There are a lot of unanswered questions about the technical side of Hearthstone, such as: Will there be cross-platform play? How long will we have to wait for an Android version?
Of course, we could patiently wait for Blizzard to give us the official answers, but we’re not the patient type at The Happy Hearthstone. Instead, we brought a programmer onto this week’s show to pick his brain about what goes on behind the scenes to make these awesome features we desperately want to become a reality for Hearthstone.
Disclaimer: Most everything discussed on this episode is pure speculation. Do not take Liam’s or my thoughts as Blizzard’s. We’re just hoping to provide an interesting perspective on the features, and give you a little context so we have a better idea of what we might expect.
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UPDATE 5/31: I’ve updated the audio of the podcast to clarify that an Android version of the game is not officially confirmed, but we still talk about it in pure speculation mode on the show. Sorry for any confusion that caused!
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The Links
- See the hero abilities
- Watch the Shaman vs Mage game
- Sign up for the beta!
- Check out Liam’s awesome Hearthstone blog!
Hello!
- Liam is on the show this week
- Topic: the technical aspect of Hearthstone features
- Reasons to be happy this week
Who is Liam?
- History with card games
- History with Blizzard games
- Programming experience
What will the UI look like?
- Hearthstone will be on PC, Mac, and iPad
- Android is unconfirmed, but we’re hopeful
- Can the same UI be used for all of them?
- How difficult it is to adjust the UI for different screen sizes
- What each platform needs
- Could we see a phone version?
How long will have to wait for an Android version?
- Other card games’ dev cycles
- Kotaku article
- Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers
- Hearthstone’s dev team size
How big will the game be, and will that compromise the Mac/PC version?
- Size available on iPads
- Size of other card games, on PC and iPad
- Still concerned?
How will multi-platform accounts work?
- Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers comparison
- Multiple purchases?
- Multiple accounts?
- Shared decks?
- Apple store restrictions
Cross-platform playing
- General lack of cross-platform play in gaming
- Hero Academy, Dungeon Defenders
- Different languages used by the OSes
- The process of porting a game to multiple devices
- Android device disparity
- WoW cross-server tech
Card of the Week
He’s not very good at juggling if the knives keep hitting people.
Farewell
- Follow Liam on Twitter
- What you want to see in future episodes
- What hosts you want to visit the show
Join The Podcast
- SUBSCRIBE to The Happy Hearthstone podcast on iTunes or this RSS feed.
- FOLLOW me on Twitter or Google+
- MEET new Hearthstone friends and discuss deck strategies and the latest game news in our Google+ Community.
- PLAY with us in Hearthstone, whenever we actually get into beta!