Players have been requesting heavy changes to the current Wild system for quite some time now. A lot of the suggestions involve altering many of the fundamental aspects of what makes Scrolls feel unique – a feeling that we don’t want to lose. We think we’ve found a way to maintain the current flavor of the Scrolls resource system while giving it an interesting overhaul. Read on to see what we’ve come up with.*

*disclaimer, this was posted on April Fool’s Day, 2015. You shouldn’t read any farther than this point.

A wild solution

In short, we are adding the Wild resource to our Store. That’s right, we plan on allowing players to purchase Wild in game at the cost of gold or shards. This will maintain our design goals of allowing players to purchase anything in game without having to spend real money on shards.

How exactly will this work?

There will be two ways for you to purchase Wild.

The first method will involve you visiting the Store as you would normally to purchase scrolls or scroll packs. You will find a new area in the interface that will allow you to pre-purchase Wild for use in games. For balance reasons, you may not possess more than five Wild points at any given time.

The second method will be through utilizing a convenient popup dialogue that will appear during a live match when you attempt to play a scroll that you do not have enough resources to use. We plan on allowing players to purchase only up to three Wild per turn until we have further tested this system.

How will I use the Wild once I’ve purchased it?

You may use your purchased Wild as you would any other resource. Your current amount of purchased Wild will appear in your resource list in games. Once you use a Wild that you have purchased, it will be gone forever. In this way, we can limit the amount of Wild that players will be using from game to game. We believe this will prevent revisiting some of the “unfun” gameplay scenarios we’ve countered with Wild in the past.

To differentiate between your purchased Wild and the normal Wild you sacrifice for currently, we will be introducing a new resource icon so as not to confuse the player.

We are slightly concerned with how to go about informing new players about this system without overwhelming them, so we will also be adding a new tutorial that demonstrates how to purchase Wild in game. This tutorial will be mandatory and must be completed before the player can proceed to any other game mode. Once the player has purchased up to their maximum of five Wild, they will complete the tutorial and receive an achievement.

Purchasable Interface Content

While the Wild changes will serve to improve the game in the broader sense, our ongoing mission to improve the small things in the user interface will soon be taken to the next level in the form of purchasable content within the store.

In addition to purchasable preconstructed decks, avatar parts, and custom idols – we are happy to reveal the newest section of our in-game store: Interface Improvements.

The first of these purchasable improvements will satisfy a long-time request for players to be able to view their current deck in Judgement mode. After purchasing “Judgement Deck Display,” not only will the player be able to view their Judgement deck – but they will also have the option to swap in five scrolls from their own personal collection. While this will provide a slight advantage to those players who purchase this feature, we think it is fitting to reward those who have earned enough gold or shards and deserve the helping hand.

Additional planned interface improvements for sale in the future:

Double the Yellow:

Increased intensity of yellow aura to enchanted units in order to improve effect visibility. Now “twice as yellow.”

Increased intensity of yellow aura to enchanted units in order to improve effect visibility. Now “twice as yellow.” More Control:

Purchasing this will allow the Ctrl key to toggle the entire game display from normal to completely black. While completely blackened, you can still interact with the game if you remember where everything is. This is intended as a “panic button” if playing the game at work while your boss approaches. We intend to introduce this feature as a promotion for new players and have it enabled on all new accounts by default. Other keys that will activate this feature: Alt, Space, F1, Tab, 1 through 0, Shift, and the Right Mouse Button.

Purchasing this will allow the Ctrl key to toggle the entire game display from normal to completely black. While completely blackened, you can still interact with the game if you remember where everything is. This is intended as a “panic button” if playing the game at work while your boss approaches. We intend to introduce this feature as a promotion for new players and have it enabled on all new accounts by default. Other keys that will activate this feature: Alt, Space, F1, Tab, 1 through 0, Shift, and the Right Mouse Button. Slower animations:

A lot of players have expressed their appreciation for the animations in Scrolls, so we wanted to give them an option to have even more of a window of opportunity to enjoy them. After purchasing this upgrade, all animations in the game are slowed by half, including for spells like Necrogeddon and Monstrous Brood. Don’t worry – only ONE player in a game will have to possess this upgrade in order for it to affect both players.

Please understand that this is only the beginning of what we have planned to add to this new section of the store. If you have any more ideas on additional features or general feedback on what we have planned – please send an email to SeeMeScrollin@scrolls.com.

Thanks!

-Gary (@Atmaz)