Cardboard heroes: Card Hunter goes live

I’ve championed Card Hunter a fair bit over the past few months, for one big reason: it’s really damn good. And now it’s out, so you can play it right now. Play it.

Card Hunter is a beautifully designed browser-based free-to-play game, which plays out sort of like a turn-based tactical RPG… except that each of your characters has a deck of cards, and which cards you draw determines what actions they can take that turn. It is really, really good. Play it.

It’s developed by Blue Manchu Games (a new studio headed up by former Looking Glass/Irrational Games man Jon Chey, who you may remember from things like System Shock 2 and BioShock) with Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield having helped out. Play it.

It’s free-to-play, so you can jump on right now (and I can attest that it’s very playable without spending any cash), or you can pay for a $25 “Basic Edition” which offers a load of extra figures, all nine Treasure Hunt adventures, 100 slices of Pizza (the in-game currency), and a month’s Card Hunter Club membership that offers bonus items for every adventure you undertake. Play it.

What I’m saying is that you should really give it a go, even if you’re wary of games that have “free-to-play”, “browser-based”, or “card game” in their descriptions. You can do so here. (Play it.)