Blizzard's Hearthstone made with Unity

Man, I'd love to get a hold of their tools. This game looks so slick. Do you think they're using things from the Asset Store (like NGUI), or they made their own?

You can see Unity on their monitors in this images:

 

Good find! Even if they don't use it for final deployment, Unity is such a useful prototype tool for these companies.

Edit: Also "small" team of 15 people. I had a good chuckle about that. I wish I had 15 people on a project. It looks like a million bucks though.

 

A million bucks is small for AAA games, and is standard for a "serious" indie game
Same for team, but if they announced it as an indie game, it would have lost any traction for Blizzard fans. Especially when they are all starving to know what their next Massive Multiplayer Online RPG is.
"Small team" is just a strategic calling ;-)

 

If they're actually using Unity for anything more than prototyping, I'd imagine they'd be using Scaleform, since it's what they're used to using, and it's very well suited to the type of animation and effects this game uses.

 

I'd throw my hat in the Scaleform ring too; NGUI is incredible for the price, but with that degree of animation and Blizzard's budget Scaleform is a no brainer.

(edit: I'd throw my hat, I have no hate for Scaleform - it's awesome )

 

I assume you didn't mean to say hate? But yeah, I didn't think of Scaleform, that would make a lot of sense.

 

I can see some major bugs on the pictures.

 

I was just watching this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vF_PdZybRJE#t=89s about the new Heartstone: Heroes of Warcraft game that blizzard are making.

While watching this video I noticed something strangely familiar about it. Take a look at these screengrabs



That to me looks like the Unity editor... and the Unity icon in his task bar. (right click > view image to see full sized image)

 

I wonder if it will use the Unity web player?

 

Awesome! Good to see I am using a tool that such a popular company finds interest in.

 

Hopefully it's more than just prototyping.

 

Should have searched
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/175107-Blizzard-s-Hearthstone-made-with-Unity

 

You should be about to tell if they are using NGUI by looking at their Transform inspector, NGUI always has those tiny buttons infront of the vector3's

 

I'm kind of disappointed to see so many big names using Unity, but not a single one participating with the community in here.

 

They could be just under NDA, although they probably pay to have more direct support and feedback from Unity.

 

A lot of the time Unity is used for prototyping and nothing more. As others said, they probably use scaleform if anything. They quite possibly use their own system, though

What "major bugs" can you see, exactly? Especially from photos with the computer monitor out of focus.

 

Why are people so quick to assume that Unity is just being used for prototyping here? We've already confirmed the actual game is using Unity.

 

I think they are using Unity for the final game for a few reasons:

- They plan to release the same game for PC, Mac AND iPad. They don't have any games that are that cross platform. So using Unity makes much more sense.
- The game is a couple months from beta testing. With what the video shows, I doubt they'd redo the game in that time period.

 

You don't have to guess... they are using Unity for the final game.

 

I just posted my two cents for those who may not be convinced. I knew once I saw the screenshots that it was using Unity.

Thanks for the official confirmation though.

 

Do you know if it is using the webplayer?

 

I doubt he'd be allowed to tell us if it is or isn't .

 

Acenth, many many MANY engines have cross compatibility as vast as Unity. So not a very good thing to go off of but yeah, confirmed so doesn't matter.

 

My comments are strictly aimed at the people who didn't seem to believe even with confirmed screenshots that Unity would be used. That is all.....Geesh. I'm not a nay sayer here, just trying to pile more evidence against "This is just a prototype in Unity".

 

I am surprised he was allowed to tell us anything at all.

 

I don't believe you! I think it's being made in gamesalad!

 

More like game maker.

 

I'm pretty sure they are using this: http://unity3d.com/learn/premium-support/ time is money after all. They have money so they can buy time

 

I don't even believe it's being made, I think it's all just rumours!

 

I still kinda wish it could be played from within WoW itself. Adventurers can go out into the world and collect cards and junk.

... hey, they did Pokemon, right? A little Yugioh would be fun.

 

For sure
In the same vein, we could be all just reading stackoverflow for coding questions, and never post in here
Being active with the community is different from searching support. In fact, community is what convinced me to use Unity more than another engine in the first place (back in Jan 2009) ^^
Having "big names" chilling out within here would be great, and attract more seriousness overall (not that it's not serious at all, but sometimes it seems people prefer to chat about trolls rather than advanced technical topics). Plus chatting with high profile devs is always an enriching experience for everyone : for learning purposes indeed, but it also bring those devs some visibility, fame, and it even attracts other high level devs in the end, who end up chatting with each others.

Which is exactly what's happening on Toucharcade :

There's a "Private Game Developer" area in Toucharcade.com (been granted access to last week, so I can see what's going on there).
Topics here are 100% professional. It's talking about marketing, publishers, business tips, alliances, technical discussions, etc... Basically everything is discussed in a straight-to-the-fact manner, based on each one's real experience with the market.

In a word, these forums here sometimes miss opinions from devs that already have an experience with finishing and releasing a game. For example, where has Mika (PirateNinjaAlliance) gone ? Or wouldn't it be cool to be able to chat with Road Rash's creator ? Wasteland team ? etc ...
It really seems they're just not attracted by this place. Which is quite a waste, because it's a cool place to chat overall, I need my Unity forums daily dose, tbh ^_^

 

I think all the silly " how can I make ultra mega game , and make it on xbox , needs to be easy and fast " scares pro's off

 

or how very few technical questions get answered. Hell, questions that are more than "how do i use a co-routine" barely get answered.

