Collectible card games, or CCGs as they are more commonly known, can have a bit of a reputation for hardcore gameplay mechanics, where it is often challenging for some players to learn and get a full understanding of the systems and conventions they offer. While some players might find the genre a bit on the overwhelming side,Wild Countryis a game that aims to do just the opposite by creating a cozy, city-buildingcard game experiencein making a CCG that seeks to appeal to both veterans of the genre and be approachable to newcomers alike.
Game Rant recently interviewed CEO, Co-Founder, and Design Director Becky Matthew at Lost Native, the studio behindWild Country, about the challenges of making a competitive card game experience cozy and approachable while blending multiple genres, including making hardcore CCG games more approachable more generally as fans of competitive gaming experiences.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What inspired you to create a cozy-competitive card game with city-building elements, and were there any key inspirations from videogames likeSlay the Spire,Dorf Romantik,or otherwise?
A: I’ve always been a fan of quite competitive games. I’ve always playedHearthstone,League of Legends,Runeterra,Magic,and games like this, but I’ve always been surrounded by people who don’t like many games at all. When my co-founder Kate and I would hang out with friends to play games, we spoke about elements of our job where we worked in Free to Play making competitive games, and our friends would be like “It sounds fun, but not for us.”
So, we say we try to Nintendo-fi card games for a broader audience. That’s what we’ve tried to do withWild Country. We try to take the core fundamentals of thesecard battlers likeRuneterra,Hearthstone, andMagic The Gathering, and then take elements from different media, like the comedy fromParks and Rec,The Office, and old-school nostalgia games likeBanjo Kazooie, to merge them all into something where everyone can relate to it, regardless of whether you play games or you don’t.
I think that has been a difficult thing - merging that complexity with the coziness, especially consideringHearthstone- there’s so much to remember in them, right? Especially if you’re not familiar with the conventions of all these different card games. We’ve tried to take those and create systems and different approachability options that people can ease their way in, so it’s almost like their first experience with games that can open up doors to a wider portfolio of games.
Q:Could you talk more about the challenge of blending multiple genres inWild Countryand why you decided upon this approach?
A:Wild Countrywas originally actually born from the idea of basically a frustration about Civilization.I wanted to make something that was like a bite-sizeAge of Empires, soyou can build a city real quick. You don’t have all the wait times ofCiv, and you don’t have a ton to manage. I just wanted something where I could take it on the go and quickly have a city built to how I want it.
But Kate was really intoCiv,and we tried to merge something in the middle. The idea was to have all the depth ofCiv, but without being overwhelming for players by having to manage 100 million things as you progress. It was just too overwhelming for me, and I’m someone who plays games a lot. Over time, it evolved into acity-battling gameand it was a card-battling game. Then, it evolved into something basically what it is today.
In regard to the complexity, I guess, balancing the aesthetic with the cards themselves is definitely something challenging to us. Portraying the depth of the game is definitely a challenge that we have a lot. I’ve seen it a lot recently, like with Next Fest where people go in thinking it’s going to be quite a light game, and then realizing that it has the depth ofHearthstoneor has the depth ofWorld of Magic. It has a similar level of complexity available to players if they want it. And for those that don’t, we are still getting the players who are jumping in and learning, which is nice. It’s exactly what we wanted.
We’re trying to create an experience where children can play with their parents, or people who are familiar with games can play with theirfriends or partners who may not play gamesand still have a fun experience between the two. But because the game-playing person will see familiarities in their experience to say like, “Oh, like I know that from this thing.” The player that isn’t familiar with these things can still dive in, have a fun time, and cause a bit of mischief – and basically, they could be in with a chance of winning.
Q: When mixing genres, how did you strike a balance between the competitive, strategic side of collectible card games, versus making this relaxing or cozy experience that aims to be stress relieving?
A: There are a few different elements of that. One side of it is the competitive side. We allow several opportunities to practice without punishment. That’s like a core pillar within our competition. There’s no punishment within the game. You don’t lose rank, right, you just don’t gain, and we’ll reset that seasonally so that people don’t overscale.
We have less focus on the battling as well. Where it’sa city-building game, we’ve managed to create opportunities where you may always come back. There’s always an opportunity every turn to come back. You can build up your own city, or you can defeat other cities. There are so many playstyles where you can play against someone, you can buff yourselves up, and be in your own little world creating this aesthetic look. If you want to cause some mischief, then you could play on the destructive side, but everything is always optional.
That’s why we also added this third-person world, so you could go and have like acompletely relaxing experience. Go and learn more about the lore of the game, and collect cards that way - we have this outlet of basically relaxation and chill. We’re trying to balance things that way. We’re also trying to aesthetically not lean into the fantastical side of things, so we useZootopiaa lot as our leading inspiration for the visuals.
Q: Could you briefly summarize for our readers how the city-building elements work? We saw a bit in the Next Fest demo trailer about how the placement of tiles can have different positive and negative effects which seems quite a big part of the gameplay.
