What kind of game is Stellarch? / Stellarchってどんなゲームなの？

[English]

A new game's Closed Alpha test started on Friday. It's called Stellarch.

Lately, it feels like the HIVE gaming scene hasn't had much momentum, so I'm really hoping this game finds its footing and becomes a hit.

Since it's still in Closed Alpha, there's no telling how it will evolve. But getting familiar with it now might pay off if it really takes off in the future.

I'm not even sure where to start introducing it, so for now, here's the official announcement:
Closed Alpha Opens Friday: The Complete State of Stellarch

So, let's take a look at the game.

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Is this the Ranked Battle screen?

Honestly... I have no idea. 😂

That said, to be completely honest, the game appears to be heavily inspired by Splinterlands. If you've played Splinterlands before, you'll probably have a rough idea of what you're supposed to do. The interface doesn't look particularly similar, though, so it'll still take some getting used to.

As you can see, there are three different tokens, just like in Splinterlands.

SGC seems to be Stellarch's equivalent of DEC, STEL appears to fill the role of SPS, and KRED looks like it's their version of Credits.

This isn't particularly important right now, but I imagine these tokens will eventually be used as battle rewards and staking rewards.

One thing I'm curious about is how they'll balance the economy. If battles rewarded STEL from day one, wouldn't there be a shortage of SGC on the market? It'll be interesting to see how they handle that.

There's one extra element compared to Splinterlands.

WIND doesn't exist in Splinterlands, and DIVINE seems to take the place of DRAGON.

I wonder why they decided to add another element.

Was it simply to increase the number of cards? Or to create more elemental matchups and strategic depth?

It's hard to say how much impact it'll have, but I don't think it'll completely change the overall strategy. In the end, I suspect the strongest summoners will still determine which elements become the most popular.

Most of the abilities also seem to follow the same design philosophy as Splinterlands. The names are different, but if you're already familiar with Splinterlands, they should be easy enough to learn.

That said, there are also a few abilities that don't exist in Splinterlands.

This one, for example.

There's nothing quite like it in Splinterlands.

From what I understand, it says something like:

"If this unit deals Health damage with a melee attack, it destroys the target... but also destroys itself."

It sounds incredibly powerful, but sacrificing yourself every time might make it difficult to use effectively.

Here's another unusual ability.

It says the attack type changes at the start of battle...

But does it only change once at the beginning of the match, or does it change every round?

I'm not really sure.

The biggest difference from Splinterlands might actually be the summoners.

At first, I expected something similar to Splinterlands—one Rare summoner and one Legendary summoner for each element.

Instead, there are Common, Rare, and Legendary summoners, and each rarity has a different number of cards.

On top of that, there are a surprising number of summoners that grant +1 Health.

There are also plenty that give +1 or -1 Magic Attack or +1 or -1 Speed.

Balancing all of those is going to be quite a challenge.

This one looks really strong.

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There are plenty of differences, but there's no doubt that Stellarch is a card game built on many of the same ideas as Splinterlands.

The big question is whether it'll remain "just another similar game," or whether it'll develop its own identity and become genuinely popular.

If it's only a Splinterlands clone, I don't think it'll generate much excitement.

Well... unless they flood players with tokens, prices shoot up, and everyone starts saying, "You can actually make money here!" In that case, we might see another bubble.

Personally, I'd love to see Stellarch evolve into something unique that helps grow the entire HIVE ecosystem.

If you're already a Splinterlands player, you'll probably adapt to Stellarch pretty quickly. So it might be worth learning the game now. If Stellarch eventually becomes a huge success, you'll already have experience while everyone else is still trying to figure things out.

It's still in Closed Alpha today, but I'm sure Closed Beta and Open Beta will follow in the future.

So it's definitely a game worth keeping an eye on!

[日本語]

金曜日に新しいゲームの Closed Alpha テストが開始されました。名前は Stellarch です。最近、HIVEのゲームがいまいち元気がない感じなのでこのゲームがうまくハマって人気が出てくれたらいいんだけど...

まだ Closed Alpha なのでどのように進化するかはわかりませんが、今のうちに調べて手を付けておくと今後飛躍するかもしれませんね。

どこを紹介したらいいかわからないのでとりあえず以下を紹介
Closed Alpha Opens Friday: The Complete State of Stellarch

そういうわけでゲームを見てみましょうかね。

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ランクバトルのページ？さっぱりわかりません。でもまぁ、ぶっちゃけて言うと。おそらく Splinterlands をベースに作られているので、これを知っていればなんとなく何をすればいいかわかるかもしれません。でも、画面の作りはあまり似ていないので慣れる必要はありますね。

このようにトークンも3種類。これも Splinterlands に似てる。

SGC は Splinterlands で言えば DECですね。同様に STEL がSPS でKRED が Credits に当たると思われます。

今はあまり関係ないんですけど、将来的にはこの辺のトークンがバトル報酬やステーキング報酬で貰えるんでしょうね。でも、最初からバトル報酬が STEL だったら市場に SGC が不足してしまうのでその辺りをどうやって解決するかちょっと気になりますね。

エレメントは1個増えてますね。WIND はSplinterlands には存在しない属性です。あと DIVINE は DRAGONですね。

なんで1つ増やしたんだろう？カード数を増やすため？得意不得意の相性を増やすため？この辺はどう影響するかわからないんですが戦略はあまり変わらないでしょう。結局、強力なサモナーに引っ張られる感じで有利属性が決まる感じ。

アビリティも基本的には Splinterlands 準拠です。アビリティ名は違いますが能力的には似てるので知識があれば覚えやすそうです。
でも一部は Splinterlands に存在しない変わったアビリティもあります。

これなんかはSplinterlands にはないですね。「近接攻撃で Health にダメージを与えた場合、ターゲットを破壊して自分も死ぬ。」って感じですか？強そうだけど自分も死ぬなら使いにくいかもしれん。

これはまた変なアビリティやね。「戦闘開始時に攻撃タイプが変わる」って書いてあるけど、毎ラウンド変わるのかな？それともバトル開始時だけ？わからん。

一番 Splinterlands との差を感じるのはサモナーですかね？Rareが各種1枚、Legendaryが各種1枚とかになるかと思いきや。

Common、Rare、Legendary にそれぞれサモナーがあるうえ、枚数に差があるね。しかも Health+1 が付いているサモナーがやたら多い。さらに、魔法攻撃やスピードが +1、-1 付いてるサモナーも結構な数がある。これは調整が大変そうだねぇ。

強そう。

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いろいろと違いがあるけど、Splinterlands と同じようなカードゲームなのは間違いないですね。このまま似ているだけのゲームになるか独自性が出て人気が出るか。

似ているだけのゲームになっちゃうと、あまり盛り上がらないような気がする。いやまぁ、トークンいっぱい配って値段が上がって "稼げる" ってなったらバブルかもしれないけどね。

でも、独自性がある進化をしてHIVE全体を盛り上げるようなゲームになれば嬉しいな。Splinterlands のプレイヤーはこのゲームの慣れるのは楽だと思うので今のうちから慣れておけばいつか Stellarch が大人気になったときに慣れていない人より有利に立ち回れると思うので調べてみるのもいいんじゃないかな？

今は Closed Alpha だけど、今後 Close Beta や Open Beta があるだろうし、情報をチェックしておこうねー