Wyldernook

Wyldernook is a new CCG with a very solid foundation and great potential, that does have a little roughness around the edges. I would recommend checking it out. This review is rather lengthy, so I'd like to mention up front that I have multiple thousands of hours playing CCGs both digitally and online, from household names like Magic the Gathering to titles much nicher (and rougher) than Wyldernook. I'm not an expert per-se, but definitely have a good feeling for what I enjoy and don't enjoy about a card game. --- Positives --- Simultaneous turns have some great advantages and cool play patterns. It can cut down on "wait time" when you sit while the opponent acts. It can create cool mind games where you try to anticipate where your opponent will move their game pieces, and try to move yours around the dodge location-dependent effects or line up good trades in combat. This detail really sets Wyldernook apart in the genre, since almost every other CCG uses a back-and-forth system. The faction purity system allows for deckbuilding flexibility while maintaining coherent archetypes and faction identity. Your deck can have up to 3 pips spread between factions, and certain cards require a minimum of 1-2-3 pips in their faction to include in your deck. Those 3 pip cards can create an incentive for a single faction deck, or you can dip into up to 3 factions for maximum versatility if all you need/want are those "splashable" cards from each faction. There's no automatic card draw per turn. Instead, you spend mana to draw cards, which each draw on the same turn costing more mana than the last. I love this system because of its flexibility. Early game you can sacrifice hand size to dump your starting hand out faster, and late game you can draw multiple cards while still playing out cheaper effects. The variability in card draw adds a nice counterweight to automatic mana growth, since some decks will still decline to "curve out", instead funneling the mana growth into draw power. Each deck can have 1 legendary creature card that is available to play from the start of the game, separate from your hand or shuffled deck. I like the consistency this "champion" card adds, and the different ways decks can use that guaranteed card. Do you put an aggressive, turn 1 play, or a late game finisher? Value engine? What about a pocket counter to your deck's weakest matchup? Lots of options. Aesthetically, the game looks very nice. It has a Feywild, Fairytail, Storybook theme to it, with knights and faeries and little vegetable goblins. The menus for matchmaking, collection, profile, etc. look like the pages of an old book. Some card effects come with nifty animations. --- Negatives --- There's definitely some issues I have with Wylerdnook, despite its many great aspects. The deckbuilding and card crafting UIs are...bad. Two examples. 1) When sorting piles of cards during deck creation, there's no way to move a card up or down in a stack. You can only remove it from the stack and then add it back to the bottom. So if I want a card to be at the top of a large stack, I have to completely empty that stack one card at a time and rebuild it. I also can't move entire stacks around left to right either. 2) when viewing the collection screen with both collected and non-collected cards, the game will display cards twice if I own 1 copy and could craft a 2nd copy. Animation speed and action lockout is also an issue for me. Where I mentioned in the "simultaneous turns" aspect that it cuts down on wait times, these two aspects add a bunch more back in. I don't mind animations, especially since Wyldernook's are generally good. But they're a bit long with the delays between them. More frustratingly, the game prevents you from pulling up any kind of sub-menu or additional information when the turns are resolving. I can't view my graveyard, or highlight a card, or even hit the settings cog to concede mid resolution. So during a lengthy or complicated turn, I can't pull any card up to read its text and understand what's actually happening on the board until *after* everything has resolved and the next turn has already begun. ---- TL;DR In conclusion, I like Wyldernook quite a lot. It's definitely the CCG I'm having the most fun with right now, even with its flaws. Notably, so much of what I love has to do with actual gameplay mechanics (mana, champions, factions), while much of my hangups are on the execution of actions (UI and animation). So the game is great, just a little annoying to interface with. I hope many more people try it out. Edit: a correction regarding the UI portion of the review.

