Yeah, as someone who played Legends of Runeterra which was genuinely amazing but mismanaged in terms of how it was monetized (and not because it was too generous as they would say), this screams of them throwing the towel into the ring in terms of making games that are genuinely remarkable and good and instead follow the trend to sell out.
I will say riot has a history of showing unrefined "first looks" of a product as part of their updated transparency policy so it's very likely this wasn't meant to be taken as a "reveal" trailer and more of a just "here's what we've been doing " type thing. It was also supposed to be a Chinese exclusive then they decided to open it up to the rest of the world
I don't think the people who made this card game actually played LoL (League of Legends). I know you cannot translate 1:1 from a 5v5 Arena Game to a Competitive-1v1-that-you-can-play-casually-in-multiplayer. They could at least make the "Legends" type cards (I am assuming this is a "creature" card) of the actual Champions do something that thematically matches what they do in game. Example: at 8:39 in this video, "Loose Cannon, Jinx" gives her a draw mechanic that activates at the start of a specific phase. It does not make sense to Jinx as a Champion. In LoL, Jinx gets a burst of movement speed and attack speed whenever she [helps] kills an enemy Champion/structure/specific jungle monster. That card draw mechanic could make sense if it was based on her killing an opponent's "Legend" card. She has to actively do something to get that burst of speed. She doesn't get it passively. The passive card draw doesn't work for her at all from a theme standpoint. I don't see this game flying with people who actually play LoL. I see it as an attempt to get card players to play a game around a franchise they may have watched Arcane. Which is a small market. With the cards looking very basic and boring, I don't see this going well.
Yes, please do more videos like this. I very much enjoy the short form here's 5 to 10 minutes of quick thoughts format. Your PaxU video was great since it covered a ton of stuff quickly.
The thing I don't get is why they made the games specifically look like One Piece cards. Part of a TCG being played in a store is it is free advertisement for such game. So someone walking by and glancing at a LoL TCG game could very easily think that it's One Piece, right?
The thing about the designers advertising the game is that that's how Riot handle communication for everything, the community really likes it so they keep doing it for everything they release
Another thing that adds to the "card game boom" feel of this game is the fact that none of the art, as far as I can tell in these trailers, is original to Project K. It's all taken from League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra and Arcane Now, granted, Hearthstone also started off using art assets from the WoW TCG and One Piece takes manga panels as artwork for their action cards, and those are currently highly successful. However, I feel like one of the hallmarks of the early 2000s card game boom, where every tv show, movie and anime had its own TCG, was the fact that they had half-baked mechanics with just screenshots for artwork Speaking of half-baked mechanics, it's crazy to me how they seem to just kinda be copying mechanics from their digital card game, Legends of Runeterra, to the same character in Project K. The Jinx cards deal with Discard, Volibear is the big timmy ramp deck, Yasuo does bouncing, Viktor does creature buffs. Sure, we've only seen a few cards so far so there's room to diverge, but it just feels so unoriginal and, well, half-baked I'll still be keeping an eye on it, I always do whenever a new card game release pops up on my radar, but there are a lot of red flags at this point
I wonder, if this game was introduced without a cringe-worthy introduction commercial, didn't have the massive IP and it was created by a solo independent gamer. Would it then still get the same warm welcoming review like this one?
"Highly competitive, but you can play casual multiplayer!" is the new buzzword. It's like how pre/mid covid TCG releases all screamed "we're going to have a big competitive scene, you betcha, guaranteed!" because they were still riding the coattails of magic the gatherings massive competitive scene. Now commander is the big moneymaker, everyone MUST appeal to a casual audience with a group play format. Will it succeed? Of course not. They won't be able to get enough butts in seats to run tournaments or casual group play. They completely miss why Commander is successful in MtG. Commander started because people were able to make singleton 100 card decks, which people were making from their collections. That means there were already players to play commander with by the time the game format grew big. Wizards didn't just announce "we have a new format; Commander!" (because they tried that with Brawl and who even plays Brawl?) Having people already playing Commander meant new players could find people to play with. If you are the first people to play a game, how the heck do you plan to casually find other people into the game?
And on top of that, nothing sells your card game better than already having a failed digital card game. Legends of Runeterra was a great game, but poorly monetized and had a small player base, so it made like zero profit. It's pvp mode is currently on life support, while the devs try to focus on the roguelike deckbuilder side of the game. Also, it seems like all of the art for Project K (other than those pre order specials) are from LoR too, so for the fans of that game this feels extra cheap.
