Shardbound is a tactical collectible card game, mixed with turn-based boardgame strategy gameplay. Shardbound was developed by Spiritwalk Games, and they currently have a Kickstarter campaign going on to seek funds to finish the game and add in additional features.

Shardbound is designed to connect Twitch streamers to be able to play and interact more with their followers. The rules are simple, you can choose from with Six different factions and pick your main Hero as well as a deck of cards, you use the cards to summon monsters onto the board and you can give them commands to navigate around the hexagonal shaped spaces to move over to the enemy side of the board. The objective is to fight off enemy card monsters until you can reach the enemy Hero and slay them to win the game. Easy, right?

If you are familiar with Final Fantasy Tactics you may be familiar with Shardbound’s combat gameplay. However, that is where the similarities end. Shardbound’s lore takes place with the survivors of an ancient civilization living on the floating islands that hover above the core of their gaseous planet. You play as a Ranger, a hunter that travels from one Island Shard to the next to stake your claim for the land as you rebuild your home and create a new striving civilization.

YouTube channel Shardbound Showcase, has put together a series of videos to introduce the game and all of its features, while also showing off some gameplay so that you can see how the battles take place. Take a look at the gameplay videos linked below.

Players will be able to build a House, which is pretty much a guild. From there, you and your other House Mates will be able to work together to complete cooperative missions together under the same banner. Shardfalls are special questing PVE quests, you summon a Shard island that you can travel to and from there you can make your way across the Shardfall to complete several different challenges, with your Housemates assisting you to gain special rewards. So it looks like you will be able to play against other players in PVP, or work together in PVE.

Does it have tag-team PVP matches with multiple players fighting and working together? I’m not sure yet because the game is still in Alpha testing, but it would be really awesome if they take that route.

For me, this sounds like an amazing concept because one of the biggest problems I had with Gwent was the lack of strategy and player interaction, and it looks like Shardbound is doing something pretty different from other CCG titles.

So how does Twitch and streaming fit into this? Well, I’ll let the developers answer that from the quote I grabbed from their official website–

“Built to Stream

When a Twitch Streamer goes Shardbound, anyone watching them can join the fight, completing their own matches under the Streamer’s banner. Such an alliance can clear Shards quickly, giving everybody involved a greater share of loot.”

Shardbound currently has about ten days left for their Kickstarter campaign, so if you would like to support the developers and learn more about how the game works, you can follow the provided link for further details.