This game has been an absolute blast to play so far. As someone who has played a lot of different trading card games, I was surprised by how fresh and engaging the gameplay feels. The mechanics are easy to understand but offer plenty of strategic depth, making every match feel rewarding and unique. One of my favorite features is the multiplayer experience. Being able to play against real players keeps things exciting, and the 4-player free-for-all mode adds a fun twist that you don't often see in TCGs. Every match feels different, and the interactions between players create some memorable moments. The campaign mode is another great addition. It's perfect for learning new strategies, testing decks, and progressing when you don't feel like jumping straight into PvP. There's always something new to unlock or discover, which keeps the game feeling fresh. For an Early Access title, the game is already in great shape. The factions feel distinct, the cards are well designed, and the developers seem genuinely invested in improving the game and listening to community feedback. While there are a few minor bugs, they haven't affected my overall experience. Overall, this is a fun, strategic, and surprisingly polished card game with a lot of potential. If you enjoy TCGs, it's definitely worth checking out.

Good for where it is in early access; a few buggy interactions and some areas where it needs to be fleshed out but a solid foundation to build from. There's enough in the F2P component for a few hours of fun right now but I wouldn't be giving real money for card packs in the current state; monetisation model (buying packs) is probably not right for an indie CCG.

There are some neat ideas in this card game, but they are not enough to elevate it among the rest of the crowd. Worse, some terrible design choices make the new player experience dreadful. Like Infinity Wars (another card game I hated from the same dev), you take your turns at the same time as your opponent(s). This leads to some interesting plays, though the frustration factor is higher here than with the more common side turns. You never draw cards automatically, you must pay to draw cards, so certain factions that have access to cheap card draw feel overpowered in comparison. The deck building system is something we've seen before, but it's okay and works well enough. The problems: Like most of these card games, they are low population at the start and so their development is more or less in a vacuum. So, most of the die hards have huge collections and great decks, and the dev is balancing everything around them, and ignoring the new player experience entirely. There is not really a tutorial. You can play against the factions and earn their starter decks upon winning each one, and that serves more or less as a tutorial. This is fine if you've been playing card games for a bit, but I think users new to the genre will feel completely lost. The third faction deck ("Pounce") is so overtuned that I was never able to beat it normally. I beat the rest of the factions, then tried Pounce again, to be surprised with a 3 player (attack player to your right style; I was against 2 bots) combat for my "last encounter" (would have been nice to know this beforehand). After winning that (it did not feel good at all), you can finally try the campaign. Well, it's better if you don't try the campaign. I have my starter decks with their little 2/2s and 3/4s and I run into crazy combo decks in the second fight of the campaign that produced a 12/12 flyer and a 19/8 overwhelm critter. Shockingly, I died. I guess I'm meant to spend a lot of money, or just get my free booster pack each day for a few months, before I can actually play? I won't even try pvp because I can already see the future: low playerbase, throws me in with someone that is an expert, I die in two turns...a lot of fun. This one is not ready for prime time. Frankly, I'm not sure if it will ever be ready to lose the profile limited tag, as I can't see new players sticking with this at all.

I was able to play this game early on and it was so much fun!! The game play and mechanics are so much fun if you like card games!! Hope you enjoy if you get it!

I'm enjoying this game so far. While the TCG space is a bit overcrowded these days, it stands out for its strategic gameplay. It has simultaneous turns, so that you have to engage in mind games to predict what the other player might do. The developer clearly put a lot of work into it. For early access it's in a pretty good state, and it has well developed factions and mechanics. It's pretty impressive for a small indie studio. It also has a multiplayer mode which is pretty cool, where up to 4 players can go free for all, and the cards seem well designed for it, with cards that affect multiple players. This mode I've played less so far. In addition, there's a campaign mode which is a bit like Slay the Spire. You can play it while queued up for pvp matches, and if a match is found during the single player match it will let you return to the campaign match once the pvp is over. So far I haven't had trouble finding matches, but maybe because it's the first day. It's free to play so no need to spend money to test it out, although it does have in game purchases. Cards aren't too hard to get free though, you can get 'dust' to spend on cards by playing in each mode, so it feels pretty rewarding. While there are a few bugs it's not many for an indie early access game. There's also a discord server where they seem to be highly involved with the community. Overall I would recommend trying it.

A fantastic card game that's very Free to Play friendly in its current iteration. Not every card is perfectly balanced at the moment and you will run into the occasional bug, but the foundation and direction of this card game is something I haven't seen from a digital TCG in quite some time.

The game is a great cute card game. Seems fun so far

Great Mechanic, lots of stuff to do, free card packs. super building own decks mechanics. nice artwork. i like