My eyes went wide when I saw those card layout designs. Why does it look like the One Piece TCG which looks like the Digimon TCG? Digimon is the only one of those games that matches with the aesthetic. I know you made this exact point in your video lol but It really should be repeated. It's sad because the game could be awesome but from the get-go I just picture Riot executives looking at the price of One Piece or Lorcana cards on the second hand market and just making a game motivated by that.
I want to mention Legends of Runeterra here, another card game that Riot put out some time ago. Riot didn’t exactly killed off LoR, but it is mostly just single-player now.
Yeah this blows. Painterly, striking art with mundane, minimalistic border that's almost sci-fi/futuristic in its sterility. And THIS is what they have to show us after giving up on LoR? Not looking good. EDIT: As far as the music goes, that's actually Bilgewater music from League of Legends. So it makes sense. But yeah, it very much so invokes Witcher (and to a much lesser extent, Hearthstone) in that "tavern" vibe. I think everything you said is right on the money; the way that they're going about it is extremely derivative.
I mean, it doesn't. The series known for its vibrant and expressive design put on cards with blank borders, no character subtitles, and no flavor text is a huge disservice to its source material. I mean, imagine if the card frames instead resembled the Wanted Posters seen all over the series, and the cards all had the quips the characters make in the scene the art is portraying.
I think it would have looked fine if the outlines were made to resemble the line work on manga panels or something. This basic, 5-seconds in Abode Illustrator thing doesnt make sense to me.
Kohdok!!! Watch ARCANE!!!! You don't need to know anything at all about the game (I know about as much as you do and the show is my #1) Some of the absolute best writing you will ever encounter.
It's worse then it even seems. All reused art or screenshots feom Arcane too. Not even new art for fans of the series. Clearly they want to cash in on Commander but they don't seem nearly as ready to do it as Gundam TCG.
Strange, I'm not sure why Kohdok didn't mention that this game is highly competitive but you can play it casually if you want to 🤔 I know it's an understated point, but I feel this niche little aspect will really help the game stand out! 🥲
I swear, I want to see a card game that's bold enough to either say "This is a highly competitive game for seasoned card gamers that provides the fiercest, most cutthroat gaming experience you'll ever see!" or go "This is a fun, casual card game that's great to play with friends and families, build a variety of decks and have a great time all around!" like, every card game wants to tout itself as fiercely competitive yet also fun for casual play. how about something that's willing to commit to one audience or the other?
@Ehibika Well, I think that's part of the irony; all games are "casual" until enough players unanimously agree that it is indeed worth competing in. Much like fighting games, no card game starts out "competitive". In order to reach that nebulous status you need to have multiple communities that naturally want to compete in your game. Sure, a developer can help officially support those kinds of efforts, but it takes time to cultivate; something most publishers/financiers don't want to invest in over, well quick profit. Kohdok often divides the user base into "Timmy, Jimmy, and Spike" and no matter where one lands, the truth is all 3 are needed to keep a game afloat in the long term. You need the super casual Timmy to buy your product and drum up interest, Jimmy shows the viability of your product as a competitive platform at any level, and Spike gives legitimacy to the "value" of your product. The more you try to appeal to or artificially inflate the importance of one group, the more hollow your product becomes. The best one can do is just promote the product itself and let the consumer dictate where it lands; otherwise you'll end up with a game no one takes seriously, a game touted as competitive yet has no actual competition, or a game with empty value that only other investors are into.
They saw the One piece card frame and said to themselves "We can make em even uglier"
I dunno if I would call One Piece ugly, it's just extremely basic
Digimon
"...stay tuned for your chance to order one of these 'LIMITED-EDITION' sets." 🥴 exactly the note I want a cardgame announcement in 2024 to end on.
Yeah, as someone who played Legends of Runeterra which was genuinely amazing but mismanaged in terms of how it was monetized (and not because it was too generous as they would say), this screams of them throwing the towel into the ring in terms of making games that are genuinely remarkable and good and instead follow the trend to sell out.