A: If you’re familiar withSim City, there’ll be a lot of shared mechanics between the two, except obviously ours will showcase them in a card format. When you place a building, each building will have a type. So, we’ll have Residential or Commercial. Each one will give you a bonus based on what is placed next to. So Industrial, for example, next to a Residential is not going to work for the Residential - they didn’t want to be next to a power block. That will have a negative effect on your bonus.
You can also have cards to counter that. If you freeze a building, it’s not doing anything, so it’s not going to give you a negative effect. I think what’s interesting, particularly withWild Country, is you can build into other people’s cities. If someone’s building, for example, a Commercial deck or Commercial-focused city and you have a Residential-focused city, you can build into their city and take all of their benefits. We’ve seen that happen quite a lot, which is quite interesting.
We’ve also got event cards that you can play that affect both players, which will be similar to theSim Citythunderstorms. Or, in our sense, we try and lighten them up a little bit, so they’re like a farmers' market. So, all Commercial buildings will get a bonus or pizza party whereas all Industrial buildings will get a bonus. So, there’s a risk-reward mechanic there where you can play it, and you don’t know what’s in the opponent’s hand, right? They could have something that completely counters what the event’s effect is.
Q: The trailer shows a card that allows players to destroy three commercial buildings. What other kinds of ability and building cards can players expect and to what extent can they upgrade or customize their deck?
A: Customization-wise, there are currently over 100 cards that are going into the base game. That will go up to about 150. It is a mix of building cards, which will be shown by the triangular top, and instantaneous spell cards, which are like your destroy, your freeze, and your convert. We will have those event cards I just spoke about, which affect both players.
We also have these special wild cards, which are big cinematic cards. That’s the parallax one that you saw in the trailer, which when you rotate it looks like it’s got several planes within it and several layers. And once you play those, a big cinematic will play and something big will happen, which will be like the Destroyer Three or like the Freeze 10 or something. We’re trying to create a full cinematic experience.
Q: Leading on from that, could you tell us a bit more about how the unpredictable events work during matches and how they affect the gameplay? So, things like the snowstorms and raccoons.
A: Yeah, absolutely. Nothing will ruin the game for anyone at any point. The events balance such that it causes you to re-strategize for anything. If you’ve got these three buildings that you’ve leveled up, you’ve really buffed them up, you’re really focusing on them, and then a snowstorm blows them all up or freezes them all, that it forces you to change how you’re thinking about the game, maybe play in a different direction. Or maybe you do need to build into the opponent’s city now to quickly capitalize on the profit, to make sure that you don’t lose. Everything in the game is more to mix things up and to vary the gameplay rather than to ruin your experience.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about thegame’s open-world settingof Big Sky Canyon and some of its animal population?
A: This was actually added into the game quite late. We added this maybe midway through development because we felt like the world of the game felt too small within the card game, and we really wanted to lean into the characters themselves. What we’ve got is these five different sections, which make up Big Sky Canyon, each of which has these crazy animals. Each has its own quest lines and narrative which complement the main story itself, which is your journey to become the mayor of Sun City.
But as you go along, you can make friends with them. Some of them just want to talk to you and be weird. Some of them will give you quests for you to complete, most of which can be done within the card game itself. But others will be like, “Can you collect me this? Can you talk to this? Can you do a challenge for me?” What we’re trying to do here is with each quest, we’re trying to release a card, which is related to the quest. For example, you might talk to someone who’s like, “I’ve got this.” And you might talk to the raccoons themselves, the gang of raccoons, and they’re like “Oh, you think you can beat me? Let’s see.” And if you do that, we’ll give you the card, which is their card with the raccoons on that will destroy three.
As you’re going along, there’s a narrative relevance to the cards that you’re getting. So, when you have this deck, you essentially are telling the story of the game within the deck itself.
That sounds really cool.
A: Yeah, over time we have got some future content planned, which should expand upon that as well and should flesh out the whole IP itself.
Q: In games likeSlay the Spire, players can have random encounters that may develop the story or give players a rest moment. Could you talk a bit more about what players will be doing in between matches from a cozy perspective? You mentioned the quests or other activities players might do. How does that relate to thecozy gameplay, would you say?
A: We’re trying to add features that make Big Sky Canyon their cozy escape, so that is the main avenue to facilitate the card game. It’s almost like an add-on to the coziness itself. We’ve really honed in on the environment, so people can go and explore. Everything should relate to adventure exploration. We’ve got collectibles to find, and we’ve got mini-games that are more on the cozy side than the card battler. We’ve got quests that are related to friend quests. So they’ll encourage you to take some time to go at your own pace, to go and talk to people to go and lean into the narrative ofWild Countryitself.
Q: How big of a role does the player’s choice of character have in the game, and could you talk a bit more about the character customization?
