I’m Kevin ‘qxc’ Riley, Game Design Director for Shardbound, Aeon’s End designer, and former Starcraft 2 pro-gamer. This manifesto contains our vision for the future of Shardbound’s gameplay. Read on for a preview of Shardbound’s exciting future and to learn about our pillars of design.

We want every player to be able to find a strategy they love. We accomplish this by making each card unique and minimizing filler cards. Asymmetry of card design is key supporting many different play styles. Beta is a time for change, so expect big ones! This is the start of a journey so If something isn’t working, let us know. The best games are built by considering the feedback of its community.

Shardbound is undergoing rapid changes as we test new ideas for both cards and game rules. We start with the simplest version of an idea and implement it as quickly as possible. Once the idea is proven to be good enough, we go back and clean up the implementation. The downside of this approach is that the first iteration can be a little rough, but the upside is that we can rapidly get to the better version faster.
We’ve done many card redesigns recently and expect cards and hope gameplay will be more stable soon. Shardbound will have a stronger and more expressive card pool because of these bold experiments. Your feedback helps inform which experiments are working and which are best left behind.

Each card should push a consistent fantasy in its aesthetic, voice, animations and gameplay.

Cards should feel exciting to play.
They should be brimming with potential.

No two cards should be the same.
No card should be strictly better than another card at the same upgrade level

If you have to do a lot of reading, the effect should be worth it.
If an effect is complicated but not exciting, we’ll rework it in favor of something that’s simpler or more exciting.

We appreciate your willingness to try a new game and join us in this early state of Shardbound. We want you to feel confident your strategy, deck, and playstyle will still be there tomorrow. There’s still some significant redesigns needed but we want to reduce the size and severity of changes sooner rather than later.

One of the key points of tension in Shardbound is the battle over Victory Crystals. Fighting for position around a crystal is interesting, but the battle to score crystals is even more compelling. We are testing a system where dealing damage causes enemies to drop crystals on an adjacent tile. This gives players more opportunities to stop their opponent from banking VP without Thief. Want to protect your VP? Armor up! No estimated date for the release of this change, unfortunately.

Each faction should solve problems in its own way. We want to minimize overlap in keywords and archetypes between factions. As the beta progresses we tweaking each faction so that it embraces its unique identity more fully.

While defensive options should exist, players should be rewarded for being aggressive, taking board control and interacting with their opponent.

Your side of the board is your castle and where you should have an advantage. Most effects require line of sight which further reinforces that the relative position of units is important. We’ve largely designed out “deploy anywhere” effects such as rockborn and deepstrike as well as global targeting on spells. This is an ongoing effort as we continue playtesting and gathering feedback.

We want Shardbound to be easier to understand and have clear and consistent language. We’re also streamlining difficult to understand design patterns.

Shardbound has had many effects with varying turn lengths. The game used to refer to rounds, turns, end of your turn, until the start of your opponent’s turn, etc…
All this reading is exhausting and confusing.
We’re switching to a new system of duration. All (with a few exceptionsl) effects have one of three durations:
Until the end of this turn.
Until the start of your next turn.
Permanent.
This will drastically improve clarity, reduce tracking issues and overall make Shardbound a smoother experience.

We’re standardizing the language on cards. When you read two cards which have the same effect, they should use the same language.
When cards use different phrasing from each other, they should have different effects.

Thank you for reading! Your feedback is essential to making Shardbound the best game it can be. Please keep it coming. The best way to reach us is through our discord. (I’m KevinBZT if you want to message me directly.

In Shardbound, I’m BZT_Q#7107, see you on the ladder!