• Developer: Tequila Games
• Publisher: Tequila Mobile
• Reviewed on: Android
• Also Available On: iOS
• Release Date: Available Now
The potential amount of damage dealt to you is not dependent on your opponent’s card – aside from a few cards with the power to attack you directly. The majority of the time the damage dealt to you is calculated on the risk associated with each of your own cards. For example if I lay down a Lava Golem card, who is a Fire elemental card with a risk of 7 and my opponent lays a Water Goblin card with a risk of 6, as it stands then I would lose the battle and take a damage of 7 – because my opponents card has the dominant element. However, my Lava Golem has the power to turn my whole lane to dust, so I can activate my power to avoid damage for this round. As we are now both the same element we become “Deadlocked” and the potential damage carries over until the next round. (In the picture below you can see the middle lane has had damaged carried over from the previous round).
A battle is played out in three lanes which see two cards face off against each other. Both players get a choice from four cards available in their hand, randomly drawn from their deck of 25 – although for the first round each player gets to keep or reject their choice of cards. The initial player lays their first card and then the opponent player can only lay their first card in one of the two other unoccupied lanes. After both players have laid their opening cards there are no further restrictions on where cards can be laid, so the initial player is likely to lay their next card opposite the opponent player’s card. Then the opponent player will lay their second card opposite the initial player’s first card. In other words, it is normal for the first card played by each player to be countered by their opponent. So it is advisable to play a low risk card to start with or at least one with a power to affect a good exit strategy. The initial player does not get to activate a power on their first go but does get the added advantage of having the chance to use one more skill or power after all of the cards have been laid. As your opponent cannot react, this becomes the best time to employ an extra sneaky tactic.
The Coward is a useful opener as his power is “Retreat” which means that after your opponent has laid opposite and successfully countered this card you can swap it out for a random card in your deck. This does not guarantee that you will win, but is better than definitely losing. The Coward’s risk value is 8 though, so you could get hit for a fair amount of damage if he gets trapped there or get hit for even more if you randomly call in a card with a losing element and with a higher risk value. The Calm Giant card is another good opener as although it has no power, its risk value is 0, so even if your opponent beats you in this lane he will not be able to deal you damage – other than possibly through a separately activated power.
The campaign “Adventure” mode sees you battling through five chapters, each of which contain ten AI opponents for you to beat. Each battle rewards you based on how much health you have left at the end of the fight. This will vary as starting health values varies throughout, with a tendency to be in your favour in the earlier chapters. A minimal victory will pay out Gold coins, which can be used to buy booster packs of cards. A more impressive amount of remaining health will also be rewarded with some Diamonds – which can be traded in to decrease the waiting times for crafting new skills onto heroes, used to purchase avatars or saved up in massive amounts to buy rarer card booster packs. An awesomely impressive win will get the above rewards but also unlock another card. Cards ascend in rareness from; Paper, Bronze, Silver to the rarest, Gold. You can make your way through the Adventure just by beating opponents and unlocking Gold Coins, but the other rewards give reasons to return and replay levels.
Your deck consists of 25 cards. Commonly I try to ensure I have an even mix of 8 of each the main elements with one Shapeshifter – who is a Dust elemental to start with that can copy any adjacent card. You could choose to weight your deck more heavily in one element and there are some tactical reasons for doing so.
Further tactics come into play based on the powers and skills of each card. Most powers are triggered manually, some are triggered if certain conditions are met and some instant effects trigger as soon as you lay the card. So, the order you lay you card in respect to what card your opponent lays can be crucial. As a result, you having certain cards in your hands my disrupt the standard play order described in the paragraph above. The Agile or Manoeuvre skills are good ones for messing up any carefully considered deployment as they help characters shift across to unoccupied lanes.
Hero cards can be crafted by players using a combination of three compatible skills or powers. If you use a combination that has not been used before you are then named as the discoverer. Whenever you completely fill the three skill slots of a hero card you are told who was the first person to craft a particular combination was. This might be more difficult for newer players to get involved with but new powers are being released with regular updates and generally I think this is a really nice idea that helps give players a sense of discovery and ownership.
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One other crucial tactical aspect to be aware of is the “risk modifier” that is usually found in the middle lane – it is generally always in the middle but some cards have the power to shift it across. The risk modifier doubles the damage done in its lane and switches direction every round i.e. if it is facing you this round then it will be pointed in the direction of your opponent next round. This middle lane is often left open until the final cards laid in each round, but becomes extra crucial to avoid taking a large amount of damage, especially when added to any potential Deadlocked damage from earlier rounds. It is entirely possible for both sides to go through multiple rounds without taking any damage, only for a massive amount of damage greater than one person’s total health to be dealt in one deathly blow. This alone can lead to some very tense, close battles where either side can be victorious based on one slight error or unseen tactic.
There are a few areas where EarthCore falls a little short. While the campaign offers replayability before you complete all three reward levels there is very little reward or reason for replaying any chapter after this point. As a result I would like to see more chapters or other single player content in general. There is an indication that there are more levels on the way in terms of some “Special Missions” that are labelled as “Coming Soon” and I hope these are sufficient to make up for this deficit. I guess that they might be variations on the existing missions or, ideally, separate objectives that come without the fairly unnecessary story details. Likewise there is an area on the overall main menu labelled as “Coming Soon”.
Early indications from the first month on Android seem as though the game will be well supported with future expansions and that they will also make fairly large scale changes where possible based on player feedback. For example, the method of trading in unwanted cards has been entirely overhauled to make it more useful for players.
The only other issues I had were some minor technical issues that I think mainly relate to the need to be always connected to a server. I understand the need for this to protect the economy, for the good of the developer and also the players, however it does lessen the appeal of the game to commuters etc that this would otherwise be ideally suited for.
I really, really like the core gameplay and had a lot of fun with it in both Adventure and in the Arena multiplayer battles, which are all nicely presented in a style that fits in well thematically. It is a Free-To-Play game that can be played all the way through without spending any real world money (as I have not). Fears that people could pay-to-win in the game are not necessarily unfounded, as you can come up against human opponents with scary powers you have yet to encounter, but it does feel that almost any deck could be effectively countered with the right combination of cards. Getting access to new cards can also entirely change the way you set up your deck and multiple deck options open up as you progress giving you the chance to try different tactics. As it stands I have a different deck for battling in the Campaign mode than I do for fighting in the multiplayer arena.
If you want to see my deck in action, you will have to fight me! (Username = MightyMutt)
Tags: Android, CCG, Earthcore, iOS, Shattered Elements, Tequila Games
206 Posts in Total
