Am I able to build an app slightly similar to Hearthstone myself?

The title of the thread doesn't completely cover what I'd like to ask so I'll explain it further below.

I am a developer at a company called Maguss. We are building a mobile game that works only with a connection to a physical device (magic wand).

The purpose of the game is to let players have wizard duels with a use of the handheld wand that tracks motions and transmits it to the mobile app which is then communicating to server etc. Just like a Harry Potter duel without any special effects.

We want to implement various in-game items, skills, team battles, custom interactive design etc. Might be a little similar to Hearthstone, gameplay wise (not very much, just want you to be able to imagine what kind of game it is going to be).

I wonder what is such game type called so I can find some tutorials. Since it's not standard 3D game, I have no idea.

I also would like to know whether you think such game should be built in native Android/iOS and avoid battery drain that comes with using the engine or if you strongly suggest using the Unity3D engine. (Also please take into consideration that I am Java developer and I would have to learn Unity, which I would love to ...)

Just to give you an idea about our design, see here: https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...1579_719958118135982_736597666367853997_o.jpg

Thank you for any ideas and suggestions.

 

With an engine you save a lot of work when working with multiple platforms and have full feature set available for you. Hearthstone is also made with Unity.

You probably are looking for trading card game tutorials to get started even if your game is not exactly like one.

 

yes, you should probably use a game engine, unless you really enjoy wasting few months of your time reinventing the wheel.

In case of card game (of all things) you don't have any reason to roll custom tech.

 

Sure why not

 

Well, that depends a great deal more on you than anything else. And as it stands, you probably know a whole lot more about you than the internet does. I would try reversing the question... Are you able to build an app slightly similar to Hearthstone yourself?

 

It depends, if you are only going to have a simple set of graphics and UI elements then going with a game engine could be overkill you could probably write a lighter app using a default mobile development kit.

But if you want animations, sfx, 3d animated models, Augmented Reality then definitely go with a game engine.

 

It's pretty much always a dumb move to roll your own engine. Last time I did it was in 2010.

 

In a production setting, yeah. But creating your own engine opens up many areas of expertise and knowledge that can help you better understand Unity. These topics are usually overlooked while using an engine and is hard to conceptualize inside Unity unless you have prior knowledge(like rolling your own engine).

Edit: You also begin to sympathize more with UT.

 

How does that interface with the picture you linked? I'm always interested in extra peripherals for games but how does the wand fit in?

 

Modern 2D is almost the same as 3D. You simply set the camera to orthographic and treat the Z axis as a way of determining the draw order of the sprites.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magusswand/maguss-wand-prepare-to-be-spellbound

 

Isn't there also layering?

 

So you pick some cards before hand, then swish and flick in order to leviosaaa?

Eh, I believe motion tracking peripherals should be more general than that wand you linked. Why not have a little tracker and then just stick it onto your favorite stick? Speaking of which, I just switched my sixense order to be 2 general trackers instead of controllers so I could stick them onto random things that seem more appropriate than vive controllers.

I think holding a 2handed heavy object will be difficult to achieve with oculus touch / vive alone, but you could have some random heavy object in your house and stick a sixense stem tracker onto it. And the vive chaperone will make sure you don't swing that random heavy object and destroy some furniture