First Impressions: Shardbound

By: MithrandielAs a long-time fan of strategy games and collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering, I was immediately intrigued when I heard of the tactics based strategy game: Shardbound. Shardbound features a battleground of tiles upon which you and another player do battle. Much like Hearthstone, you have a hand of cards that may contain units that you can deploy on the field, blessings that you can use to heal or strengthen your allies, or spells that can hinder or harm your opponents. These all cost a certain amount of "mana", which you progressively get more of with each passing turn.Sitting down at the computer I was able to pick the game up fairly quickly, but the beauty of Shardbound is that while it's very easy to pick up, there is still a lot of depth to the strategy involved in taking on another player. Each match is designed as a 1v1, and I could tell within the first few moves that I was getting outclassed. Still - I found myself examining the battlefield and my cards to try and turn the game around, and on my last turn it looked like I could have secured victory, but unfortunately fell just shy of the goal.With solid gameplay and accessible yet complex tactical elements, Shardbound continues to impress with fantastic visuals and sound effects. While Hearthstone may offer some similar mechanics, it certainly doesn't bring the battlefield to life in the same way that Shardbound does. Unfortunately, with the game currently in its pre-alpha state, there are no screenshots of the battleground for me to showcase for you guys - you'll just have to take my word for it on this one!Following my demo I was lucky enough to chat with a member of the Shardbound development team. Take a listen to my interview with Caleb below as he talks about the inspiration behind Shardbound and where Spiritwalk games goes from here![arve url="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BgDcR3dMv7E"]You can visit Shardbound's site here.