Hearthstone is collectable strategy card game where players chose unique heroes and duel their opponents. Each hero has different strengths and weaknesses, and access to special class only cards. Players build decks and play powerful spells and minions in order to win each match.
- Game: Hearthstone
- Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
- Engine: Unity
- Game Mode: 1-2 players
- Card design
- Balancing
- Prototyping & playtesting
- Flavor text & Temp Art
Overview
While working at Blizzard I approached several Hearthstone designers including Mike Donais, Peter Whalen, Dave Kosak, and Dan Felder for advice on how to break into Hearthstone design. They each said to build a custom expansion that had a theme, a new keyword, and lots and lots of cards.
I did just that, for over two years I built a custom expansion and submitted two cards a week to an internal mailing list for review. My cards started out needing a lot of improvement and fortunately I received a lot of feedback. After a few months, my designs had greatly improved and after a year some of my cards began to be added to the game. There are now nearly 100 cards that I made, or were inspired by cards I made, that are in the live Hearthstone game.
My Role
I designed, balanced, and playtested all of the Hearthstone cards in this set. The set is themed around Time and the Cavern's dungeons and the Bronze Dragonflight as they time travel around Warcraft's history reliving epic events from the past and future. Each class has an additional two playstyle themes that I have created cards to support.
You can view the current Design Skeleton file It contains the current list of active and cut cards
Here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bR14gicBeYuLRUQEup-MIGRewHYTtO4tl07yvzyW_nw/edit#gid=0
- Created a new mechanic “Time Flux” that thematically and mechanically fits the set.
- Built a Design Skeleton file to streamline documentation, prototyping, building, and iteration.
- Designed a single player adventure that teaches the mechanics of the new set in a controlled environment.
- Dual Legendary mechanic, where each hero has two cards one representing the past, and one an alternate future.
- Scripted a mechanic tracker to track the various card types and make sure I'm including them at the desired ratios.
- Design emphasis on creating player stories, build around opportunities, readability, balance, and flavor.
- Achieved the rank of Legend in Hearthstone to increase my understanding of high level play, competitive balance, card/player interaction, and design pitfalls.
- Constantly iterating based on feedback from several Hearthstone designers to better match the game’s design philosophy.
