Howdy fellow adventurers,

today nosotros are going to review Keyforgethe Unique Deck Game (UDG) by Richard Garfield and Fantasy Flight Games. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the core concept of unique bill of fare games and some of Keyforge's new and exciting mechanics.

If y'all prefer to mind to my review, I have too recorded a podcast episode about Keyforge.

Introduction

For those of y'all who don't know Keyforge or didn't have the take a chance to play it withal, let me briefly explicate what the core concept of the game is:

The game was designed by Richard Garfield and is published by Fantasy Flying Games. Keyforge is a competitive carte game in which players take on the role of an Archon. The innovation Richard Garfild came upwards with is indeed a unique idea. Because Keyforge is the kickoff Unique Deck Game (UDG). That means each Archon deck is one-of-a-kind. No other player in the world will have the same deck. Just how is that possible you may ask? Our mindset of traditional TCGs tells u.s.a. that every other histrion could merchandise or learn the same set up of cards to build the same deck. But in Keyforge there is no deckbuilding. The deck you purchase is not only unique in its menu composition. It is also prepare to play.

Each deck is made upwardly of 3 factions, and a selection of 12 cards for each faction. Altogether there exist 7 factions and in that location are something like fifty+ cards for each fraction. If y'all are interested in faction design in card games check out podcast episode #10 for more insights.

In improver to its unique menu composition, each Deck in Keyforge has also an individualized proper name for the Archon who the deck belongs too and a unique procedurally generated graphic which appears on the back of every bill of fare. That ways every composition of a deck is unique. Fantasy Flight Games claims that there are 104 quadrillion possible 37-card decks. And retrieve, dissimilar in Magic you as a player are not allowed to change the composition of cards in your deck. There is no deckbuilding at all. You open your 37 card Deck and are ready to play.

The goal of the game is to use your cards to collect AEmber, which is the resources of the game. The Aember y'all collect is and then used to forge keys. The commencement thespian who forges his third fundamental wins the game on the spot. The interesting part is you do not have to impale your opponent as in almost other competitive games. That means there is no such affair as life points. Your only goal is to forge 3 keys before your opponent does.

The concept of unique games

Let's beginning to analyze the idea of unique games in general.

Richard Garfield gave a very interesting interview on the Fantasy Flying Games Website. In the interview, he talked about his thought behind the concept of unique games. He first started thinking about unique decks in the 90s. He was fascinated past the idea that every player could own something unique. When Magic came out in the 90s internet was not what is today. At that place was no netdecking and all the information nearly Magic came from Magazines similar The Duelist, Inquest or Kartefakt. Information technology was mode more fun back than exploring all the available cards while opening your packs and playing with them. Today everyone knows all the cards earlier the pre-release from looking through the spoiler list. Information technology is e'er common knowledge which cards and decks are the top of the pop in the electric current meta. With unique decks, Richards Garfields intention was to bring back some of the excitement from TCGs before the cyberspace took over the world.

While the idea makes a lot of sense from a design perspective it besides creates massive challenges. Let'southward go through them quickly.

Challenge 1: Deck Creation and Algorithm

First and foremost, I detect it incredibly funny and virtually grotesque that the technical progress Richard Garfield wants to overcome here in class of the internet is also the solution for one of the biggest problems of Unique Games. The creation and rendering process of unique games. Without the immense processing power of today'due south computers, the rendering of the unique decklists and artworks would not have been possible. The net plays also a vital role as you can register your decks to your account using a QR-Code printed on a card in every pack.

