Today I’m chatting with Nick (aka Voltriph), Founder and Chief Developer of Spirit Clash, one of the five hot games that have been announced by Enjin for their new Spark program. Having already interviewed the other four games announced, it’s a great pleasure to chat with Nick, leaving the best till last they say, but personally I love anything Enjin ha, especially an ENJ backed giveaway…
…this week it’s a very generous giveaway courtesy of Spirit Clash. They have provided 10 Charm VFT’s for readers, plus we will add 10 Meltelbrot/egamers tokens too. For this giveaway you’ll need to join the Meltelbrot Twitter, retweet the Spirit Clash article posted on Twitter to spread the love, take a screenshot of retweet and post it as a reply on tweet thread, along with your Enjin Wallet address. Addresses will be used to send out ENJ backed tokens so make sure it’s the right one! The first 10 will be charmed, the next 10 will receive a Meltelbrot/egamers token – ENJoy 🙂
Thanks Nick for taking some time out to answer some q’s, hopefully we can share some great insights into the game for the readership. Now I’m not overly familiar with card based games (other than poker and snap) so it’s going to be cool to find out more from someone that has over 20 years experience in the genre. Let’s shuffle and get into it! First card – what’s your background in gaming and/or game development?
As far as gaming, I’ve been playing both digital and physical games since I was probably about 5. My dad was into Magic the Gathering in the mid-late 90s, so naturally, my brother and I were introduced to everything in this realm at young ages. We of course had consoles in the house as well, always trying out new games for the PSX and N64 as they came out.
We had a good relationship with a local game store as well, so we regularly played new board games and card games as they would come out with the store owner and the store’s regulars. As games came out, the store owner would often jokingly get a bit upset that the 9 and 12 year old kids were beating all of the older guys at the different board games on a fairly regular basis!
So, it’s easy for me to say that gaming has always been a big part of my life. Game development hasn’t been as big until more recent years, but my brother and I always had little fun ideas for games growing up. Naturally, the next step is to start bringing a truly potential-filled idea to life ? in came Spirit Clash!
You’ve been working on Spirit Clash for a while now (pre Enjin), and to have a well thought out gameplay is a big advantage I feel, especially for the Spark program and any interested players. Can you give us a rundown on the gameplay you’ve developed for players? And did it change much due to integrating the Enjin toolset?
Yes, the game itself has been in off-and-on (full-time on these days!) development since early 2017. I’ll give a simple rundown of gameplay here, and if you want some more depth in regards to card abilities make sure to go to our User Guide tab on spiritclash.com to learn more.
Spirit Clash is a battle for domination of the Mind, Body, and Soul. In the game, rather than you and your opponent having a set life total and the cards attacking this total until it hits 0 to win, we’ve gone a different route that helps with the implementation of fun and strategic game play. This route is through the “Cores,” which are of course, Mind, Body, Soul. (fun fact: the working title of the game during the first several months of development was MBS)
Think of our game play as a spiritual tug-of-war. To win the game, rather than hitting life to 0, you must gain influence in the three cores. Once you have +10 influence in a core, it is yours for the rest of the game. Once you control two of the three cores, you claim victory! So, you could be at +8 in a core, but your opponent can be RIGHT there swinging back and turn the core in their favour if you’re not careful. It could be -8 as quickly as it became +8 ?
The way you gain this influence is predominantly via ordering clashes (attacking) on the cores with your followers (creatures, minions in other games). There are of course always special abilities on followers and hexes that can help pull the cores in your favour as well, but a clash will get your biggest gains!
We have four card types in the game (currently ?) that you need to know about.
The Overlord is your leader in this game. They will start the game in the Arena, and they also have different static or action-based abilities that you can use throughout the game.
Followers are in the game to support your Overlord and strike down the cores before your opponent can! They have different abilities to help you in your clash for the cores, and they are a crucial part of gameplay.
Hexes are the “spells” in our game. They alter followers, cancel cards, shatter cards, and do many things you will come to find. They won’t outright win you a core like followers, but they are incredibly beneficial when it comes to winning the game!
Relics are different weapons, amulets, ancient lands, and more. These can equip to followers, give static in-arena buffs, and much more.
As far as gameplay is concerned, we do not use the classic “mana” or resource system that many games have used in the last two decades. Spirit Clash is an action-based system, and it allows for some things that the resource system can’t do! All cards cost 0-3 actions, and you get three actions per turn to spend on things. I’ll leave the rest of that to the User Guide though ?
On to your final question in this bit, Enjin Integration has been smooth, and it doesn’t alter the gameplay. What it does do, is create an absolutely incredible ecosystem for making a digital card game with TRULY ownable and tradeable/sellable assets!
