A virtual ccg made for… someone I assume.
Spellweaver is an online collectable card game very much in the mold of Hearthstone. It’s an attempt to put back some of the complexity that Hearthstone stripped out compared to something like Magic the Gathering. Unfortunately Spellweaver doesn’t do enough to separate itself from Hearthstone itself, and the mechanics added back in only serve to make the game clunkier.
One of the things that makes Hearthstone work so well is that everything you can do, you can do all at once a any time on your turn, without even to have to wait for the actions you’ve already taken to take place. Adding back in phases of a turn, which Spellweaver does, slows the game down, and can frustrate someone more familiar with Hearthstone. There are reasons to have the turn steps, particularly in a physical card game where the players need to make clear every action to each other as it happens, but in an online only game breaking up the action like that makes less sense. Also, the reason I as a magic player like the turn phases is because of the weird decks you can build focused around playing card on your opponents turn, and the poker game that creates. It’s kind of there, but I’m not into the game enough to dig for it, and it’s obviously going to be limited by the cards that exist. In my (admittedly limited) time with Spellweaver I didn’t get a good sense of that component to the game, which is understandable since it’s kind of insane honestly.
But that’s the real thing, Spellweaver isn’t insane, it seems pretty sensible, and also pretty boring.
For what I want from a CCG, every game not Magic The Gathering is facing a huge uphill battle because they lack they variety of a game that’s been around for decades. That’s not a fair comparison, but it’s reality when you make such a comparable experience.
The game has a very colorful map (probably the best art in the entire game) that makes me wish the game had some kind of single player structure, but it’s just a weird place to house the quest system that mostly involves grinding out games. This is more of a problem because the game has a very small player base, so finding an online game can be tough.
There’s a creature speed system for determining what creatures can intercept or attack others directly; it’s more confusing than interesting. And there’s a level requirement for cards that’s also just not that interesting. It creates some structured risk reward choices for the player, but once you know your deck it’s not an interesting choice. It’s complication for the sake of complication, which is mostly how I felt about the game in general.
Spellweaver is just too similar to Hearthstone and it just doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself to be worthwhile. It’s a very functional as a video game, (More so than Magic Duels even) but it’s just not interesting or compelling card game. Honestly it’s just fine. It’s not a waste of time, but it’s also not really worth your time.