I will say riot has a history of showing unrefined "first looks" of a product as part of their updated transparency policy so it's very likely this wasn't meant to be taken as a "reveal" trailer and more of a just "here's what we've been doing " type thing. It was also supposed to be a Chinese exclusive then they decided to open it up to the rest of the world
I don't think the people who made this card game actually played LoL (League of Legends). I know you cannot translate 1:1 from a 5v5 Arena Game to a Competitive-1v1-that-you-can-play-casually-in-multiplayer.
They could at least make the "Legends" type cards (I am assuming this is a "creature" card) of the actual Champions do something that thematically matches what they do in game. Example: at 8:39 in this video, "Loose Cannon, Jinx" gives her a draw mechanic that activates at the start of a specific phase. It does not make sense to Jinx as a Champion.
In LoL, Jinx gets a burst of movement speed and attack speed whenever she [helps] kills an enemy Champion/structure/specific jungle monster. That card draw mechanic could make sense if it was based on her killing an opponent's "Legend" card. She has to actively do something to get that burst of speed. She doesn't get it passively. The passive card draw doesn't work for her at all from a theme standpoint.
I don't see this game flying with people who actually play LoL. I see it as an attempt to get card players to play a game around a franchise they may have watched Arcane. Which is a small market. With the cards looking very basic and boring, I don't see this going well.
Yes, please do more videos like this. I very much enjoy the short form here's 5 to 10 minutes of quick thoughts format. Your PaxU video was great since it covered a ton of stuff quickly.
I would only be interested if it was a competitive game that can also be played casually, but alas.
The thing I don't get is why they made the games specifically look like One Piece cards.
Part of a TCG being played in a store is it is free advertisement for such game. So someone walking by and glancing at a LoL TCG game could very easily think that it's One Piece, right?
Digimon not one piece
The thing about the designers advertising the game is that that's how Riot handle communication for everything, the community really likes it so they keep doing it for everything they release
This game has duel masters clone written all over it.
Another thing that adds to the "card game boom" feel of this game is the fact that none of the art, as far as I can tell in these trailers, is original to Project K. It's all taken from League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra and Arcane
Now, granted, Hearthstone also started off using art assets from the WoW TCG and One Piece takes manga panels as artwork for their action cards, and those are currently highly successful. However, I feel like one of the hallmarks of the early 2000s card game boom, where every tv show, movie and anime had its own TCG, was the fact that they had half-baked mechanics with just screenshots for artwork
Speaking of half-baked mechanics, it's crazy to me how they seem to just kinda be copying mechanics from their digital card game, Legends of Runeterra, to the same character in Project K. The Jinx cards deal with Discard, Volibear is the big timmy ramp deck, Yasuo does bouncing, Viktor does creature buffs. Sure, we've only seen a few cards so far so there's room to diverge, but it just feels so unoriginal and, well, half-baked
I'll still be keeping an eye on it, I always do whenever a new card game release pops up on my radar, but there are a lot of red flags at this point
I wonder, if this game was introduced without a cringe-worthy introduction commercial, didn't have the massive IP and it was created by a solo independent gamer. Would it then still get the same warm welcoming review like this one?
"Highly competitive, but you can play casual multiplayer!" is the new buzzword.
It's like how pre/mid covid TCG releases all screamed "we're going to have a big competitive scene, you betcha, guaranteed!" because they were still riding the coattails of magic the gatherings massive competitive scene. Now commander is the big moneymaker, everyone MUST appeal to a casual audience with a group play format. Will it succeed? Of course not. They won't be able to get enough butts in seats to run tournaments or casual group play. They completely miss why Commander is successful in MtG.
Commander started because people were able to make singleton 100 card decks, which people were making from their collections. That means there were already players to play commander with by the time the game format grew big. Wizards didn't just announce "we have a new format; Commander!" (because they tried that with Brawl and who even plays Brawl?) Having people already playing Commander meant new players could find people to play with. If you are the first people to play a game, how the heck do you plan to casually find other people into the game?
This is a TCG marketed for people who dont play TCGs
And on top of that, nothing sells your card game better than already having a failed digital card game. Legends of Runeterra was a great game, but poorly monetized and had a small player base, so it made like zero profit. It's pvp mode is currently on life support, while the devs try to focus on the roguelike deckbuilder side of the game. Also, it seems like all of the art for Project K (other than those pre order specials) are from LoR too, so for the fans of that game this feels extra cheap.
