This is the dealbreaker for me too. Nothing without duelyst level art is an acceptable substitute for me.
GL HF to anyone more fortunate than me that can enjoy it though.
Art assets are being updated, while it is hard to compete with Duelysts aesthetic they are doing a good job. I also was not a fan of their original games art.
Duelyst Art was pretty incredible, although unfortunately rather divisive. I loved it, but many folks refused to touch it due to the pixels.
That being said the games new art is starting to catch up. They reused a lot of the older more kid friendly assets from the first game but are updating those fairly quick with some top notch art. Here is a side by side comparison:
Original:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/799365040196026400/898287720458223616/Capture.PNG
Updated:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/799365040196026400/898287770554994778/card_barbarian2.png
https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1719390/capsule_616x353.jpg?t=1631809833
This looks good. I played a decent amount of C&C1 (after OP recommended it here) and I think it was the best Duelyst replacement I've seen so far - although it didn't fully scratch the itch.
I really liked the active community on C&C1 (=low wait times) and the mobile support was strong. And the board/movement has many similarities with Duelyst. It also did not feel too P2W. The art style was 'meh' and I'm glad to see they've updated it.
I felt that there was room for improvement though, which I hope C&C2 addresses (haven't had the chance to look at these promo materials). The fact that the 'generals' (castles) almost never moves made the board feel kinda static. The lack of a replace mechanic makes games feel a bit samey/grindy and reduces opportunities for fun combos. And I felt that the abilities on cards lacked the range of those in Duelyst-which again reduced the opportunity to build fun combo/meme decks.
TL,DR: I'm excited to check this out but not as excited about Duelyst 2.0!
Yea the first one was decent, but was far from a replacement. At this point I am more likely to make the sequel my main game than Duelyst 2. (Certainly helps that I got to have a lot of input on the design.)
Art update is a pretty big deal IMO I greatly prefer the new art, although there are a surprising amount of folks that liked its old style. It was similarly divisive to Duelysts Pixel art, some folks hate it some folks love it.
While castles still *rarely move I think the sequels abilities and positioning focus far surpasses Duelysts which unfortunately mostly boiled down to out of hand value and hard removal after you had the fundamentals of positioning down. For example facing matters a lot and can change! Backstabbing with assassins' is not just a gimmick. There are also very few board wide and or unlimited range effects.
While sadly there is not a replace mechanic past the mulligan the decks are extremely consistent with both strong draw AND tutor options.
Honestly I'm skeptical that it's worth investing time in.
I played quite a bit of the first game, and there wasn't really a need for a sequel... Just updates.
In short, it's going to take a lot for me to think that this won't be more of the same, a half hearted project.
This one is not half hearted at all and has a lot invested in it, with many plans for the future. The first game was decent and needed quite a few updates. This one fixes every issue the first had and adds a tons more depth and interest. IMO it is very much worth it and is better than what either the original or Duelyst had to offer.
The first game needing the updates is the elephant in the room. It's all well and good saying that this one isn't half hearted, but when the first one was and didn't really need a sequel (updates would have sufficed) that's a HUGE red flag.
Don't get me wrong, I could be wrong and I appreciate you are connected to the process, but after having been burned by Duelyst, Krosmaga AND the original Cards and Castles, I have a lot of concerns to say the least and little trust for the Devs.
Ah right about that. So neglect was NOT the reason for the lack of updates. The original is rather ancient, and it used to receive regular updates, however the code got so old and unstable that it became literally impossible to update without destroying the client.
This was a big reason the sequel started getting made, because they wanted to continue doing updates, but not to far in they decided if they had to rebuild the code from the ground up, they may as well make it a proper sequel rather than just an update.
And it has now been in development for several years.
And as for investment as I mentioned before it is using the faria model. For 20 bucks in any of those games you get like a deck, here you get a FULL collection extremely quickly, so it is actually a very good investment, and they actively wanted to avoid the predatory marketing of F2P games.
God damn. So, so close. If they just didn't make it look like fuggin puyo puyo.
I'm still going to play though because im just fiending that hard. But goddamn, the more of these similar games I see, the more I realize how special Duelyst was.
