74/100
Players16 ratings: 82/100
Critics7 reviews

Where to get it

2016 · Counterplay Games Inc. · Board game · Card game

Duelyst

Duelyst is a competitive strategy game focused on tactical combat, squad building, and ranked ladder play. Each battle is a 1v1 match between two online opponents. Gameplay in Duelyst is turn-based, with players taking turns to play cards from their hand to cast powerful spells, equip mighty artifacts, or summon deadly minions to move and attack on the battlefield on their behalf. Each match is fast-paced (less than 10 minutes) with a simple winning objective: reduce the enemy General's health to zero before they can do so to you.

Released: 23 August 2016
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Board game Card game Indie Strategy Turn-based strategy
Developers: Counterplay Games Inc.
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Country: United States

About

Duelyst is a free and open-source digital collectible card game and turn-based strategy hybrid developed by Counterplay Games, who initially self-published the title but was later published by Bandai Namco. It had been released in an open beta period in 2015, and the full game was released on April 27, 2016. Due to declining player counts, servers for Duelyst were shut down on February 27, 2020.

On January 10, 2023, the complete source code and assets for the game were uploaded to GitHub under the CC0 license.

Keywords

turn-based
collectible card game
turn-based tactics
grid-based movement
free-to-play
crowdfunding - kickstarter
crowdfunding
heroes
card based combat
tactical turn-based combat
card collection
pax west 2016

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

In Duelyst, two players battle across a tactical battlefield, taking turns in which they play and position minions and spells, represented by cards drawn from a custom built deck, until one of the players eliminates the enemy general. There are six factions in Duelyst, each with its own unique characteristics that affect strategy and gameplay of the decks the player builds.

The game offers a practice mode, puzzle-like challenges, a ranked season ladder and a draft-style tournament mode.

Development

Duelyst development was led by Keith Lee, a former lead producer at Blizzard Entertainment, who co-founded Counterplay Games. Lee cites the Fire Emblem and Front Mission series as inspirations for the game. Duelyst was designed to accommodate short play sessions, a game lasting around ten minutes on average.

The game was part funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, raising $137,707 in April 2014. Originally intended to follow an up-front pricing model, the game switched to a free-to-play model in 2015. The developers believed that a free-to-play model would allow for ongoing updates to the game rather than relying on less regular expansion packs. The game entered open beta testing in October 2015, and was released in April 2016 on both Microsoft Windows and OS X platforms.

Reception

The game was well received and holds a rating of 82/100 on reviews aggregation website Metacritic, based on 14 reviews. Tom Marks, writing in PC Gamer, described Duelyst as his favourite card game after Hearthstone and awarded the game 84% in his review. Matt Cox, in his review for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, praised Duelyst in comparison to its competitors, adding that the game "does so much more by slapping on a whole other game to the tried and tested CCG formula".