A: Yeah, the character itself doesn’t play - players won’t have any benefit from picking a particular character. That was a design choice, so people could be who they want to decorate themselves as they wish to. Like, if you want to be a raccoon, but you play with the playstyle of the otter, that will feel rubbish. So yeah, we just basically wanted to let people have free roam with the deck customization, and then they can collect cosmetics along the way to decorate as they see fit.
The cosmetics are pretty - we’ve definitely got carried away with cosmetics. But I think it works really well because usually, even when we play test internally or if we watch people play the Next Fest demo, no one looks the same, which I think is really exciting.
It’s also had a development benefit of we can use the same cosmetics to decorate the characters in Big Sky Canyon. Then, you could gain their cosmetics by doing their quests or becoming friends, etc. Last time we checked, we had over 200 cosmetics to gain, and they’ll be gained through card packs and through quests.
And it gives players loads to unlock and more reasons to keep playing as well.
Yeah, exactly.There’s definitely a lot, and there’s still some being built. I don’t know when we’re going to stop - it just keeps going.
Q: You mentionedinspirations likeBanjo-Kazooie- I wonder if you could talk a bit more about how that game specifically inspiredWild Country? +
A: Yeah, there are a couple of references toBanjoin there that are a bit sneakier than others. For example, the mayor’s office, the whole PvP of the game, or the competitive side of the game, is accessed through the mayor’s office which will progress as you will through the narrative. Aesthetically, as you unlock things, like the key to the city will appear, a poster will appear, and then you’ll move to bigger offices. That is actually a reference to the main menu inBanjo-Kazooie. Also, some of the characters and the way that they tutorialize, and the way that they tutorialize things withinBanjo,are very along the same lines.
We looked a lot atSpyro, we looked a lot atBanjo Kazooie. And then we looked a lot at Mariogames, specificallyKingdom BattleandMario Odysseyto see how they tutorialize things to their Nintendo audience to guide what we’re doing here. We did look at card battlers likeRuneterraandMagic, but we use those as more of a reference of what they’re teaching rather than how they’re teaching it.
That sounds awesome.
Yeah, that’s definitely been one of the more challenging sides of things.
Q: You mentioned you tried to Nintendo-fi the card game experience. Thinking aboutWild Countryoverall, what do you think it adds to the collectible card game genre compared to other titles?
A: I think as it stands on the portfolio on Nintendo Switch. Other thanWildfrost, there doesn’t seem to be anything offered to players who are used to the aesthetic or comfortable with the aesthetic ofNintendo first-partyor second-party games, right? Like, theMariouniverse or even games likeBanjothat look friendly, they’re colorful, they’re vibrant, and nothing is threatening about them on the surface. We’re trying to create a space there that we feel is super underserved, to bring card games to that audience.
There seem to be a lot of surface-level card games in that area on various platforms as well, on PC, on mobile. I come from a mobile background and did a lot of work with this kind of audience in this kind of genre. I have worked a lot in competitive games and IN making them accessible with free-to-play, right? You need to make them approachable off the bat; otherwise, people won’t be interested - they’ve got so many options, they won’t be interested.
We kind of took our knowledge from that area and took our knowledge from what’s currently out there on the market right now, and we’re trying to create this new space where we’re taking these hardcore games and trying to take what’s core to their experiences and make it super cozy, super approachable, and super aesthetically focused. I thinkKingdom BattleandSparks of Hopeare really good examples there. Where if you’ve playedXCOM, you will get the mechanics, thecore of the mechanics ofXCOMare there, but it’sSuper Marioat its heart, right? Yeah, we’ve definitely used that as a guiding light.
Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add today?
I think we covered most of it. I want to double down on that there is more content coming in. We’re not trying to compete withRuneterra, but we’re trying to create something that is definitely more approachable in a different way.
When you look at games likeHearthstoneorMagic, there are constantly things coming out and constantly things that you need to buy if you still want to be able to play in a competitive sense if that’s something that you’re interested in. We’re not doing that. For one, we’re a team of eight, so we definitely can’t do that in a development sense. Also, we want to take what we have and remodel it. We want to use the playdough approach of if we want to mix up the game, we’ll just change the way they act slightly.
You never have to constantly grind to get something new, and you don’t need to constantly learn something super deep and super out there for you to keep playing competitively with your friends. you may just take “Oh, we’ve twisted it or we’ve added something new. Oh, the event system has changed for this week only.” Just so we can kind of validate things before we move forward. Because yeah, I think there’s been a lot of apprehension behind like, “Oh, it’s the CCG, and CCGs are scary. Because like this is so deep and there’s so much I need to learn”. No, everything is approachable - it’s definitely not out of grasp.
That’s great. I get where you’re coming from, approachability is really important.
A: Yeah, especially, I feel like a lot of the card games right now are ramping things up as well. So it’s game or more in that area. We’re just like, let’s pull back, let’s actually just create a card game that people can play together. That was the core of it - one that people can play together, and they can have fun. And that’s the baseline – it’s cozy, competitive, but not hardcore-framed competitive.
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