The main challenge from a game design perspective is the creation of the decks. How can you make certain every instance of a deck is playable. How do you make sure the decks are fun to play? And how exercise yous rest them? I don't know what the cadre design principles of Keyforge where, but I am sure one the goals must take been to make the game playable with a wide range of decks. And this is just possible if the rules and interactions are simple enough. Compared to other TCGs I think there is less design space for very complex and unique carte designs. In Magic, for case, are a lot of cards that can make but sense in some very specific deck compositions. These cards are borderline unplayable in 99% of the decks, while they shine in the remaining one% of the decks. A card like this nothing you could e'er print in a unique game. So the principal design challenge is to create a ruleset that supports a wide range of combinable mechanics in order to create at least playable decks. But if you call back most magic, these boggling cards with these fringe use cases are frequently the cards players engage the about with. And so if you desire to accept these more complex combo like cards in a unique game you demand some kind of algorithm that makes certain that some cards are only combined with other cards in a certain fashion. That means if you have a carte du jour that cares about a specific creature type. Wouldn't information technology be incredibly unsatisfying to have a card that cares well-nigh knights in your deck but your deck does non contain any. This is exactly what the Keyforge algorithm takes care off. It ensures that cards that are meant to be combined practise at least have a certain threshold of other cards that could be combined with it.
Individual cards could, in some cases, have downward-stream dependencies, such every bit [If Ten is selected for Pool1, then draw either a, b, or c from Pool2; In the Knight case, the algorithm could take care that your deck at least has 4 knights in it. In addition, a database of product instances needs to exist maintained to ensure each new instance of a deck is a unique one.

Claiming ii: Production, Rendering & Printing

Other challenges come up from printing and product. Conventional offset press possibilities are not feasible here. And how would the physical collation happen? Information technology cannot be random. It is bound to the algorithm. Each deck contains a unique card dorsum with a unique graphic, a unique proper name and a unique combination of house cards. The Software needs to handle not merely the algorithm of particular sequence merely also random name generation and a procedurally generated unique paradigm, all of which would need to exist automatically collated and prepared for output. Fantasy Flying Game mentioned in an article that these facts acquired a lot of headaches regarding the computing power of the rendering process. I think at 1 bespeak in time they needed 166 days to render 100.000 decks.
Printing is likewise more than expensive as it requires digitally printed cards instead of start printing which is in general 2-4 times more expensive and way slower. I have read rumors that the game is probably printed in Federal republic of germany.

Challenge 3: Flavor

The side by side claiming is flavour. The randomness leads to the necessity to combine unlike factions and cards. It is therefore very hard to transport flavors and story within a deck. There is no such matter as a themed Goblin Deck. Richard Garfield mentioned that information technology was required by game design to work with a variety of different factions that could be mixed and matched. If y'all recall about that from a narrative aspect it is quite difficult to observe reasons why all of these different factions and cards should sometimes piece of work together and sometimes not. I personally don't like the flavor of Keyforge. I don't like the artwork. The story is almost non-real and I don't remember this volition modify in the future. Maybe it is just impossible to create a very large amount of possible decks and a compelling story at the same time.

Claiming 4: Balancing

One of the biggest worries I've heard and read about over and over once more is balancing. With 104 quadrillion decks, how tin can you make sure that all decks are roughly equal in power? The truth is. You can' t. And the developers knew that. Richard Garfield wrote a nice brusk story of balancing on board game geek.
The core message is: Instead of making decks fair. They chose the approach of making as many decks every bit possible playable and fun confronting each other. They accustomed the fact that decks will have different ability levels. To some degree, the different ability levels can exist compensated past variance and actor skill, but just to some degree. Therefore, Fantasy Flight Games came up with a nice balancing idea of putting "chains" on the favored deck. Chains are some kind of handicap mechanic designed to balance out stronger decks. Basically, each chain costs a deck one (or sometimes more) cards over the course of the game. I accept not played Keyforge on a tournament, merely I like the thought of chains. And I besides like the fact that they did not try to make decks equally powerful because I don't think this is possible. However, I am worried near the emotions that players have when they open a deck that is more or less garbage. Yes, they could play that deck against another deck and give the other deck some chains, but I still don't similar the disappointment you get when opening a bad deck. Merely yous could compare that with opening a bad booster pack in a TCG I guess.

