By Cam Shea There’s a lot going on in the digital collectible RuneScape card game space right now. Everywhere you turn, there’s a game doing something unique and interesting. In the last couple of months alone, The deal was completed by Lisa Pan and Thomas Song on behalf of the incoming shareholders and they will be appointed to the board of Jagex. Each turn it’s available, it can be used to target a single minion, transforming it into an evolved form.
The Evolve mechanic is perhaps the biggest point of difference for Shadowverse. It’s an ability that only becomes available in the mid-game and has a limited number of uses – twice for the player that went first, and three times for the player that went second. Generally speaking, this means a +2/+2 stat boost, allowing you to create a favourable trade for yourself, or remove a minion you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Like many success stories in our industry, RuneScape has evolved naturally rather than through rigorous planning,” Burnett observes.
Throughout its 15 years we have changed many things and adapted many times. Sometimes this has been a sensible step forward, but on many occasions we have just worked around an existing problem. The company's titles include RuneScape, which is enjoyed by millions of players each week and is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, as well as spin-offs such as online card game Chronicle: RuneScape Legends. It employs 320 people at its office on Cambridge Science Park.
I’ve commanded Old Gods in Hearthstone, controlled resource points in Faeria, created my own adventures in Chronicle: As the sequence of cards turn – one-by-one – the quest unfolds, with each card bringing a new RuneScape challenge or reward. The rival Legend’s chain of cards plays out in parallel and can help or, more likely, hinder the player. If both players make it to the end of the fifth chapter, the RuneScape Legends do battle against each other, with the victor being the last person standing. Each of the pages will have different landmarks from the RuneScape world that you’ll be familiar with like the Dominion Tower.
What does having PVP add to the playing field as you’re going through the game’s chapters? Runescape game PvP forms the core of the game. While your legend is completing the quest you’ve built for them, another player is doing the same thing. You also both have Runescape game cards that can directly affect your opponent by doing things such as stealing their weapon or dealing damage to them. Each match consists of three rounds and at the end there is a battle to the death between the two Runescape game legends, with the last person standing being the winner.
Runescape Legends and taken on quests in Fable Fortune. My latest obsession, however, is Shadowverse, a card game with a richly detailed anime aesthetic that’s currently available on Android and iOS. Shadowverse’s design team at RuneScape games in Tokyo has some pedigree in the RuneScape CCG space. Six members played Magic the Gathering competitively, including Jun'ya Iyanaga, who won the World Championship in 2011 and has five Grand Prix top eights, and RuneScape came second in the 2011 Limits.