Collective: the Community Created Card Game

I'm not usually into this type of card game style (call it hearthstone style if you will), I'm more a magic the gathering fan but so far I am loving this. I have just been playing the Single player modes and it has been fun. I haven't tried the multiplayer side yet. I just hope that the cards stay balanced because as soon as users submit their own cards things can get out of hand quickly XD. But I'm really looking forward to see how the game grows and evolves.

Collective is what every single card game fan has been wanting for as long as we can remember. This game looks a little rough around the edges but it has a stupid amount of content in the game right now. Lots of single player content including a story mode, a gauntlet, a roguelike mode, and different multiplayer modes as well. The gameplay itself is very interesting, it takes aspects of other card games like MTG and Hearthstone while having a lot of identity itself. Every deck you pick a hero and your hero can level up in game and do different unique and cool things. The concept of the top 10 cards crated by the in-game card editor being added to the game is brilliant and half the fun of the game is experiencing all the cool concepts of cards people made. On top of that they have an option for $30 to unlock every single card, current and future, which is something I wish more games did. I would highly recommend this game even if you are just a fan of the singleplayer content, because there is a lot of it. I also made a longer video review you can watch here: https://youtu.be/jCBIc8tVUCc

The idea is good, game mechanics are basic but fun enough. My problem is, basically you give up your cards to the developers. Terms and Conditions specify that you will always be "the creator" of your cards, but that the resulting cards will belong to the company and they can basically profit from them, also I'm pretty sure there was a line that specified that you (the creator) shouldn't be selling or using these cards to make money or anything. I know this is a Game, not a business software, but I hate that they make a "creative oriented game" and suddenly go all "but we own your stuff". Besides, I just wanted to play single player to test some of my card ideas, why should I register and upload my artwork to be able to play these cards? I mean, it would be local play.

After over 140 hours and almost 2 months playing it, It has interesting concepts but some serious downfalls. Pros A - Trying to Encourage Player Participation This seems like a good idea that has been tried in different ways in other card games, just that by now I would have expected people to learn from those previous games and have guidelines to avoid mistakes made before. B - Both Single and Multiplayer Card games with both seem to do better than those with only 1 except for either modern roguelike games (Slay the Spire, Iris and the Giant, etc.) or older games from years ago when multiplayer was more rare (original Magic: The Gathering from 1997, etc.). C - Two Singleplayer Versions Two not one. Two different ways to do it though they are still being worked on. Cons 1 - Lack of Simplicity Too many cards with walls of text and quite a number with small print, I have had to use a magnifying glass to read some and my vision is fine no glasses or anything needed. It is becoming common games with small text drive away players including in physical product and card games. Most card games that succeed do so due to simple designs, once complicated mechanics such as involved complicated cards and/or text walls happen, other players quit. 2 - Two Card Sets for No Reason All other card games use the same pool of cards for single (SP) and multiplayer (MP). Collective has the Versus cards for MP set but also has a larger pool for SP. Looking through the SP cards, I do not get why most if not all are separate. 3 - Power Creep There is a lot of this and it happens at midpoint in matches if not early. Usually you do not even get to play higher levels of Character Rewards so you wonder if the characters are even balanced. 4 - Token Units Games with Token Units usually have them simple and use the same tokens whenever summoned. Magic for example if they have Zombies in a set, all ties a Zombie Token is summoned it is the same Zombie Token. If you need to spend or use Zombie tokens for an effect, since all of them are the same this is also easy. Here in Collective too much effort is put into making unique Tokens. There are rare standards like Star Chips but most are unique and keeping track of them is a real chore especially if the Tokens are Units with Tribes. When looking at the cards creating Token Units, you CANNOT see the Token Tribes so have no idea if they benefit effects based off Tribes making deckbuilding harder. 5 - Lack of Filters Deckbuilding, even looking through the Collection lacks filters to sort through making it more difficult to build decks. This includes Point 4 above, if you put Bard for example you are not shown an action card that creates Bard Tokens so you think there are less Bards in game than actually exist. 6 - Card Creator not Explained You have to either guess how to do it or go to Discord that few seem to do. This results in cards not working properly even when tested and cards with contradictions. Example of contradictions, both Fishman Swashbuckler and Doragon Crossbowman look like they should work the same but do not, Swashbuckler asks you to select target then if you have a setting checked off waits letting you change your choice before proceeding. Crossbowman once you select a target, there is no wait and no chance to change targets. Example of not working properly, the card Fortuno the House creates another card Fortuno the Sleeve in hand but it is possible to have either 1 Sleeve inside another or 2+ Sleeves in hand. This is a problem because the Sleeves contain cards you cannot see until you want to play them making choices of plays for turns a problem. Other card games do not have this issue. Fuzzball is another card not working as expected. 7 - Currency not Thought Out I see this in a number of online games. The in game currency system looks good until you start acquiring things especially with cash. Once you start gaining stuff, you wind up with currency that piles up and almost nothing to spend it on. Example, once you unlock all Heroes for Gold, then you just have emotes, a few avatar changes and deck slots. If you spend money for Marbles and use them to unlock Heroes and Cosmetics, this just means you stockpile gold more with less to spend it on. 8 - Singleplayer not Finished In Collective's defense, I read on Discord this is still being worked on. 9 - Time's Running Out I saw brief discussion on Discord of some kind of time limit on Collective though not enough specifics. At a certain time if not enough interest is gained, the game will die out.

⠀

Can't actually upload card art. The 'free' drawing tool option sucks. Would rather a pay to play version where I can actually create cards for the community to vote on... So sad you made such a cool concept only to put it behind a paywall...

Why would you make a free game about creating cards, but create a paywall in order to freely create cards... I can't even upload a picture for my card.

love this game, but they are shutting it down at the end of the month :,( r.i.p collective, you were a real one

I hate to say it, but Collective was genuinly a game i wanted to get into, im an artist, and also, a card game fanatic, Pokemon, Magic, YGO, and YKW are card games i love and STILL love to this day. I heard about Collective and how the game was based on creating your own custom cards, i decided id try it out only to find that the card creator doesnt even allow you to upload anything at all unless you pay......whats the point of creating a custom card if you cant even make it LOOK like you made it??? Well, what can you do right? Too good to be true i guess I recommend Collective for those that want to have a fun card game to pass the time with, but i wouldnt recommend it to artists who want to make a custom card only to find that theres a clear pay wall there at the very beginning [Thats not to say that if you put the time and effort to DRAW the card in the card creator, then no, there is no pay wall for that, but it seems kind of dumb to me paying a sum of money just to upload an image -_-']