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Manacaster

Manacaster is a strategic card battle game with infinite depth. Construct or Draft a deck, play PVP online, battle against our AI, or fine-tune your build in RPG mode. No mana-screw, no collectibles, no micro-transactions. Just streamlined, balanced old-school tabletop violence.

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Release Date:

Coming soon

Developer:

Manacaster Games

Publisher:

Manacaster Games

	Interface	Full Audio	Subtitles
English	✔

Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Early access lets us expose the game to players before we lock in all the cards and mechanics. We're lifelong card gamers and we know how much players enjoy suggesting new cards, proposing balance changes, and even developing entire fan-made formats.

Rather than sit in beta for ages, while we debate internally about whether something is "fun", Early Access lets us actually involve the players in the process of determining what's best for the game without saying "hey, this is all locked in stone."

In short, EA is what lets us have an ongoing dialog with the players about all facets of the game and allows us to quickly iterate on player feedback.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Our target is full 1.0 release before the end of calendar-year 2025, which represents an estimated EA duration of six months.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Early Access already supports drafting and constructing decks, battle live players or the automated opponent, and explore a starter version of our dungeon-crawl “RPG Mode.” Competitive ladder play is currently not live, and if/when live, will be experimental and ratings will be temporary.

In the V-1, RPG Mode should be a fully robust multi-dungeon campaign; the Automated Opponent AI should be making many fewer tactical blunders and begin to operate at a level comparable to above-average human players.

In a proper V-1 launch, our automated opponent AI should be very robust and capable of making intelligent multi-turn plans.

We are in the process of translating full interface localizations in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Vietnamese, which are scheduled to be ready for QA during the early access period.

Competitive ladders may reset between major balance patches, but collections, cosmetics, and personal stats will roll forward into 1.0, rewarding early adopters rather than wiping their progress.

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Players can already install and play Manacaster on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Steam Deck compatibility is untested but in the near-term roadmap. If you are a Steam Deck owner, try installing our free demo to test compatibility before purchasing.

All core in-game mechanics are live, the logic engine is stable, and roughly nine hundred unique cards are unlocked for both Draft and Constructed play. Players can challenge friends, open-queue, or play against the AI.

The automated opponent AI already has a basic understanding tempo, threat assessment, and basic bluff lines, though it still makes some odd or sub-optimal choices. The current AI is fun and challenging to play against, and we anticipate a steady improvement in its gameplay abilities throughout the EA.

Known issues are tracked in a public discussion board; currently, most reported and outstanding issues are small problems related to edge cases, not program-killing crashes. ”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The game's price to new players will increase at V-1 launch. EA players won't be affected by this price increase. ”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We treat players as co-designers. Players are already submitting feedback reports about things they'd like to change about the game, and many of these end up becoming core features.

Players have also requested cards to be created, for example to support a specific type of play style, and many of these suggestions can be seen live in-game already!

The community often proposes the nerfs or buffs we implement.

Every bug report or balance issue that appears on the Steam forums, Discord, Twitter, or the in-game reporter is fed into our issue tracker, and we operate a continuous deployment pipeline, meaning that single-issue fixes can go live almost immediately, instead of waiting week(s) for mega-patches.

When our analytics show a card, strategy, or mechanic out of statistical line, we usually publish our research numbers and invite public debate on whether it is a true problem or a player skill issue.
”

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About This Game

"I can say this already looks incredible. Very cool. Very interesting.”

> BrettMan, SPIEL Essen Livestream Host

"One of the most balanced strategy games I’ve ever played."

> Thunderstruck, Clash Royale world champion

"True to its roots as a classic battler, yet retains its own distinct style and identity."

> PowerLaws, Legend‑Ranked Hearthstone Player

Manacaster is a strategic card battle game with infinite depth. Construct or Draft a deck, play PVP online, battle against our AI, or fine-tune your build in RPG mode. No mana-screw, no collectibles, no micro-transactions. Just streamlined, balanced old-school tabletop violence.