Whoa, I did know Kohdok was a takodachi! 🐙
My eyes went wide when I saw those card layout designs. Why does it look like the One Piece TCG which looks like the Digimon TCG? Digimon is the only one of those games that matches with the aesthetic. I know you made this exact point in your video lol but It really should be repeated. It's sad because the game could be awesome but from the get-go I just picture Riot executives looking at the price of One Piece or Lorcana cards on the second hand market and just making a game motivated by that.
They're trying to make League of Legends but with cards, it already sounds like they're courting a toxic playerbase XD.
I want to mention Legends of Runeterra here, another card game that Riot put out some time ago. Riot didn’t exactly killed off LoR, but it is mostly just single-player now.
Project K kinda looks like Commander format from some of the shots in the announcement video.
I want to see a competitive 2v2 so players can 'duo' in this game too
I bet this is not the final design of the cards
Yeah this blows. Painterly, striking art with mundane, minimalistic border that's almost sci-fi/futuristic in its sterility. And THIS is what they have to show us after giving up on LoR? Not looking good.
EDIT: As far as the music goes, that's actually Bilgewater music from League of Legends. So it makes sense. But yeah, it very much so invokes Witcher (and to a much lesser extent, Hearthstone) in that "tavern" vibe. I think everything you said is right on the money; the way that they're going about it is extremely derivative.
i think you should know this btw..... ThEy ArE OnLy DoInG ThIs for $$$ so they can do more seasons of arcane btw
More like project ok.
You should watch Arcane. So good.
Wah
Saying it doesn’t work on one piece is crazyyyyyyy
I mean, it doesn't. The series known for its vibrant and expressive design put on cards with blank borders, no character subtitles, and no flavor text is a huge disservice to its source material.
I mean, imagine if the card frames instead resembled the Wanted Posters seen all over the series, and the cards all had the quips the characters make in the scene the art is portraying.
I think it would have looked fine if the outlines were made to resemble the line work on manga panels or something. This basic, 5-seconds in Abode Illustrator thing doesnt make sense to me.
be real dude. the One Piece TCG looks cheap on an aesthetic stand point if you actually watched/read the show/manga.
Kohdok!!! Watch ARCANE!!!! You don't need to know anything at all about the game (I know about as much as you do and the show is my #1)
Some of the absolute best writing you will ever encounter.
Broo it looks like a shitter OPTCG
Not west oriented TCG, this is just the "trytofix" legends of runeterra failure, its just a cashgrab
Please play legend of runeterra
It's worse then it even seems. All reused art or screenshots feom Arcane too. Not even new art for fans of the series. Clearly they want to cash in on Commander but they don't seem nearly as ready to do it as Gundam TCG.
Since when does Kohdok have a Takodachi?!
Kohdok has been a Takodachi for a while!
He's got an Ina standee visible in his 7 TCG Sins videos.
Strange, I'm not sure why Kohdok didn't mention that this game is highly competitive but you can play it casually if you want to 🤔
I know it's an understated point, but I feel this niche little aspect will really help the game stand out! 🥲
I swear, I want to see a card game that's bold enough to either say "This is a highly competitive game for seasoned card gamers that provides the fiercest, most cutthroat gaming experience you'll ever see!"
or go
"This is a fun, casual card game that's great to play with friends and families, build a variety of decks and have a great time all around!"
like, every card game wants to tout itself as fiercely competitive yet also fun for casual play. how about something that's willing to commit to one audience or the other?
@Ehibika Well, I think that's part of the irony; all games are "casual" until enough players unanimously agree that it is indeed worth competing in.
Much like fighting games, no card game starts out "competitive". In order to reach that nebulous status you need to have multiple communities that naturally want to compete in your game. Sure, a developer can help officially support those kinds of efforts, but it takes time to cultivate; something most publishers/financiers don't want to invest in over, well quick profit.
Kohdok often divides the user base into "Timmy, Jimmy, and Spike" and no matter where one lands, the truth is all 3 are needed to keep a game afloat in the long term. You need the super casual Timmy to buy your product and drum up interest, Jimmy shows the viability of your product as a competitive platform at any level, and Spike gives legitimacy to the "value" of your product.
The more you try to appeal to or artificially inflate the importance of one group, the more hollow your product becomes. The best one can do is just promote the product itself and let the consumer dictate where it lands; otherwise you'll end up with a game no one takes seriously, a game touted as competitive yet has no actual competition, or a game with empty value that only other investors are into.