it appears first on the map. Cards require different combinations of the two resources to be played on the field.
The developers have committed to Faeira not having any pay to win mechanics and instead are focusing on a one time purchase to get the game and cosmetic and optional micro transactions for additional profit. The only way to get more cards is by playing the game, as the in game currency: memoria only drops after a match.
Since the game is on the computer as opposed to physical decks, it gives the developers a lot of freedom in continued development and content. As they hope to add a single player campaign, more cards, tournaments and more if the kickstarter succeeds.
The developers have already developed much of the game already and are looking to kickstarter to help finish it up.
Looking at the game strictly from a kickstarter point of view, this is one of the more elaborate kickstarter projects I’ve seen in some time, with a lot of the design and art laid out for potential backers to see.
According to the site, Faeria went into the prototype stage in 2009 and they have been refining it ever since, with the beta released last month.
With that said, like with all kickstarter projects I do have some reservations. CCG design is one of the most complicated areas of game design to balance, especially when you throw in multiplayer balance. There isn’t any mention of how the developers will gate multiplayer to prevent someone from going up against someone whose deck is simply superior in every way.
And with the in game currency tied to matches played, it could become frustrating to have to lose enough times to be able to buy enough cards to actually stand a chance.
The other part about CCG design is that having not played the game, I have no idea whatsoever of what the current gameplay is like and if the card design is balanced. Cards will have rarity ranking and the developers promised that higher tier cards are not objectively better than everything else, but I don’t have firsthand knowledge on that.
What’s unusual about their kickstarter is the pricing model and how they are asking for a lot in terms of rewards off the bat. The $15 reward tier only gets you into the beta and not the full game, with that tier set at $25. Having the “buy the game” tier at a higher price compared to other kickstarters is an interesting strategy but I’m wondering if it is scaring people away from it.
I can see the rationale being that this isn’t the case of where you’re buying an undeveloped game or Alpha, but a game already close to being done with a realized design, but I wonder how many potential backers can make the distinction.
As I talked about with Ironclad Tactics and Card Hunter, I’m always happy to see more games with CCG design and Faeria looks like a game that the developers have spent a lot of time getting ready to show people. Hopefully it will work for them and the kickstarter will be a success.