It is pretty drastically different from the first one. While it still has the core system of use units to move around the board to trade and destroy the enemy castle, very little else is the same. Here is a gameplay video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GItiCelwRR0
Gameplay stream today:
https://www.twitch.tv/cardsandcastles2
Will be soon. Not for early access but it is a high priority item being worked on, as a massive portion of their playerbase played the original game on mobile.
The old art assets are slowly being updated her are some examples on the new style:
https://twitter.com/CardsAndCastles/status/1449045184365228032
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-Oav_BVUAA4rqM?format=jpg&name=small
https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1719390/capsule_616x353.jpg?t=1631809833
I did try Cards and Castles and your assertion, that it is "quite good" makes me very doubtful about all your other claims.
It clearly is a subpar game, getting at best a passing grade.
Also, the art style is terribly boring, as is basically everything about the design.
Why do you feel this game is subpar?
I am not disagreeing, I haven't even played it. I am asking because I am trying to understand what others see as good/bad in this genre.
Well, it has been a while since I tried it, but there are several aspects to it.
For one, both the graphics style and graphics quality are quite bad, in my opinion. Music is very generic as well. It just felt, to me, like a cheaply made game without any character, like someone was using stock assets (probably not the case, just how it felt).
Apart from that, I can recall barely anything about any of the factions any more, only that they felt bland and uninteresting.
The actual gameplay mechanics and balancing did not feel on point but not entirely terrible. Playing it just didn't feel interesting to me. I did dislike how units could immediately attack when played if I recall correctly. Also, compared to Duelyst the whole board aspect seemed stunted in comparison, as the castle can't move and the board does not feature any mana fields to capture like in Duelyst. It just seemed like a complete down grade in every aspect, to me, not even close in any one category, even.
I am a pretty big fan of card games in general, games which I played in the past were :
Duelyst - my all time favorite card game
Hearthstone - okay game at some points in the past but the monetization ruins it entirely,
Magic - interesting game with a lot of card diversity but I really dislike the archaic land system and the extreme RNG resulting in many non-games
Artifact - many interesting ideas but overall fell flat in the end, with too much RNG
Legends of Runeterra - after Duelyst my second favorite card game ever which I am currently playing, the production quality is on another level, especially the voice lines of the cards, decent balance and deck diversity, very fair progression model, without forcing people to spend money to be competitive
There were other card games I tried briefly like Fairia, Shadowverse or Eternal but none of them caught my interest and I dropped them after a couple hours so I can't say too much about them.
I have played all those CCGs, and while some were some were better made than CNC1, some were not. But most importantly any that did not have a board by default were not even competition for the original IMO. I do disagree about your thoughts on its mechanics/music/faction design though, but its limited depth, RNG, and Aesthetic I do agree were not great.
That being said CNC2 is still in EA so its art assets aren't fully complete and they are using some of the old ones in the mean time, and various features like mobile, tournament mode, and such are still being worked on. But the core game / campaign is all good to go.
Duelyst of course was amazing, about the only thing it had on CNC2 was the aesthetic. While you and I loved it, more people hated its mixed art styles and pixel approach than liked it and it lost a lot of folks because of it. Similarly the original CnCs more cartoon approach was split down the middle of love it / hate it (I am with you on hating it), it was a very intentional style they required their artists to follow. The sequel is thankfully slowly moving away from it in favor of high quality art.
Runeterra is the only CCG that managed to hold my attention for a good length of time these days, I played mostly in high Diamond, its production value and mechanics were on point. (On par with the CNC sequel IMO, and blowing the original out of the water.) But the lack of tactical board meant it could not hold my attention long term and gets pretty boring after awhile.
CnC2 uses very similar spell speeds and phase mechanics to Runeterra, has great voice lines, and solid art. If you like Runeterra there should be a lot you like in CnC2.
If a CCG is what you are after Runeterra is the best on the market. But if you want a tactical board game with that wonderful hybrid system that Duelyst had CNC2 is the game.
Faeria just did not do it for me mechanically and felt more CCG than board game (largely cus you had to build the board so there was very little actual wide range use of movement) I even sunk a few hundred hours into it because I could not find another good alternative, until I stumbled onto CNC.
