PC
Mystic Vale from Alderac Entertainment Group and Nomad Games has been available on Early Access since late 2018. Today we learned that it’s breaking free from its beta shackles and heading out into the real world. On Thursday, January 31, Mystic Vale will have its official launch for PC on Steam.
Mystic Vale was released in cardboard (and plastic) form back in 2016 and it tried to do something different. Instead of a deck-builder, it’s an actual card-builder in which you use transparent sleeves and cards to craft new cards each game. Having not played the physical version, I can’t say how well the card-building works, but I’ve been intrigued by the concept from the day I learned it was a thing.
Enter Nomad Games, best known as the digital curators of everything Talisman, who have put their coding know-how into bringing Mystic Vale to our laptops. The digital version will have everything from the base game of Mystic Vale and it looks shiny as hell to boot.
Mystic Vale is a deck-building card game, in which players take on the role of druidic clans trying to cleanse the curse upon the land. Each turn, you play cards into your field to gain powerful advancements and useful vale cards. Use your power wisely, or decay will end your turn prematurely. Score the most victory points to win the game!
Features
Innovative Card Crafting System creates a game experience like you’ve never played before!
Beautiful artwork and graphics that bring the game to life.
Concise rules offer a deep gaming experience with meaningful decisions.
Tremendous replay value that will increase with future expansions.
The launch on Thursday will be only for the PC version of the game, but I have been told that we can expect to see Mystic Vale on mobile down the road. What platforms it will eventually show up on is still unknown with iOS/Android and Switch all being tossed about in the mix. When we find out which of those is becoming reality, we’ll let you know.
What’s the difference between Early Access and Launch?
I’ve been in since the beginning. Will I see anything different?
I’ve never really understood that part of the process.
In theory, not much. It will usually include the last update re: bugs and whatnot. Now, if you jumped into Early Access when it first came out, and then left the game (see my Slay the Spire post), then things can be drastically different.
Launch is, essentially, just when the dev thinks they have all the bug squashing and polish built in that they can take it out of beta. If you’ve been with a game in EA for a long time, then you probably won’t notice a big difference…just another patch.