Advantages of Unique Deck Games compared to CCGs, TCGs, and LCGs

One advantage of a unique card game is that you do not take to be as strict with the identity of color or faction every bit for example in magic.
Richard Garfield described this as follows: "If you're going to take factions in games where a actor tin can choose the cards they desire to play with, you must exist very careful not to bleed the powers from one faction to another. If you lot put a few cards in the wrong place—even if those cards are technically rare—players might choose to play with them a lot.
On the other hand, with a UDG you can take a Firm with, for example, a few large creatures but predominantly small-scale creatures. The House will accept the character you lot would wait—mostly small creatures with some exceptions. This makes designing Houses feel much more like designing characters rather than simply dividing upwardly powers between factions."

I retrieve the concept of a unique deck game is very innovative. However, I call up it is very difficult to compare it with TCGs, CCGs or LCGs. It is past no ways a direct comeback or a successor. Rather, I have the feeling the target audience is a slightly unlike one. For some people, it is a no-go that they are not able to customize their ain deck. For others, this is near a relieve equally they simply don't have the fourth dimension to retrieve almost deck edifice and acquireing the required cards on the secondary market place. From my perspective, Unique Deck Games are but at their beginning. And with new innovations with regard to printing and the algorithms I call up in that location is more to come up. However, at the current betoken in time, I think information technology is significantly more complex to create a unique deck game compared to a traditional CCG.

Keyforge as a Game – Reviewing Game Mechanics

Nosotros now talked quite a bit virtually the core concept of unique deck games. Permit's dive a little deeper into Keyforge and its mechanics now. Maybe we can notice some inspiration for our games.

The essential question the game poses to the players is:

How tin y'all forge iii keys before your opponent does?

Keyforge Keys Tokens

Keyforge Keys Tokens

To respond this question the nearly important player skill is to sympathise their deck and implement the correct strategies to acquire Aember and preclude the opponent from forging keys.

There are no culling win or loss weather (No player life points, yous do not lose when your deck of cards is empty). The simply goal is to acquire enough AEmber to forge your 3 keys before your opponent does.

To forge a fundamental you lot must start a turn with at to the lowest degree half dozen pieces of Æmber. Once a role player has created a third key the game immediately ends.

Each player starts the game with a deck of 36 cards. Each deck always consists of iii factions and 12 cards per faction. The dissimilar menu types are:
Actions: which are typically one time effects
Artifacts: which are permanent effects that stay in play and can be used repeatedly
Creatures: which are used to reap Aember and fight opposing creatures and
Enhancements: which are permanent improvements that are attached to creatures on the battlefield. 0

A plow consists of five Phases:
1 Forge a key if you lot control at to the lowest degree six Aember.
2 Choose i of your iii houses
3 Play, discard, and utilize cards of the chosen house.
four Ready cards
5 Depict cards up to your manus size (standard is vi cards)

House Choice

The about important decision every circular is the house choice. The chosen hoise determines not only which cards you can play from your paw merely too the cards you can apply on the battlefield. Information technology is very of import to understand that cards have no playing costs. Allow me say this again. There is no mana, stamina or whatsoever toll for playing a card from your hand.
You lot can play cards from your manus that correspond with the chose faction, as well as activate those cards already in play from the nominated faction. Cards accept a broad range of effects, some of which are resolved when they come into play, while others are utilised through being activated or fulfilling sure criteria.
From a game designers perspective that feels incredibly scary, because you lose your main card balancing ability by not using a resource. This was probably the attribute of the game that I was most suspicious almost.

Only afterward playing some games I must say the house selection creates very interesting Trade-Offs. Trade-Offs between your board which is ofttimes not represented equally in all houses and your hand which is also not equally distributed in your houses. To make that crystal articulate. If you chose one firm because y'all have iii cards in hand of that house you would like to play, only your creatures in play are from another business firm, you cannot apply these creatures during that turn. That means you lot often have to determine between developing your board and using your board. In the games I have played this mechanic has proven itself to exist a groovy comeback mechanic. Often a actor was way ahead on lath. But as his manus was mostly stuck with cards from other houses the player wasn't able to develop the board further.

Sometimes at that place is an obvious house option. Only nigh of the time at to the lowest degree two of the houses have arguments for choosing them during a turn. The consequence is that players take a lot of agency in how to play a deck. From the few games I've played, information technology felt like the decks had more variety of gameplay than a very streamlined magic deck. Past focusing on the different Houses in their decks in different ways, it tin almost be similar playing a unlike deck.

