Following the success of Ambal Tournament strategy card game, a physical game funded on Kickstarter earlier this year and praised for its innovative gameplay and unique art style, Fragcolor is now bringing the Ambal experience to the digital realm under Ambal Duels.
Ambal is set in a high fantasy spiritual world. The land of Ambal is almost utopic, with the human civilizations living in harmony and learning to respect and care for the world around them. The different races bring their unique points of view and flavor to the table, representing the complexity of sharing the world with others. Thanks to the simultaneous rounds system, the fast-paced and strategic combat paired with the freedom to customize offers a fresh take to the card game genre. The rules can be taught in just a couple of minutes, allowing anyone to jump in and have fun. Meanwhile, the skill ceiling is quite high, providing a lot of content for seasoned or professional gamers to sink their teeth in.
What makes Ambal unique
Unlike most card games, Ambal Duels doesn’t have monster or summon cards. Every card in the game is a skill (like a spell or action), putting the player in the center of action. Another particular characteristic is that no duplicates are allowed in a deck, prompting players to be creative when building their strategy.
The heart of the game are the skills and each one belongs to one School of Knowledge. Ambal Duels will start out with four of these schools: Sword Path, Assassination Path, Fire Magic and Water Magic. As you can see, some schools focus on magic while others focus on physical actions. More Schools of Knowledge will be released in the future, offering new archetypes and mechanics for players to explore.
Rather than relying on luck or having to wait for your opponent’s turn to finish, the objective is to give the sense of real time battle where players can take advantage of situations and outsmart their opponents. The interaction comes from the simultaneous round system, in which players use skills at the same time. The strategy comes from how players use their skills and how well they can create synergies.
There’s always a decision to be made in Ambal Duels and your opponent’s strategy matters as much as yours. Players pick which skill they want to use at the same time, then both cards are revealed together and their effects are resolved. At that moment a player might block an attack, interrupt a powerful spell or damage the opponent.
To push the strategy even further, players can continue building their decks during the game. At the end of each round, there is an opportunity to add cards from your Library Deck to your Battle Deck, allowing the player to adapt to what’s happening on the battlefield. This ensures that two games are never the same, with players being able to explore different strategies on the go and counter their opponent (or prevent being countered).
A RPG inspired card game
This project was born from my love of online RPGs and strategy games, and how to bring mechanics from these games together. Ambal’s goal is to emulate the feeling of creating builds in RPGs and testing different skills, being at the centre of action and preparing to adapt and evolve during the game. Finding the schools that represent you the best, understanding their skills and creating your own strategies is what will move players.
We are constantly doing world-building and developing the lore of Ambal. This will allow us to expand the game with expansions and possibly a RPG in the future.
Will you be a master of Curses, hindering your opponent and taking their life away slowly? An aggressive spell caster specialized in Fire and Assassination skills? There are numerous possibilities and even more will become available with the release of new sets, introducing new skills and Schools of Knowledge. There is no card rarity, every skill has been balanced and tested so they feel powerful, unique and satisfying to use.
Our aim is to make Ambal feel even more like an RPG by adding character parts. These parts, like Classes and Runes, will allow players to build a character that will be used in battle. Further increasing the options for customization. Players will collect character parts just like they collect cards, and can even trade them.
In our next blog about Ambal Duels we will cover the role Fragcolor technology plays in creating the digital version. Until then, stay tuned for more updates - we have a few surprises coming for the community!
