Development Thread - (11/15/16)

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the first Magic the Gathering: Puzzle Quest Development Thread! We've been busy working on upcoming releases - which means we haven't had a lot of time to chat with the community. To give you an idea where the game is headed, and answer some frequently asked questions, we’re going to start posting Development Threads when we get a chance.

First off, we’d like to thank everyone for the feedback - keep it coming! You’re an awesome community and we’re lucky to have such wonderful fans. While we haven’t had time to respond to every thread, let me assure you that the team actively follows the discussion. Your feedback is a huge help.

Without further adieu, let’s talk about Magic the Gathering: Puzzle Quest!

What’s up next for Magic the Gathering: Puzzle Quest?

We’re working on a few long-term features based on community feedback. They’re not at the point where we can share many details - but hopefully we can say more soon! In the short term, we’re working on refining Events, fixing bugs, improving the game’s stability, and improving the layout of in-game screens and menus. And of course, we’re always working on getting the next card set and Planeswalkers ready.

What’s up next for Events?

The community feedback on Events has been awesome. For competitive events, we want to move towards shorter Events with fewer matches and improved optional objectives. We also want to release more PvE Events with hand-crafted opponents. In the long-term, we want a larger variety of Events. There have been a lot of great suggestions from the community!

What’s with the new design for the Event’s Rewards menu?

We’re transitioning to a new in-game layout. To ensure a smooth transition, we’re releasing small parts of the new layout with each update. Expect to see more changes soon!

The newest releases didn’t have new Story Mode encounters. Why?

Story Mode encounters are great for new players; however, for our long-term fans we want to focus on Events. By focusing on Events we can provide interesting challenges that don’t necessarily fit in the Story Mode format. As mentioned above, we’re working on more PvE Events.

Please let me save multiple decks for each of my planeswalkers!

This is something the team has wanted to add to the game for a long time. We’re currently working on some interesting ideas for this, but the feature is still very early on in development.

Maintenance takes a long time. Please speed it up!

We’re working on it! Over the next few weeks and months, updates should get a lot smoother with less downtime. We’re also actively upgrading our servers over here to reduce unexpected downtime. In the meantime, thank you for your patience!

Animation speeds have changed in the last few updates. How come?

We’ve been working on reducing unnecessary wait times in matches. In October, we increased the speed for a number of animations. We also increased how fast the gems fell - but many players found this disorienting, so we dialed it back. We’re still trying to find the ideal balance - and we’re still looking for other ways to speed up matches. Keep up the great feedback!

Why don’t you give more details about…?

We don’t want to keep the game’s development a secret - but we also don’t want to make promises that we later have to break. Game development is a dynamic process; our understanding of the game is constantly changing and evolving - so our priorities can occasionally shift. Other times we find that a new feature doesn’t work as well as we had hoped it would, so it doesn’t end up making it into the game. We try our best not to announce something until we’re certain we can deliver on it. (Also, sometimes a surprise or two is nice - we’ve got a few planned for the game’s one-year anniversary in December!)

Thanks again for your support and keep the feedback coming. There are a lot of great ideas and questions that we haven’t had time to address - so stay tuned for upcoming Development Threads. In the meantime, thank you for playing Magic: the Gathering - Puzzle Quest!