There are some cards can interact with house choice. For case, restricting or forcing a specific firm choice from your opponent. I like this implementation a lot. Why? Because information technology creates interesting choices. You as a player exercise have some information which firm could be the best selection for your opponent based on the current board state. But at that place is also subconscious information, the oppenents hand. You have to make a decision under uncertainty. You cannot command the entire turn of your opponent, but your decisions can notwithstanding have a major impact on the opponent'south strategy.

The unabridged mechanic of choosing a house leads to an aspect of the game that is not immediately apparent. Hand crafting.Hand crafting is acutally a big aspect of the game. Throughout the game you are managing your cards and trying to craft a mitt for different situations or for a skilful combination of cards (this can be specific combos or just many cards of a specific faction).

On the other mitt, it tin can feel sometimes very abrasive if you can just use some of your resources. For me, it was frustrating that I never had the gamble to combine the spell of i house with a creature of another firm in one plough.

To mitigate that feeling, some cards take the ability "omni". That means you may employ that menu fifty-fifty if the card does not belong to the active firm.

Altogether I like the mechanic of choosing a house.

Resources Organization – Aember

Let'south talk a little bit about the resource system.
Aember really is only required to forge keys. You don't demand it to play or activate cards.

You can get Aember in dissimilar ways.

  • Reap: Any ready creature of the active house may reap. When a creature is used to reap, its controller gains one Æmber for their Æmber pool.
  • Bister Bonus: Many cards in the game take an Æmber bonus. When a card with an Æmber bonus is played, the role player gains that much Æmber
  • Steal: Some Cards take the power steal: When an ability steals Æmber, the stolen Æmber is removed from the opponent'due south Æmber puddle and added to the Æmber pool of the thespian resolving the steal power.
  • Capture:Some Cards take the ability capture:
    Captured Æmber is taken from an opponent's Æmber pool and placed on a animal controlled by the capturing histrion. Players may not spend captured Æmber. When a brute with Æmber on it leaves play, the Æmber is placed in the opponent's Æmber pool.

It is e'er obvious for both players how much amber the opponent has and whether he will forge a fundamental in the adjacent turn. What actually comes into play hither is the order of a turn. I think the plough order was chosen wisely by the developers. The keys are forged at the offset. Equally a player you ask your opponent the question during your plough: I have more than vi AEmber. Can you somehow prevent me from getting a key adjacent plough? The opponent and so has exactly one round of time to interact with the opponent's amount of Aember.
I like that at that place are different mechanics interacting with the Aember Pool. It e'er feels like a dorsum and along between the players. All the game components, especially creatures and spells feel well integrated into the theme of acquiring Aember. If you have captured a lot of Aember which is stored on a animate being until the fauna dies, the entire game tin circumduct around the question of whether you tin keep that creature alive or not.

Gainsay

This brings united states to combat. Combat is quick, elementary, and usually deadly. "When a creature
is used to fight, its controller chooses 1 eligible animate being controlled by the opponent equally the target of the assail. Each of the 2 creatures deals an amount of damage equal to its ability to the other creature. All of this damage is dealt Simultaneously."
Armor gives your creature some points of protection against incoming attacks each plow. Health and Attack Ability are a shared stat. This means a animate being with Attack iv has also four Hit Points. When a creature takes an amount of damage equal to ist attack value information technology dies. Notwithstanding, impairment on a creature does not reduce its power. If a creaturewith 4 power got 3 damage, the damage sticks, only the power is nonetheless 4. This means taking damage does non cause any consequences until it is lethal. For me, the combat organisation is fine but near a bit besides simple. I don't like the fact that I accept no possibility to collaborate during the combat pace. No instants nil. Combat is entirely deterministic and feels more like a puzzle. There is no risk of failure. Just no hazard besides means no tension.

Elusive:
The beginning time a creature with the elusive keyword is attacked each plow, it is dealt no damage and deals no damage to the attacker in the fight.