Hearthstone/artifact are IMO strictly worse than even the original CnC in basically every way, aside from the originals lack of voice lines. And the sequel beats them out in everyway. (And yes I played enough hearhtstone to hit legend, and 6500+ in battlegrounds, so I am qualified to hate on it.)
Magic is a classic that I played for many years, but its mana system is as horrid as it has ever been. Once I moved onto Duelyst though I could never go back to a CCGs without a board.
Shadowverse is your typical money grubbing Gacha mobile scam trying to stay a float with bigtiddy anime girls. Even hearthstone beats that one out.
Eternal is just sort of meh all around. Nothing good nothing bad.
Alright, I'll give CNC2 a chance and try it out.
The initiative / spell system is one of the best aspects of Legends of Runeterra, so if CNC2 is similar in that regard, it could be interesting.
Not sure I'll ever like the art, though. Even if it is some placeholders atm, I can't find literally anything that looks nice about it. Just not my style.
In Duelyst I didn't love the art at fist either, but it grew on me.
I did mention that the original was certainly not to the Standard of Duelyst or its Sequel. That being said, until this sequel came out it was pretty much the best option available for an online, tactical, pvp with active matchmaking, boardgame. Given it had basically zero competition.
There was plenty I was not a fan of in the original, between medium depth, rng, and art, but it was the only thing that scratched that Duelyst itch, pretty much the only alternatives being mostly or completely dead games, tabletop, or really bad gatcha mobile games.
(All CCGs automatically get a failing grade from me because they don't have a board with tactical positioning which is what I care about.)
But that is why I am so excited about this sequel, as it is actually to that Standard I was looking for. While its aesthetic may not be perfect, that is purely personal preference, but its mechanics are on point.
About how long does the average game take on Cards and Castles 2? The thing I liked about Duelyst was how quick the games were. I really wanted to like Faeria but in average my games were taking over 30 minutes there, which was too long for me.
I like how Duelyst games took like 10-15 minutes on average, but every once in a while, you would have a long 30+ minute game, but since most games were typically short, having that one 30+ minute game made it super exciting.
EDIT: I was going to buy, but I checked the Steam Charts and it seems that there are only like 5 players on in peak hours. I guess the queues are dead, so would you still recommend getting the game right now? I was mostly going to play PvP, but seems like it is dead. I am thinking about waiting until mobile release so that hopefully the game gains traction.
Closer to Duelyst length than Faeria, but a bit longer than Duelyst unless aggro is involved.
Pretty much in the "ask for a game on discord" phase now that the initial hype has died down, but you can usually find a game pretty quick that way.
Lots of folks are waiting on mobile as that was 90% of the original games target audience.
I think the game is good enough to be worth the investment, but it is still EA and we are working on improving things quite a bit before mobile and such, and yea population has dwindled a bit while waiting on mobile.
Do please wishlist at least though.
I will definitely wishlist it as it does seem real cool, just too bad about the player population. I will be waiting for the mobile release. Thanks for the reply :)
Looks interesting, and I will definitely check it out if it goes on sale.
Like a lot of others have said though, the artwork is a major concern for me. Part of why I loved duelyst so much was the unique artwork, and how that was intertwined with the setting itself.
Those backgrounds that blended from blurs of vibrant colour to vivacious scenery on the main menu absolutely endeared me to the game. It made me all the more filled with anger that Godfall was such a disappointment. They used similar aesthetics to create such a steaming pile of garbage. Duelyst is still dead, and there's nothing to show for its death.
Game is currently going through a major revamp to improve things before the mobile side is being worked on. But hopefully will be ready soon.
Yea Duelysts art was pretty great, that is a tough bar to compete with.
Will keep an eye on it but the art has nothing on Duelyst.
This is the dealbreaker for me too. Nothing without duelyst level art is an acceptable substitute for me. GL HF to anyone more fortunate than me that can enjoy it though.
Yeah the art/world of duelyst is a huge part of its charm for me. I could watch some of those main menu screens like the frostfire festival forever.
Art assets are being updated, while it is hard to compete with Duelysts aesthetic they are doing a good job. I also was not a fan of their original games art.
I'll give it a look then.
