Ever thought that it would be great to have your favorite trading card game (TCG) come to life and fight beside you?
Well franchises like “Pokemon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh” have been inspiring these fantasies for years with their video games and animated television shows. Now, the French based game company Peoleo Entertainment hopes to take it to the next level utilizing altered reality technology with their game Drakerz.
While Drakerz is a TCG at the core, the game is designed from the ground up to be an interactive experience used on the computer in conjunction with a webcam. Players actually do have physical cards that literally come “alive” on the screen in action duels and fights Benoit Coupez, CEO of Peoleo Entertainment, explains, “Thanks to augmented reality, we can go a little further than a traditional TCG. For example, we are using the invocation map to move a character, like a war game without removing the tape,” and added, “Similarly, we can introduce a few more variables of the game with different points and gauges (life, mana, weapons, armor) because it is the computer that calculates everything. Paper and pencil are no longer helpful to remember.”
Peoleo has released a Kickstarter to aid the development of Drakerz in the hopes that the community will show its support for the innovative game. Many Veteran TCG players may be relieved to know that the company has considered some of the more frustrating aspects to competitive play such as cheating but explains that in the case of Drakerz, “An unstoppable, anti-cheating system is set up: you have to declare what deck you play at the beginning of the game, and it is the computer that tells you the card you draw during your turn,”
While the game does require a newer computer (no more than two years old), it does have mechanics to play like a normal card game by using pegs and hexagons. Coupez also went into detail about why his company decided to focus so much on the augmented reality aspect which in turn makes it less accessible, “The greatest obstacle was not creating a traditional video game.” Coupez went on to explain, “Every time we said it would be easier to do it with the mouse or keyboard, we avoided the idea. We really wanted to use the cards as a gaming device and not just as a medium that is stored in a closet.”
With altered or augmented reality technology being utilized more and more in today’s environment it is perhaps not surprising to see a game like this appear. Now it is simply up to the players to decide whether or not they want to utilize the newest advancements in gaming, stick with the classics, or go for a bit of both.
Jesse has been writing video game related articles and interviewing industry professionals for almost 3 years and strives to become a professional nerd.
