An Introduction to Insilentium — An upcoming mobile CCG with a unique flavor!
Notice
This dev blog was written and published on behalf of Monolith Mind and their game Insilentium. The game is currently in a very early BETA phase and so the team are looking for people to come and playtest their game on both Android and iOS (iPhone only — testflight required).
What’s more, the team are active on Discord and would love to hear your feedback!
Also, before you begin, be sure to check out their BETA Teaser Trailer to see the game in action.
Dear Diary — though I guess I mean, dear devblog!
Today I am introducing the Collectible Card Game (CCG) Insilentium, developed by Monolith Mind.
Who is Monolith Mind?
The team consists of 10 people, all of them are experienced gamers, what’s more, almost everyone in the company is a veteran of the gaming industry. If you were to count the combined gaming-industry-related experience of the team you would exceed 45 years!
Previously, the various team members were primarily involved in the development of gaming backend and security systems, but of course, as time went on a strong desire to develop their own game grew. However, even after initially getting together, the team wanted to wait to build their own experience, save up money (game development is not a cheap industry), and wait for the opportune moment.
During that time, the core team were already discussing between themselves the type of game that they wanted to develop. Originally, they wanted to make a browser based space strategy game, but after several brainstorming sessions and many hours spent researching, the team were simply not inspired by the overall settings and themes found in the genre.
But, during the sessions, the team found their spark. They quickly realized that they all shared one thing in common, they were big fans of the CCG/TCG scene having played games such as Magic the Gathering, HearthStone, Solforge, and many more.
A quote from the developers will provide a few laughs for everyone.
“So what?” — we thought, — “Card games are cool, exciting for gamers and it seems not very difficult for a developer! Let’s create our own CCG! ”
As any game developer who reads this will know, that statement is somewhat naieve, and the developers learnt that very quickly. That can be seen in their game, as development is now in the second year and only now are they happy to start sharing information about it!
What Makes Insilentium Unique?
First and foremost, the developers had two objectives. Create a game that retains the core CCG/TCG mechanics BUT they did not want to fall into the trap of creating ‘just another so-called Hearthstone killer, or a clone of any other existing card game. This was achieved by adding in several features that are not found in typical CCGs.
The Battlefield
First, the game has a battlefield that uses 3 lanes. The player first forges (summons) their cards in the first lane (this is the player’s forging grounds), then the cards need to travel forward to the central lane (the control lane).
In order to attack the opponent, the player must first forge their cards in their forging grounds, then travel to the control lane, once there if the opponent does not have a card in their own forging grounds that blocks the player’s cards, the card will attack the opponent directly.
In the case that the opponent has a card in either the control lane or their own forging grounds, the two cards will enter combat and the opponent needs to be defeated if the card is to advance, if there is a stalemate, the card cannot advance, and if the player’s card loses, then it dies.
Logic of the Decks
When creating logic for building a deck, drafting cards, and mechanics for active abilities, the team took a lot of inspiration from SolForge — an excellent and deep game, they also made a special effort to take note of the reasons why SolForge ultimately failed, so that they avoided the same mistakes.
As Insilentium is still in a very early beta phase, many of the systems are still being developed — but what is in the game now will be very familiar to any CCG player. One difference that should be highlighted however is how the game handles cards that are defeated and the cards in the player’s hand.
In these two features, the developers made a bold choice, cards are never ‘destroyed’ and the player’s hand is constantly changing.
What does this mean? When a card is defeated during the game, or when the player uses an action, instead of the card being sent to a discard or void pile, the card is reshuffled back into the player’s deck and will eventually be drawn again.
When it comes to the cards in the player’s hand, these are reshuffled into the deck at the end of their turn and the player draws a new hand.
Both are very big departures from the norm of CCG gaming, so the team are actually placing bets between themselves on what systems will remain when the game is fully released.
Check out some of the mecahnics described above in this gameplay preview video, though I’m sure that I’ll go into more detail in the near future!
The Level System
The level system replaces the ‘energy’ system found in many typical CCGs. If you think about Magic the Gathering, every faction has their own ‘Land’ that then generates mana. In simple terms, 1 land = 1 useable mana and every card has a mana cost (this does become more complex, however this is the simply version).
Insilentium does not use a mana system, instead it uses a combination of 2 actions permitted per turn (except for the first turn where you have 1 action), and a level system (in matches only) that automatically increases every 4 turns, with every match starting from level I (1) and going up to level V (5).
In a match, the level will continue to increase beyond V (5) but for now the highest level cards are V level cards, so the further progression is just a way of future proofing for new, powerful cards and actions.
Every card has a level number displayed on the top right, this represents the level of the card. You can probably see were I’m going with this, a card can only be forged/used when the match level is equal or greater to the card’s level. So on level 1, the player cannot forge a level 3 card, they will need to wait to reach level 3 and beyond.
Incase it was not clear, exceeding the level requirement is fine, a level 1 card can be used on level 2, and so on.
The Game Lore
I won’t go into much detail about the game’s lore in the first article as it is really big and deserves a proper introduction that is not shortened down.
What I will say however is that the game’s lore is a special one and plays a huge part in the game. In fact, the game itself is based on a book with the same name and is being written by a member of the team (both are called Insilentium). Currently, the book is seven chapters long and does not look to be stopping anytime soon.
A much more indepth look at the lore and story will be coming up soon.
And that’s it for this introduction to Insilentium. As I mentioned at the start of this article, the game is currently in open beta for Android and iOS (iPhone only) and the team would love it if you could test our game and join their Discord server so that you can let them know what you think of it!
The second part of my introduction to Insilentium is coming soon, so stay tuned!
