Cardhunter Survival

Many of us are worried about the future of Card Hunter. We love this game, and don't want to see it end.
I hope to hear from the devs, and from others who want to keep this game alive.

 

Hear! Hear! I see that there has been a growing concern in World chat about the future of Card Hunter. The emotions behind the comments seem to run the gamut. Curiosity, hopefulness, despair, anger. However the people are voicing their thoughts, they carry the same common thread. Card Hunter is a great game that has no equal and there is a group of us that would love to see it flourish again.

I hope this thread can be a place to allow both the users and the developers to form an open positive dialogue, as much as is possible. With the following key points:

USERS:

1) SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! Let us as users offer a few tokens of thanks to the developers and praise of the game. For all the constructive (or nonconstructive) criticism that is posted on the forums, I feel we should take the time here as well to congratulate the developers on a game that has brought so many of us hours (days, weeks, months, years, you know who you are XD ) of enjoyment. Let the developers know what we appreciate about the game and why it keeps so many of us coming back day after day for years. There are so many other games out there, there must be something unique about this one that makes us find it that special. (Short response, "I love Card Hunter!").

2) OFFER A HELPING HAND! Do you love Card Hunter like I do? Would you be willing to offer up some small amount of your time if there is something we could do as the masses to help the game along? Maybe you know something about programming, maybe you are a social media giant, maybe you work somewhere that you could post a flyer advertising the game. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be specific. Just let the developers know if you would be willing to help if they yelled for a call to arms! More hands make less work. And the power of the masses is an incredible thing. (Short optional response, "I want to help!").

3) STOP THE NEGATIVITY! I know we are all concerned. I know it is normal human reaction to get angry at things when they aren't going the way we want. But let's stop the negative comments in world chat. I see the same thing every day, old players coming back to the game and new players finding the game for the first time and loving it! But the negativity is counterproductive. The last thing that is going to help the future of the game is bashing the game or the developers in world chat. Poisoning world chat will turn off new players for sure. If you want the game to continue and flourish, just continue to enjoy the game. There is an awesome group of people who play this game, and it shows when we help each other out and have constructive conversation in the world chat. Be excellent to each other!

DEVELOPERS:

1) GIVE US A SIGN! I know it is probably not a normal thing to do, or maybe even a strategically smart thing to do, letting your users in on what is going on behind the scenes. But it has been so long since we have seen some movement, that the rumors are flying. General speculation seems to be that you are busy knee deep in your other ventures right now. That is understandable, but without any word on the future of Card Hunter, people are expecting the worst. Where there ever be more Card Hunter campaigns? Will I ever be able to buy more kung-fu costumes? Not looking for hard answers necessarily, just something to look forward to if there are any plans in the mix. Whether they are short or long term ideas, it has to be better then what people are assuming at this point.

2) WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP? You as developers have built a solid group of long term, hard core Card Hunter players. I have to believe that there must be an amazing amount of potential brain power that could be tapped when you get this many nerds together (Yes, I called us all nerds. I'm a nerd too. This isn't a game for the general masses of idiots that are content to play angry birds or bubble witch or candy crush or whatever. This is chess on crack. Wear nerd as a badge of honor). Hopefully some of the user responses come back with an "I want to help". If they do, let us know if there is anything we can do. I for one would be willing to give up some time if that meant that Card Hunter could expand. <Insert analogy of a small handful of people telling lots of workers to push rocks around until pyramids are built>. Anyway, food for thought. I bet there is some talent here that would be willing to help if given some direction. Or maybe the key is that more money is needed. Again, not expecting to much info let out on this one. But if money is the case, give it to us hard. Let's see if there are enough of us willing to open our coffers.

Anyway, I hope something comes of this, if nothing other then some nice things being said about an awesome game.
LONG LIVE CARDHUNTRIA!!!

 

I'm thinking there may be::
An issue about the cost of maintaining the server:
An issue about the cost of loading leagues and game variants
What do we need to do to make this work?
Just Askin.

 

I like CardHunter. But I am concerned.

It is the silence from the developers that is most concerning. They used to communicate semi-regularly and now it is just tumbleweeds.

One of the tipping points for many users is when there are no leagues scheduled. Apparently this is a manual process that requires a separate piece of code for each league to be established. When it all runs out, someone emails support and pleads for more to be scheduled.