 

I think it's mostly because that there have been a few pro devs that have said in interviews that they use Unity for prototyping, but not for the final products.

 

Usually because they get boring and repetitive and they could just google for an answer..

 

what are you talking about? the technical questions that I and many other professional developers would need answered isn't something a quick Google or unity doc search would solve, because if it was that simple, then there would be no need to ask the question!

There are a lot of unanswered posts on these boards that are either unity specific or they technical game/programming questions that need a very some kind of out of the box thinking that maybe other devs would have come across, but isnt something that's widely known. (hence the reason why one would ask the question here) I am NOT talking about the normal, easy to find answers to n00b questions. the point I'm making is that only n00b questions and "pls code dis for me" types of questions get any response.

 

Everyone that worked in a non-indie company knows that there are many rules that restrict what you can post... sometimes there are so many rules that it's easier never post to avoid problems. You can be sure that the developers really want to share information, new technologies but they simply can't. It's sad...

About the Unity and Blizzard, the lack of faith of some people surprise me... There is many games bigger and heavier that was made on Unity. Why Blizzard can't use Unity to do a card game?

IMHO since unity 3.0 there is no reason to think that Unity is only a prototype tool.

Besides that, I'm very happy to see Blizzard entering the mobile market. And greater than that, using Unity.

 

That certainly is a large part of it, at least to a degree. And certainly there is stuff that we would love to share, but due to the competitive nature of the business we can't. Additionally, for game that are early in development, it isn't wise to share very much, as they are subject to change or even the game may never be released. We have seen that with games like Spore, early promises that aren't delivered on can cause bad will amongst gamers.

I drop in occasionally, and certainly read more regularly when I first started working with Unity. And some of the other Unity devs here do occasionally read the forums, but if I were speculate as to why pros don't participate I would say (from my perspective and observation, as a mobile developer) it is 1) simply a matter of time, and 2) at the end of the day Unity is one of the tools in our toolbox. Similarly you don't find many pro artists participating in Photoshop boards and the like. We'll maybe search if there is information we are looking for, but usually we are already in a physical community (our coworker/peers) or participate in forums of more generic nature (design/code/games) than one surrounding a specific tool. I pop in a handful of times a week, and some of my peers do a little more or less (some not at all). And depending on the size of the company, many have internal discussion forums/channels. Or they simply not be "forum" people.

I come here to see what people are doing with unity and see what is happening in the general unity world. To be perfectly honest, often I am just gathering ammunition to convince our studio to more projects in Unity. But it really isn't a place for me ask questions. Mostly because if I often need a question answered right away or 99% of the time it can be answered by a peer or a web search. (and for the more difficult stuff the very helpful Unity staff in SF) This community is largely about people who are new to development / game development in general. It makes it a great place for them to ask questions and find people to work with. But by that nature, it makes not a great value for pros invest time in too deeply. Again, this is just from personal observation/experience. Results may vary.

 

Talking about the ones asking how to use a co-routine and you said they barely get answered. I said why.

 

Oopsy, I misread that. My mistake.

 

I did notice they are using PlayMaker

 

To further prove that Hearthstone final is using Unity (using Mac OS X):

Right click on your Hearthstone app, show package contents.
Browse around in here, and you can find files like "UnityPlayerIcon.png", "unity default resources", etc...

EDIT: Sorry about necro, I didn't see the timestamp.

 

Well, Heartstone got really popular really fast. And it's not even out of closed beta yet.

 

Doubt it, with the upcoming uncertainty with the web player working in Chrome/Mozilla.

 

Great game. I've been watching some playthroughs of arena. More twists than a soap opera.

 

Yeah, the Arena is super fun. So far my two best runs has been with Paladin decks.

It will be interesting to see how often Blizzard will add new cards. Wizard of the Coast releases like 750 cards a year for Magic. But they are very systematic about it and they have two decades of experience. The core set for Hearstone is really good already, though.

 

I liked Hearthstone first, but got bored quickly. I played MtG for a long time, and HS just a bit too easy after that (got to Masters pretty fast, with just 1 legendary). Also I know that randomity is part of the game, but for me the table changes too quickly, everything dying left and right, no "instant" spells that you can play in response of your opponents spells, and there are simply not enough cards, maybe 100 general and 50 per class or so, so actually you can build your deck from 150 cards. Compare that to Magic's 20.000. Yea I know it is not completely fair to compare them, but still.

I am afraid their "classes" mechanic is also not the best, as restricting a lot of cards to just one class is such a waste of resources. But that is just me.

I sound a little harsh over this game, it is really fun, it just isn't _that_ deep that I expected from a TCG.

 

I find it much better to play than MtG. Deckbuilding was the fun part of MtG.

Biggest reason is probably that there are no Lands. Heartstone's mulligan rules, predictable mana, hero powers and a smaller deck which has only spells and minions makes the game tons more consistent to play. It's just more elegant design.

Also I would say it's a good sign you got to Masters with just one legendary. You should be able to do it with just basic cards, I think. As rarer cards should just be more specialized rather than just plain better. Perhaps this will change as more cards get introduced but as of now I find uses for every card. Anyway, they will fix Ranked games soon.

 

are you sure? i wanna confirm that