Manacaster was designed and optimized for balanced, streamlined gameplay. Our objective as designers was to build a system that rewards intelligent strategy & and clever tactics, not good luck. There are game modes for the casual, the competitive, and the solo enthusiast, all of which benefit from being well-balanced at their core.

Balanced Gameplay = Brilliant Victories: The Power and Mana Cost of every single card and ability in Manacaster is carefully calibrated according to a strict mathematical algorithm, leading to intense battles that keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you demanding a rematch.

The Depth is in the Details: The rules and keywords in Manacaster are as simple as possible, but don't mistake simple for shallow. Once you start chaining together keywords like Rally, Focus, Twinstrike and Heavy, you'll realize that this game is anything but simple, and soon enough you'll be opening up the deck builder to try constructing your own.

To ensure player skill is always rewarded more than luck, we've made some changes to the typical card-battle rulesets. Every rule exists to minimize ( but not eliminate! ) randomness in situations where it's just more fun to give the players choice and agency!

Standalone Mana Deck: Players get to pick their mana card each turn. Single-color mana cards can be used right away. Dual-color mana enter tapped unless you pay 1 life. Triple-color mana enter tapped unless you pay 2 life. Build your mana deck before the game and enjoy deploying your Units and Actions on-curve.

Life Points as Resources: As you see above, life points are spent ( and gained ) like a resource. Paying life helps unlock special abilities and can reduce the mana cost of Action cards. Risk...reward...

Opening Hand Draft ( aka Mulligan System ): You are given 14 cards from your 50-card deck from which you must compose your opening hand of 7 cards, but here's the neat part; you don't have to keep any of them, and you can cheat by keeping 8! No more mulligan'ing to oblivion. You'll always start with at least 7 cards in hand, every game, no matter what.

Manacaster has a variety of game modes that allow players to enjoy the game in whatever format they find most comfortable. Some players love the thrill of outplaying a live human opponent, while others prefer to enjoy solo campaign modes. Here are some of the modes you can play in Manacaster, all of which have "Versus AI" and "Versus Live Human" options.

Constructed Mode: Select 50 Units and/or Actions, 13 Mana, and battle! The typical "build-then-battle" mode where each player brings the deck of their choice. Competitive players can test their skill in ranked ladder mode.

Draft Mode: Build your deck card-by-card while denying your opponent what they need to build theirs! A cleverly modified snake-draft pick sequence keeps tensions high, and you can "Burn" cards to spite your opponent and get a random reward. Supports ladder mode.

RPG Mode: If you're like some of us here at the Manacaster company HQ, you love fine-tuning a build down to the card and life-point. In RPG mode, you'll work through a series of elementally-themed dungeons, each with their own unique encounters and loot. RPG Mode introduces over 250 "Items" which are won in dungeon battles.

RPG PVP: Once you've dungeon-dived for some good equipment, go battle other players in "RPG PVP Mode", where you should prepare yourself to face the most powerful monsters in the whole Manacaster system. Demolish each other with Legendary and Unique equipment, which break fundamental rules of the game while they break your opponent. Non-ladder only for now.

Manacaster might be your next favorite game, but you'll never know until you try it. Go install the our free demo to make sure it runs on your device, step thru the tutorial, and if you like what you see, you can go ahead and buy the full game. The tutorial has no time limit nor usage limit, so you can play as much as you wish before buying.

If you already know that Manacaster is your kind of game, that big green "Buy" button is ready for you.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Our artists use the best AI tools they can find to create the illustrations you see here. Producing over a thousand unique pieces takes a blend of human creativity and machine assistance—AI is simply another tool in the artist’s kit.

System Requirements

Windows

macOS

SteamOS + Linux

Minimum:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10
Processor: i3
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: IGP
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 8 GB available space

Recommended:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 8 GB available space

Minimum:

Processor: Both
Memory: 2048 MB RAM
Graphics: IGP
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 3000 MB available space

Recommended:

Minimum:

Processor: x64
Memory: 2048 MB RAM
Graphics: IGP
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 3000 MB available space

Recommended:

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