14 DAY TRIAL // 
I’ve been recently playing quite a bit of the A Game of Thrones CCG with a group of other players, constantly building up my ability to mix cards and group characters and items to create a potent fighting force.
This takes time and partners and I might just abandon my real-life card playing in order to devote more of my free time to Card Hunter, the browser-based mix of card collection and traditional role-playing game that’s free-to-play and impressive in terms of mechanics and fun level.
Development duties were handled by Blue Manchu, a team made up of former developers from Irrational Games and the team that made Magic: The Gathering.
The game requires a valid e-mail and password and gamers are then delivered right in the middle of a battle that shows them the possibilities of the title and some high-level skills before they can create their own party and progress though a number of battles.
The game is turn based, with the player-controlled figures dropped in the middle of a lovingly created world to battle a wide variety of enemies, all of them drawn from the familiar world of fantasy.
Gamers can use the traditional archetypes of a warrior, a mage and a priest, but the twist is that their abilities and their powers are not linked to the actual character but to the items they are wearing.
As each of them levels up new slots of a variety of armors, divine skills and weapons open up, allowing the player to create a separate deck for the warrior, the cleric and the wizard, filled with both normal and special abilities.
Once the party is ready, it can take part in a variety of Card Hunter adventures, all of them designed to look as similar as possible to traditional Dungeons & Dragons modules, even if they do not use the actual license.
Each of them involves 2 to 4 tactical battles, each of them preceded by a small text description and followed by a quick moment to open a chest that gives players access to loot.
Between adventures, gamers can go to their own keeps in order to distribute items to the appropriate characters and to various merchants in order to sell what they are not using and maybe get one of the more powerful items that cost a lot of gold.
The tactical battles themselves are pretty fast and very fun, especially when Deck Hunter throws innovative enemies at the player or forces him to attack in order to seize victory points.
Each character can play one card at a time, moving, attacking, healing or deploying some special skill and when there are no more moves to perform, the hand is refreshed and the battle starts all over.
Each adventure has specific goals to reach and as the player gains levels, the complexity increases and the entire experience becomes more interesting.
Card Hunter also has a multiplayer mode, which creates a separate player party and delivers even more items to those who are willing to test their builds against those of other real-world players.
Playing a number of matches during a day unlocks more rewards and gives gamers more items to use in their adventures.
The game also looks very good, with nicely drawn environments that offer a cartoon-like take on real-world tabletop role playing and some nice detail on the various cards.
The sound design is a little boring, but it’s not in any way an important part of the overall experience.
Card Hunter uses a classic free-to-play mode, allowing anyone to simply jump in and create a party to try out the core systems.
At the same time, those who want more in terms of rewards and access to some unique adventures can pay for a Starter Pack.
Regardless of whether a gamer spends money on it or not, Card Hunter is a charming experience for those who love the genre and it can easily take up hours of gaming time day after day.