You’ve really hit the ground running with Enjin integration, and I’m sure having partnered with two veteran Enjin community members in Marc and Jax was a big help in that. How did you find about Enjin? and what specific features of the Enjin toolset grabbed your eye to want to integrate?
I honestly don’t recall the specific moment I learned about Enjin. I have been known to do random gaming research to see if there are new and upcoming things I should know about, and I believe ENJ popped up in one of those searches a good while back. The togetherness of the Multiverse is really what drew me into the idea most, as well as the fact Enjin has the best wallet known to the crypto space, in my opinion. Enjin was truly the catalyst to taking this game to the digital space.
A lot of card games are physical in nature, although Enjin will probably change this with their secure and valuable ERC-1155 Non Fungible Tokens. But do you think you’ll produce physical cards too?
Spirit Clash will primarily be a digital game, but we do have plans to give some physical options for play as well. I know I love physical card games, and I know many others do as well!
Is there a certain amount of participants in the game that’s needed for the game to function properly?
For this type of card game to be played, you only need 2 players. It is a 1v1 game! We have some big marketing plans in the works, as we want to have a great matchmaking system in the future as well ?
A big thing that attracts me to Spirit Clash is the awesome artwork of the cards. Who are the artists?
Absolutely! We have several incredible artists on board. A few of them haven’t actually had any art revealed yet, but most of the art we have shared so far comes from @K.Horatius @Karinpyong and @sydoodle_ (these are their Instagram handles, if you’d like to see more of their works)
It’s cool to see another avenue for artists to share their visual skills, and hopefully help towards creating a full time revenue stream so they can concentrate on what they do best. How do you see such projects helping artists achieve their dreams?
This is truly something we are hoping to be a part of as the game grows. I am a big supporter of the arts, and I think games like this really help to get names and artwork out there in the world. We make sure that their names are on the mint images as well as the in-game cards. Crediting our artists is a huge deal to us! I think games like this have the potential to give these artists additional work from people that reach out to them after seeing their work in the game as well.
I’m quite new to an online community space, and am amazed by what people can achieve in this world whilst not being in the same room. What do you see as the benefits of an online team, and any pitfalls to be mindful of?
An online team is great, especially when we all have the same goals. The only true pitfall to be mindful of when it comes to having an international team is timezones. There is overlap in time where I’ll be asleep and they have things they need to talk about, and vice versa, but overall it is a great thing to be a part of!
Your team is obviously working well together despite the timezone difference and enjoying great progress, what do you contribute to that progress and hopefully future success of Spirit Clash?
I think it comes down to the fact that we all have similar opinions on a lot of this stuff, and we all have a mind for the big picture rather than just the small bits that come piece by piece. We have a lot of great plans for you guys, but can’t make too much of it public yet ?
Nothing like a little mystery:) Now everyone loves a great presale! When is yours and what can we expect?
I can’t give you our exact planned date, but let’s just say it’s coming within the next couple of months at the latest ? You can expect packs with an exclusive card frame that will come through in-game and on the mint images. It is our presale exclusive Lightning Frame. You can also expect alternate art on many of the cards! This means the later version of that card will not have the lightning frame, and will also have different art. So, the presale versions of most of these cards will be incredibly exclusive. You can also expect a lower price tag than $25 to get involved ?
I’ve noticed you guys have been spreading the love with some cards to fans. What cards are currently out and able to be collected?
Yeah we’ve been giving them out quite a bit lately. Right now our only public mints are some of the VFTs. Charm, Fury, and Plague VFTs have been getting distributed so far. MFTs are coming soon as well. Card mints will come along when we do a presale.
What’s your favourite card by the way? And why?
Oh man, I have a cycle of favourites, but I can’t reveal those yet! So… I’ll tell you a favourite of what is known ?
I’m a big fan of Apprentice Summoner! She is a fun card, but also useful. When she appears in the arena, she summons a 1 spirit power version of a random follower from your deck. So if you get lucky, you could get another cool appear ability out of the one play!
Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the readership? Maybe a reveal or two, or something you think peeps don’t know yet and should about the game?
I will give you a nice and cryptic art reveal here. This is all I can give in regards to this one though ?
Hmmm I wonder what that could be…I’m glad I axed lol. I’m sure the forum fans will know too, it’s a big multiverse out there;) Thanks heaps for chatting Nick and it was a real pleasure to find out more on your exciting project. What you have achieved hopefully inspires other game devs out there, no matter what stage of development they are at! It’s all about the spirit and if you play your cards right – the path to success will be laid out before you.