SKIRMISH:
When a animal with the skirmish keyword is used to fight, it takes no damage from the opposing creature when the damage from the fight is dealt.

Both of these mechanics crave more endeavour from your opponent to bargain with your creature. I like these mechanics a lot. It helps to protect creatures simply does non completely prevent interaction from happening equally the abilities "indestructible" or "hexproof" in magic do.

Turn Order & Summoning Sickness

In Magic, at that place is the annoying topic of summoning sickness. Anyone who has e'er explained Magic to a new thespian knows why it'south a painful topic. Creatures that come up into play are non immune to set on or take actions for one round. However, there is no indication of this on the cards and a creature you lot just played looks exactly similar the beast you lot played last round. So you have to remember this effect. In improver, artifacts don't suffer summoning sickness. Except, of class, artifact creatures. All in all very confusing for new players. In Keyforge, creatures and artifacts always come into play tapped or how information technology is called here exhausted. This immediately gives you a visual hint that you can't use the animal. Unlike Magic, the untap step is at the finish of the plow. This likewise has an advantage. If the opponent can tap 1 of your creatures on his turn, it'southward non usable for ane plow. This upshot is too simply visualized past tapping and does not crave any extra status cards, tokens or reminders. Of course this would non be possible with Magic, considering the concept that the defending player determines the blocks would no longer work. However, for Keyforge the plough guild and the usage of tapped and untapped creatures feels way better than in Magic.

While the summoning sickness is really well implemented, the system no longer works without tokens one time the stun ability comes into play. When a creature becomes stunned, you have to place a stun status carte du jour on information technology. The adjacent time the fauna is used, the only matter that happens is the creature exhausts and the stun card is removed. That means the animal remains stunned until the player chooses the corresponding house and uses an entire activeness to remove the stun event. I like the aspect that you always take a negative outcome from the stun. No thing if y'all choose the house in the next round or not. However, the stun effect somehow feels strange, considering information technology is the only status effect that is marked with a menu.

Creature Positioning / Battleline / Flanks

In contrast to Magic, the position of creatures on the playing field plays a role. And the position in the battle line matters much more I initially expected. Creatures enter play on the flank of the battleline. The creatures on the far correct and far left of a player'due south battleline are on the flanks of the line. Many cards are restricted to exist used on cards that are either on flanks or not on flanks. This creates a nice status that tin be added to cards which then creates interesting decision making for the players. Let's say yous have a removal that kills a creature that is not on a flank, but the nigh powerful animate being of the opponent is currently on a flank. Practise y'all utilise the removal on a weaker creature or practice you proceed it in your hand and hope your opponent plays some other creature and puts it on the flank you are expecting.

Some cards likewise refer to neighbors. For instance splash damage that deals harm to all the neighbors of a animal.

Other cards allow a histrion to swap positions in the battleline. There are quite some mechanics that interact with the battleline.

Another one is taunt: If a beast has the taunt keyword, any of its neighbors that do non have the taunt keyword cannot exist attacked by an enemy creature that is being used to fight. In the battleline, taunt creatures are slid slightly forward to indicate their presence to the opponent. I like this way of positioning considering it is a logical visualization of a creature that is dominant and it again makes another status-token unnecessary. In add-on, it is again a mechanic that helps you to protect your near valuable creatures. And it asks an interesting question to your opponent: can y'all kill both, the taunting brute and my strongest creature in one turn?

Altogether the battleline is a super super simple implementation but affects so many cards and game mechanics. Information technology is maybe not the most innovative implementation, merely I like information technology a lot.

