Jeff's mention of Fable Fortune on yesterday's Bombcast reminded me I had downloaded this a few weeks ago when it came out of the Game Preview program on Xbox and became free to play. I've spent a little time with it and I like what I see so far. Disclaimer: These opinions come after playing the three tutorial matches, two training matches, and one real Vs match. It's early, but I'm intrigued.

It feels reductive to compare digital CCGs to Hearthstone, but...it's got a lot in common with Hearthstone with some intriguing differences. "Mana" is replaced by "Gold" as the resource you use to cast spells and summon minions, and you start with 3 Gold in each game instead of one, a la Hearthstone. Minions have separate strength and health values as is standard (to me) since Magic, with the Hearthstone mechanic of damage being permanent as opposed to healed at the end of turn.

Your deck is made up of cards from a chosen class (Shapeshifter, Knight, Merchant, Alchemist, etc) and neutrals. Each class has a unique hero power that can be used once per turn for two gold. Where this gets interesting is that there's also a Quest system that interacts with your hero power. At the start of a match, you choose a quest - some examples Iv'e seen are "Spend 18 gold," "Cast 3 Spells that cost more than 0 Gold" or "Summon three minions with Strength greater than Health." Copleting these in the match earns you the right to modify your hero power in one of two ways. Here's an example:

I was playing a class that's base hero power was to summon a 1/1 skeleton that had their equivalent of charge/haste, but it died at the end of my turn. Upon completing my quest, I got to morph it into either summon that PLUS a 1/1 skeleton without haste and neither died at the end of turn, or to summon one 2/1 skeleton with haste that still died at EOT. After you complete a quest, you choose another one, and upon completing that can choose to switch to the other upgraded version of your power. Each one has a light/dark side connotation, and choosing earns you a point of "Morality" for that side. I've seen a few cards that then take your Morality into consideration upon summoning, but need to get more familiar with the mechanic and how it can be used.

Another difference from Hearthstone/Magic/Elder Scrolls Legends is in attaching and blocking. Like Hearthstone, the attacking player chooses if his minions attack the opponent or the opponent's minions. There's no opportunity to block an attack to your face, except each player can pay 1 gold per turn to give one of their minions "Block" (I think they call it Block, I'm still trying to keep terms straight from various CCGs), which functions as Hearthstone's Taunt. This means before you can attack your opponent's face, you have to get the Blocking card off the board. It's an interesting idea and adds a bit of resource management and strategy into your attacking and defending decisions.

Two negatives I've encountered in my very brief time with the game: the first ranked match I tried to get into matched me with an opponent. Then refused to load. I could emote (again, Hearthstone style canned lines from clicking on your hero) but no cards were drawn. The other player finally conceded and I had my first ever ranked win! I know it counted - more on that in a bit. Also, I think I had a card interaction borked. I had a spell to deal three damage to a minion, with a keyword of "Eulogy," meaning it had a second effect if a card died. My opponent had two minions on board - one with three health and one with 1. Seemed perfect - I killed the 3 health one with the spell expecting the effect to trigger and kill the other one, but it...didn't. Nothing happened. This may be user error and not understanding something, which would make it a plain old misplay.

Finally, there seems to be some decent meta-progression. Playing one real Vs match, along with the forfeiture I mentioned earlier earned me 6 "Medals," and 5 is the threshold needed to move up a rank on the competitive ladder at the begging stages. Doing so earned me some Silver, the in game currency used to buy packs. I also completed two of my five Daily Bounties, which each rewarded me with 400 Silver. Individual packs cost 1k Silver. I also earned ten packs for completing the tutorial, and earned two as rewards elsewhere - I think for playing ranked and moving up a ladder spot. In addition to standard and hard mode training options, there are Hero Story single player missions I haven't looked at at all. Those are probably next on my to do list. The Microsoft Play Anywhere stuff worked fine - I did the tutorial and training match or two last night on my Xbox and played my two ranked matches this morning on PC; as soon as I launched the game it recognized me and had my unopened packs there on my account.

Anyone else playing? Anyone want to try Coop -another mode I haven't looked at yet?