But each time there is a window with no leagues scheduled, I would expect there are some players who see as that as the proverbial writing on the wall and move on from the game.

 

Thanks for your post Jon.

Will there be any future CardHunter birthday/anniversary celebrations?

Personally, as I've been playing since December 2018, I haven't experienced such an event. What I've read of past events suggests they were fun and eagerly anticipated by most if not all players.

 

Can you guys just permanently have the Halloween and Christmas equipment and stores available?

 

Thank you for the post Jon. I appreciate the candor, as I believe others will as well.
Sorry if my first post was over the top. I tend to say/do nothing and then go overboard XD.
I even convinced Sir Veza to start the thread so that someone with some weight kicked it off XD.
I for one will continue to play and enjoy the game for as long as possible, no matter what the outlook.
I guess I will have to start learning the level editor and work on my own campaigns .

 

When the end does come, I recommend running in birthday build for a month or so, if possible.
Maybe as a celebration of (the game's) life, or maybe just because.

 

Just popping in (for the first time ever) to say that I love the game, and even though I am not a regular player anymore, I still log in to play with my brothers from time to time. It has by far the most hours of any game in my Steam library, and I started playing it even before it was on Steam.

 

This is pleasant to read! Thanks Jon <3

 

@Jon and @Flaxative please let us know if any of us can help take the load off through training in how to push different things out like: Aloyzo's Arsenal, Mauve Manticore, Leagues, Celebrations, Publicity, and (dare I say it) future treasure hunts. I know Blu Manchu is a small (but capable) shop and you've had your hands full with a beautiful new game. In the past you involved others to help design the game, help moderate the game, help add content to the game, add leagues to the game, publicize the game. We are a fun, capable, helpful community that desires to say "Thank You," to the developers for the gift of Cardhunter. As I see it, the way forward for you to put out the least amount of labor and get the most amount of MAU is to tweet and create a forum here where you can list help wanted ads of sorts. I know that you've done that in the past for AA, Mulitplayer maps, testing, etc. Let's keep up that volunteer involvement to the benefit of all.
Here's my idea of what a potential help wanted list could look like:
Sign up to be a dedicated TWITCH streamer here (Tweeter, Youtuber, Conference table host.) These are the perks. These are the requirements.
Sign up to be a league updater here. These are the perks. These are the requirements.
Sign up to be involved in pushing out the next Mauve Manticore here. These are the perks. These are the requirements.
Sign up to facilitate the meta-site, the wiki, the forums.
etc. etc. etc.
The perks could be as small as an asterisk beside your name in world chat to denote a volunteer, or a skin, or a chest.

I'm from the non-profit world and so much of how we get things done is by volunteers. We give them a minimal amount of appreciation. They give us their time. They're fulfilled in their involvement. Administrators get all the glory (and get to continue to make a living.) I know that this strategy of leaving a skeleton crew in place has allowed Blizzard to continue some of its outdated games that still have a dedicated player base.

I'm personally available to help with writing (I'm a clerk part-time.) You could give me assignments for Mauve Manticore creation. I've already created hundreds of monsters, items, cards, and boards. If you ever need me to come to the next convention and set up Cardhunter in real life beside the Void Bastards display, I'd be happy to.

All of this is to say "Thank you," and "We're here to help."

 

Hi Jon,

Just curious, what lessons did you learn from making and promoting this game?

 

I hope this game available on mobile...

 

You can easily play Cardhunter on Puffin browser.

 

As is see it, the nearest threat to the game is the impending obsolescence of Flash. I'm not sure what steps should be taken to dodge that issue, but it is an important one to think about.

 

I've laid in some portable browsers that don't auto-update, and run flash without mandatory once-only permission. I figure if I only use them for CH, a lack of updates shouldn't cause security problems.
I suspect losing Flash itself could be a problem. Does the Steam version run without flash?

 

The Steam version uses Adobe AIR, which is the desktop Flash player.

There seem to be a couple attempts at open source Flash players, but they don't seem fully functional yet. (And I haven't seen anything saying they fix the security flaws that are prompting everyone to drop Flash in the first place.)

Probably the simplest solution would be to publicly release the game's code and let the community translate it into Python or Javascript.

 

Not as simple, but fairer to the devs would be to rebuild the game from scratch, and then give the result to them to implement. I don't have the skill for that, but I think that it would be doable. I just thought I would throw that idea out there.