Athenaeum & Mitt Direction

A actor's archive is a facedown game surface area. Card abilities are the only ways by which a player is permitted to add cards to their archive. During footstep 2 of a player'due south turn, after they select an active house, the active actor is permitted to selection upward all cards in their annal and add those cards to their hand. The archive is a game mechanic for hand management. Why that y'all may inquire. From a design perspective, the annal serves two purposes. Both by removing cards from the traditional bicycle of drawing, playing, discarding and reshuffling in the used cards. First, you tin archive away less useful or conditional cards and make information technology more likely to get the cards yous really need later shuffling dorsum in your deck. Second, you can choose to return the archive to your hand allowing you to plan a monster turn where you store pieces of a combo in the archive until you lot drew the other pieces. It basically ensures a bigger and a specific hand on a hereafter plow.
This mechanic is really well suited to mitigate some of the randomnesses in unique deck games. And I wonder if at some bespeak in fourth dimension during evolution archiving was a thespian power that could exist used as a player activity (without the need of a carte that lets y'all annal).

Bondage & Balancing

Bondage are used in ii unlike ways:
To rest decks; Chains are a way of handicapping a specially powerful deck or skilled player. By changing a role player'southward Chain count it changes the number of cards they're immune to draw back upwardly to at the finish of their plough. It's a fairly simple, all the same elegant solution to the fact that every deck is unique and some may exist a bit too overpowered against others.
To balance strong cards:

Some menu abilities cause a player to gain ane or more chains. If a histrion gains chains, that histrion increases their chain tracker by the number of chains gained. If a player has at to the lowest degree one chain when refilling their manus, they depict fewer cards according to the nautical chart beneath. And then, they shed one chain by reducing the number on their chain tracker by one.
This means yous borrow a resource in course of a card from a future plow.

I really like that yous are always drawing back upward to six cards. That means you go access to your entire deck in most games which lets y'all programme strategically with specific cards in your deck. Information technology too gives you new resources every plough and you never end in a spot where you practise not accept anything in mitt.

Conclusion

I had more fun playing the game than I expected from reading the rules. The rules felt to uncomplicated when I showtime read them. Merely Keyforge introduces some new game mechanics that make you have to think well-nigh new tactics. Lath presence isn't as important as it is in other games. Hand direction on the other side is much more important. And the fact that for once you lot don't take to assail your opponent's striking points feels surprisingly different.

I made a list of pros and cons most the game through which I will go no speedily equally a conclusion:

Pro:

  • The border to enter the game is extremely low. Both money wise and timewise. For less than x Euros you become a deck that is ready to play
  • In addition, the basic rules of the game are very unproblematic. Much of the complication is solved past the text on the cards. The game is piece of cake to learn just hard to primary.
  • Unique deck names are crawly → They remind me of the randomly generated monster names in Diablo. Actually, the unique names play an important role in player appointment with their deck.
  • Keyforge is very much about discovery. In the sealed format you showtime to play a game with an unknown deck. You are non even allowed to lock through your decklist. This creates a very nice aura of the unknown. However, if Fantasy Flight Games wants to keep that discovery moment, they need to produce a lot of new content to keep the players engaged.
  • House Choice is a Great Improvement Mechanic. Although it'due south actually quite the opposite. The mechanics make sure that a histrion doesn't become too far into the atomic number 82. It is more than an Anti-Lead-mechanic.
  • New win condition feels surprisingly different
  • Fast gameplay & little reanimation. Since you can inappreciably collaborate in your opponent'due south move, you lot tin plan your own move with one-half your attention.
  • Layout – The cards are well made, and await and feel really nice.
  • Bondage as handicap mechanic (it is a fantastic idea)
  • No netdecking. You can't just await upwardly what the synergies of your deck are or that the weaknesses are; you volition merely observe out by playing.

Cons:

  • But one win/loss condition
  • The combat system is very deterministic
  • Artwork / Flavor (but I have also read that people similar it so maybe ist merely me)
  • No deck customization means there is nothing you could really do with the game in between playing sessions.
  • Non plenty hidden information
  • Not plenty interaction (no instants)

That's everything I have to say nigh Keyforge for now. I am looking forward to play in my showtime Keyforge torunament this weekend. I hope you enjoyed my get-go game review from a developers point of view. If y'all liked it allow me know and will do more of them in the future.

Sources:
Richard Garfield on Balancing Keyforge
Richard Garfield on Keyforge Game Design
Design Article on Unique Deck Games (on FFG)
Keyforge Rules Volume
Reddit Postal service on Keyforge Printing