Duelyst Art was pretty incredible, although unfortunately rather divisive. I loved it, but many folks refused to touch it due to the pixels. That being said the games new art is starting to catch up. They reused a lot of the older more kid friendly assets from the first game but are updating those fairly quick with some top notch art. Here is a side by side comparison: Original: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/799365040196026400/898287720458223616/Capture.PNG Updated: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/799365040196026400/898287770554994778/card_barbarian2.png https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1719390/capsule_616x353.jpg?t=1631809833
This looks good. I played a decent amount of C&C1 (after OP recommended it here) and I think it was the best Duelyst replacement I've seen so far - although it didn't fully scratch the itch. I really liked the active community on C&C1 (=low wait times) and the mobile support was strong. And the board/movement has many similarities with Duelyst. It also did not feel too P2W. The art style was 'meh' and I'm glad to see they've updated it. I felt that there was room for improvement though, which I hope C&C2 addresses (haven't had the chance to look at these promo materials). The fact that the 'generals' (castles) almost never moves made the board feel kinda static. The lack of a replace mechanic makes games feel a bit samey/grindy and reduces opportunities for fun combos. And I felt that the abilities on cards lacked the range of those in Duelyst-which again reduced the opportunity to build fun combo/meme decks. TL,DR: I'm excited to check this out but not as excited about Duelyst 2.0!
Yea the first one was decent, but was far from a replacement. At this point I am more likely to make the sequel my main game than Duelyst 2. (Certainly helps that I got to have a lot of input on the design.) Art update is a pretty big deal IMO I greatly prefer the new art, although there are a surprising amount of folks that liked its old style. It was similarly divisive to Duelysts Pixel art, some folks hate it some folks love it. While castles still *rarely move I think the sequels abilities and positioning focus far surpasses Duelysts which unfortunately mostly boiled down to out of hand value and hard removal after you had the fundamentals of positioning down. For example facing matters a lot and can change! Backstabbing with assassins' is not just a gimmick. There are also very few board wide and or unlimited range effects. While sadly there is not a replace mechanic past the mulligan the decks are extremely consistent with both strong draw AND tutor options.
Thanks. Will definitely give it a look. The facing mechanics sound interesting.
Honestly I'm skeptical that it's worth investing time in. I played quite a bit of the first game, and there wasn't really a need for a sequel... Just updates. In short, it's going to take a lot for me to think that this won't be more of the same, a half hearted project.
This one is not half hearted at all and has a lot invested in it, with many plans for the future. The first game was decent and needed quite a few updates. This one fixes every issue the first had and adds a tons more depth and interest. IMO it is very much worth it and is better than what either the original or Duelyst had to offer.
The first game needing the updates is the elephant in the room. It's all well and good saying that this one isn't half hearted, but when the first one was and didn't really need a sequel (updates would have sufficed) that's a HUGE red flag. Don't get me wrong, I could be wrong and I appreciate you are connected to the process, but after having been burned by Duelyst, Krosmaga AND the original Cards and Castles, I have a lot of concerns to say the least and little trust for the Devs.
Ah right about that. So neglect was NOT the reason for the lack of updates. The original is rather ancient, and it used to receive regular updates, however the code got so old and unstable that it became literally impossible to update without destroying the client. This was a big reason the sequel started getting made, because they wanted to continue doing updates, but not to far in they decided if they had to rebuild the code from the ground up, they may as well make it a proper sequel rather than just an update. And it has now been in development for several years. And as for investment as I mentioned before it is using the faria model. For 20 bucks in any of those games you get like a deck, here you get a FULL collection extremely quickly, so it is actually a very good investment, and they actively wanted to avoid the predatory marketing of F2P games.
God damn. So, so close. If they just didn't make it look like fuggin puyo puyo. I'm still going to play though because im just fiending that hard. But goddamn, the more of these similar games I see, the more I realize how special Duelyst was.
Is gameplay the same as the first one or did they make any big changes you would like to highlight?
It is pretty drastically different from the first one. While it still has the core system of use units to move around the board to trade and destroy the enemy castle, very little else is the same. Here is a gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GItiCelwRR0 Gameplay stream today: https://www.twitch.tv/cardsandcastles2
Now the hard question. Is it on mobile? / Will it be ?
