Tag Archives: mtg

The Quest

There is something missing. No, I’m not talking about my socks. A good traditional digital collectible card game (DCCG) is what I’m looking for and I am having a hard time finding one. By traditional, I mean a DCCG that stays true to the physical CCGs such as MTG, Pokemon TCG, and WoW TCG. From my search, I found that there are only a few games available in this genre and it is dominated by MTG games. Here are some points I found these games to be lacking in.

  • Magic: the Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalker - Official Site
    • One of the biggest complaints about this game is that deck editing is VERY limited. You must play with preconstructed decks and can choose to add/remove additional cards that are won through campaign mode.
    • Because of no deck construction there is also an absence of trading cards. Everyone already has them!
    • While the game does have a campaign mode, it does not tell a story and is only a series of AI matches.
    • I have not played online but having looked at it I can tell it is fairly limited.
    • Challenge mode was really great.
  • Magic: the Gathering Online - Official Site
    • I never played this, just read about it and watched some videos.
    • Since this game went live nearly a decade ago it is reasonable that it looks outdated. The UI and graphics appear to be from the late 90′s.
    • The release predated the concept of ranked matches which are now nearly a standard in any PvP game.
    • From what I can tell it only has PvP and no PvE. If it does have any PvE then it is very limited and does not contain any type of story or quests.
I recognize that there are many other games that can be considered a CCG. Why I did not bring them up is because I do not consider them to follow traditional rules as they are more of a fusion of genres. While I was looking at these games, I did find that they are generally more feature complete. Here are some of the games I looked at.
  • Magic: the Gathering Tactics - Official Site
    • After following this some before its release and then playing it some I can say that I was reasonably disappointed.
    • Largest disappointment is the claim to free-to-play but without spending money you only get a starter deck and the first 5 missions. It should have just been called a trial version.
    • Besides this inhibitor, the game is fairly complete with features. It has a story mode, trading, auction house, PvP, tournaments, and a few other shinies.
    • Gameplay itself did not seem too intriguing and was somewhat boring, albeit I only played the first 5 missions with a starter deck. This is when they are suppose to convince me to spend my money on the game though.
It is sad to see that such a great genre has been neglected aside from MTG. There are many other games that pull from CCG concepts but few that keep the focus on them. Overall I feel that there is a need for a traditional digital CCG that has a modern feel, feature complete with an intriguing and fun gameplay. This is where Crea comes in…
Now where are my socks?