14 DAY TRIAL // The team at Blizzard working on the new card game Hearthstone says that the small development group working on the title is one of the reasons for its quality, because it allows developers to interact and discuss mechanics before implementing them.
Hearthstone was initially a very small project, and new members were only added to the group when they were needed, which allowed the title to grow organically, following the best ideas that they were able to come up with.
Eric Dodds, who has previous experience working on both World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, tells Gamasutra that at the moment Hearthstone is being created by about 20 people. That makes the team smaller than those working on either of the two other big titles from Blizzard, at the same stage during the lives of the products.
He explains that, “We’re all in the same design pit, and so when I’m arguing with someone about a point of design, pretty much everyone else on the team can hear it. And if someone has an opinion, they come right over and get involved.”
The small size of the Hearthstone team also means that most of those working on the game are at the same time designers, artists and programmers.
Dodds believes that the lessons he has learned while working on the new Blizzard title can be applied to a number of other titles that could benefit from a small team size.
He adds, “I’m an avid board gamer, I play role-playing games, and all kinds of different games, and a lot of what we learned are just general game design maxims that worked out well not just for Hearthstone, but for all types of games.”
Hearthstone is based on core card game mechanics, allowing players to choose a class and then unlock, collect and manage a deck of cards in order to beat their opponents.
The entire experience is free to play but there are ways for players to simply use real world money in order to unlock more cards, even if that does not automatically translate to any sort of competitive advantage.
The game is still considered to be in beta state as the developers look at the feedback coming from the community in order to decide which mechanics need to be revised.
Blizzard has said that it has long-term plans for Hearthstone, which could become one of the main franchises of the company.