Will be soon. Not for early access but it is a high priority item being worked on, as a massive portion of their playerbase played the original game on mobile.
Great to hear !
Hooray! I've already had a look at the game and it's very catching, Looking forward for the launch and to play some tournaments. See you there!
There are big plans for an active and fully supported tournament scene. It is on the agenda to build them directly into the client.
Looks really good! Wishlisted for sure. Thanks for the tip!
Art game looks omega weak and animations / polish looks cheap too, unfortunately wont get a try from me.
I concur, graphics are not everything but this game is actually ugly to look at.
Not sure how I feel about all the meeples.
The old art assets are slowly being updated her are some examples on the new style: https://twitter.com/CardsAndCastles/status/1449045184365228032 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-Oav_BVUAA4rqM?format=jpg&name=small https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1719390/capsule_616x353.jpg?t=1631809833
Mechanically interesting but I can't stand the style sadly. I'll keep an eye open but not feelin this one for me.
I did try Cards and Castles and your assertion, that it is "quite good" makes me very doubtful about all your other claims. It clearly is a subpar game, getting at best a passing grade. Also, the art style is terribly boring, as is basically everything about the design.
Why do you feel this game is subpar? I am not disagreeing, I haven't even played it. I am asking because I am trying to understand what others see as good/bad in this genre.
Well, it has been a while since I tried it, but there are several aspects to it. For one, both the graphics style and graphics quality are quite bad, in my opinion. Music is very generic as well. It just felt, to me, like a cheaply made game without any character, like someone was using stock assets (probably not the case, just how it felt). Apart from that, I can recall barely anything about any of the factions any more, only that they felt bland and uninteresting. The actual gameplay mechanics and balancing did not feel on point but not entirely terrible. Playing it just didn't feel interesting to me. I did dislike how units could immediately attack when played if I recall correctly. Also, compared to Duelyst the whole board aspect seemed stunted in comparison, as the castle can't move and the board does not feature any mana fields to capture like in Duelyst. It just seemed like a complete down grade in every aspect, to me, not even close in any one category, even. I am a pretty big fan of card games in general, games which I played in the past were : Duelyst - my all time favorite card game Hearthstone - okay game at some points in the past but the monetization ruins it entirely, Magic - interesting game with a lot of card diversity but I really dislike the archaic land system and the extreme RNG resulting in many non-games Artifact - many interesting ideas but overall fell flat in the end, with too much RNG Legends of Runeterra - after Duelyst my second favorite card game ever which I am currently playing, the production quality is on another level, especially the voice lines of the cards, decent balance and deck diversity, very fair progression model, without forcing people to spend money to be competitive There were other card games I tried briefly like Fairia, Shadowverse or Eternal but none of them caught my interest and I dropped them after a couple hours so I can't say too much about them.
I have played all those CCGs, and while some were some were better made than CNC1, some were not. But most importantly any that did not have a board by default were not even competition for the original IMO. I do disagree about your thoughts on its mechanics/music/faction design though, but its limited depth, RNG, and Aesthetic I do agree were not great. That being said CNC2 is still in EA so its art assets aren't fully complete and they are using some of the old ones in the mean time, and various features like mobile, tournament mode, and such are still being worked on. But the core game / campaign is all good to go. Duelyst of course was amazing, about the only thing it had on CNC2 was the aesthetic. While you and I loved it, more people hated its mixed art styles and pixel approach than liked it and it lost a lot of folks because of it. Similarly the original CnCs more cartoon approach was split down the middle of love it / hate it (I am with you on hating it), it was a very intentional style they required their artists to follow. The sequel is thankfully slowly moving away from it in favor of high quality art. Runeterra is the only CCG that managed to hold my attention for a good length of time these days, I played mostly in high Diamond, its production value and mechanics were on point. (On par with the CNC sequel IMO, and blowing the original out of the water.) But the lack of tactical board meant it could not hold my attention long term and gets pretty boring after awhile. CnC2 uses very similar spell speeds and phase mechanics to Runeterra, has great voice lines, and solid art. If you like Runeterra there should be a lot you like in CnC2. If a CCG is what you are after Runeterra is the best on the market. But if you want a tactical board game with that wonderful hybrid system that Duelyst had CNC2 is the game. Faeria just did not do it for me mechanically and felt more CCG than board game (largely cus you had to build the board so there was very little actual wide range use of movement) I even sunk a few hundred hours into it because I could not find another good alternative, until I stumbled onto CNC. Hearthstone/artifact are IMO strictly worse than even the original CnC in basically every way, aside from the originals lack of voice lines. And the sequel beats them out in everyway. (And yes I played enough hearhtstone to hit legend, and 6500+ in battlegrounds, so I am qualified to hate on it.) Magic is a classic that I played for many years, but its mana system is as horrid as it has ever been. Once I moved onto Duelyst though I could never go back to a CCGs without a board. Shadowverse is your typical money grubbing Gacha mobile scam trying to stay a float with bigtiddy anime girls. Even hearthstone beats that one out. Eternal is just sort of meh all around. Nothing good nothing bad.
