Inside Astral Heroes

Review Fix chats with Alexey Stankevich, Programmer and Game Designer for the PC and Steam Strategy Card Game, “Astral Heroes.” Breaking down the development process and goals for the title, Stankevich lets us know exactly why you should give the free-to-play game a whirl.

Review Fix: What has the development process been like?

Alexey Stankevich: T development process started in 2012 and a significant part of the development process was experimenting with gameplay. We add different features to the game prototype and did a lot of playtesting, to check if each feature was good or not.

Review Fix: What games did you play as a kid, how did it influence this one?

Stankevich: Civilization. I was a very devoted fan of it. Civilization did not influence Astral Heroes directly, but Civilization influenced the fact that I became a game developer.

Review Fix: What other games is it inspired by?

Stankevich: Initially it was inspired by our previous games, “Spectromancer” and “Astral Masters”. But later, in the middle of the development process, Hearthstone was released by Blizzard and it made an influence too. For example, we made our mana system more similar to Hearthstone, to make the game more understandable for Hearthstone players.

Review Fix: What do you think makes this game special?

Stankevich: At this moment we have no mobile version, our game is PC only now. But of course we will make iOS and Android versions in future.

We also have campaign, additional alternative game modes (random decks, draft tournaments), guilds (will be implemented soon). 

Our game is more hardcore,too. The cards are little more complicated. For example, each creature in the game has its own unique ability. And in our game, the result of a battle is less luck-dependent and more skill-dependent, comparing it to other card games.

Also there is no “card rarity” in our game, as result the game is less “pay to win” and more players friendly.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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