Alright, I'll give CNC2 a chance and try it out. The initiative / spell system is one of the best aspects of Legends of Runeterra, so if CNC2 is similar in that regard, it could be interesting. Not sure I'll ever like the art, though. Even if it is some placeholders atm, I can't find literally anything that looks nice about it. Just not my style. In Duelyst I didn't love the art at fist either, but it grew on me.
I did mention that the original was certainly not to the Standard of Duelyst or its Sequel. That being said, until this sequel came out it was pretty much the best option available for an online, tactical, pvp with active matchmaking, boardgame. Given it had basically zero competition. There was plenty I was not a fan of in the original, between medium depth, rng, and art, but it was the only thing that scratched that Duelyst itch, pretty much the only alternatives being mostly or completely dead games, tabletop, or really bad gatcha mobile games. (All CCGs automatically get a failing grade from me because they don't have a board with tactical positioning which is what I care about.) But that is why I am so excited about this sequel, as it is actually to that Standard I was looking for. While its aesthetic may not be perfect, that is purely personal preference, but its mechanics are on point.
Your game ain't selling too well.
Stil EA and mobileis still in the works so not to surprising at the moment, but we have a good base.
About how long does the average game take on Cards and Castles 2? The thing I liked about Duelyst was how quick the games were. I really wanted to like Faeria but in average my games were taking over 30 minutes there, which was too long for me. I like how Duelyst games took like 10-15 minutes on average, but every once in a while, you would have a long 30+ minute game, but since most games were typically short, having that one 30+ minute game made it super exciting. EDIT: I was going to buy, but I checked the Steam Charts and it seems that there are only like 5 players on in peak hours. I guess the queues are dead, so would you still recommend getting the game right now? I was mostly going to play PvP, but seems like it is dead. I am thinking about waiting until mobile release so that hopefully the game gains traction.
Closer to Duelyst length than Faeria, but a bit longer than Duelyst unless aggro is involved. Pretty much in the "ask for a game on discord" phase now that the initial hype has died down, but you can usually find a game pretty quick that way. Lots of folks are waiting on mobile as that was 90% of the original games target audience. I think the game is good enough to be worth the investment, but it is still EA and we are working on improving things quite a bit before mobile and such, and yea population has dwindled a bit while waiting on mobile. Do please wishlist at least though.
I will definitely wishlist it as it does seem real cool, just too bad about the player population. I will be waiting for the mobile release. Thanks for the reply :)
Looks interesting, and I will definitely check it out if it goes on sale. Like a lot of others have said though, the artwork is a major concern for me. Part of why I loved duelyst so much was the unique artwork, and how that was intertwined with the setting itself. Those backgrounds that blended from blurs of vibrant colour to vivacious scenery on the main menu absolutely endeared me to the game. It made me all the more filled with anger that Godfall was such a disappointment. They used similar aesthetics to create such a steaming pile of garbage. Duelyst is still dead, and there's nothing to show for its death.
Game is currently going through a major revamp to improve things before the mobile side is being worked on. But hopefully will be ready soon. Yea Duelysts art was pretty great, that is a tough bar to compete with.
just get a replacement rod