WWE SuperCard unveiled all the details on season 7 today, which not only boasts all new cards and card designs but also new gameplay mechanics and changes to collection and currency systems. SuperCard has been one of the most successful WWE titles, and season 7 looks to keep players engaged with new content and a streamlining of its systems, and ComicBook.com recently had the chance to dive into all of that with Cat Daddy Games and SuperCard Producer Adam Plotkin. We started with the mission statement for season 7, and the ne content brings a new focus on unification.
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“In season seven, a lot of our focus and a lot of those new systems really try and make it a little easier to access some of that unique content, to try and reduce some of those pain points,” Plotkin said. “That’s why we’ve added things like our autoplay system, the on-demand game modes for PvP instead of a weekly rotating PvP game mode, access to the draft board across all the game modes, bringing that back to some of the modes that didn’t have it, etc. So the action point going into season seven is really ease of access, ease of demand, and trying to allow the player to play at their own pace.”
The unification of those various systems is welcome, as before it felt like many of the modes were on their own islands, and that included rewards for those modes, but now most things will be under one main umbrella.
“We’re trying to unify those systems and bring together the rewards and the currencies that allow you to access those items,” Plotkin said. “Right now, PvP, Money in the Bank, Team Battleground, are all kind of isolated. They have their own currency, they have their own store. In season seven, our focus is to unify all of that, to bring it together. So if you want a Money in the Bank card, you don’t have to play Money in the Bank, and get Money in the Bank contracts to access that card. If you’re a PvP player, and play that regularly, you’ll be able to still access those unique monthly cards, and things like that.”
‘We’re announcing what we’re calling SuperCoins and our SuperStore,” Plotkin said. “So there’ll be a unified secondary currency, and there will be a unified store that you can access all those things. We’re not really removing much. Money in the Bank cards are still going to be the flavor of the month that they tend to be. We’re still going to have a rotating card back like we do in the PvP store. We’re still going to have those packs that we do in the PvP store, but it’ll be at a more centralized access point, and it’ll run through that centralized currency. That way you don’t have to play Money in the Bank, and PvP, and Team Battleground to get all of those unique items.”
Along with all the new content comes new card designs, and as you can see above and below, they’re pretty snazzy. That was a challenge though, just due to all of the designs that have been released thus far.
“It’s a challenge. Going into season seven, we’ve released now probably 30 or 40 rarities with different unique looks and feels,” Plotkin said. “So it’s hard to outdo ourselves or come up with completely new themes, and stuff like that. But we do feel like we came up with three new completely different looks that really highlight stuff that you hear commentators talk about, that you’d see and feel in the ring.”
The designs themselves are impressive, and as they evolve they continue to get new animations and elements. That said, I had to ask if it’s possible to have Otis and his trademark caterpillar move animated on a card at some point, and the answer is delightfully yes.
“Oh yeah. I mean, I just love that you’re bringing up animations in general, because it’s like a secret special sauce that’s so critical to the game,” Plotkin said. “Without it, the cards don’t feel like themselves and don’t give you that attitude that you’d expect from certain talent, or from a certain style of wrestler. We’re always adding animation sets or different ways to trigger animation, and then on the cards for the talent, we have signature moves, and those can trigger special animations per person.”
New systems also make their way into the individual card battles via Super Moves and Techniques, and Plotkin broke down how they work.
“So one of them is what we’re calling the Super Move, and that’s more high-level than any one individual wrestler,” Plotkin said. “That Super Move is something you are building up as you play through the different game modes, and that you can choose to unleash at your disposal once you’ve accrued enough points or enough progress towards triggering it. So the idea is that, as you’re playing through different modes, or as you’re playing through, let’s say, Wild, and building it up, you can then take it over to an event, or a PvP mode, and trigger it to more guarantee a win. So that Super Move is coming along with you from game mode to game mode.”
“We’re also adding Styles and Techniques to the actual cards,” Plotkin continued. “So Styles and Techniques are a new system that will add a strategic layer to each individual card. Styles is like the persona, or like the list from it to pull from. So if you’re a Brawler type, you’ll have that list to pull from. If you’re a Highflyer type, you’ll have that list to pull from.”
“Then the associated technique will be the more gameplay changing element,” Plotkin said. “So if you’re a Highflyer, let’s say you get elite jumper. That’s not the name by the way, but that will trigger, let’s say toughness. You can reroll that to get a different Technique from that list if you want to, and then what that Technique will do in gameplay, it will augment your gameplay experience, so that will either have, let’s say carry over damage to the next match, or will reroll a match type, or will change the gameplay experience for you.”
“So what Style and Technique you have on your wrestler will be important, or what deck you build to comprise of which Styles and Techniques, and which order you plan to play them will actually matter when you’re trying to have a more strategic focus to the game, and really trying to min-max some of the gameplay, but it’s also lightweight enough that you can not have to pay that much attention to it,” Plotkin said.
Another new aspect of the game is its collection system, which they do have grand plans for. I asked if this meant players would be able to unlock rewards or cards for having every card of one wrestler for instance and things like that, and it seems that is definitely in the cards, though a bit down the line.
“Yeah. You’re kind of keying in on something that we are rolling out with season seven,” Plotkin said. “I think you’re pushing it to a place that we want to take it eventually, which is really exciting, and you’re already hitting on the cool things we can do with it. Out the gates though, with season seven, we’re releasing a new collection set mechanic, and that basically rewards the player for ever having acquired a certain grouping of cards.”
“Let’s say we do a spring promotion. It can be, ‘Hey, get a couple of spring cards and then get this reward.’ Or we can say, ‘Hey, get a certain tier of cards,’ right? Get three Shattered cards, and then get this reward. So with the release of season seven, we’ll have some of those collection sets available,” Plotkin said.
“Having specific sets for an individual who’s acquired certain cards, or for a certain talent, a certain set of cards for them. We really think that that’s the system that we can keep adding to, whether that’s time-sensitive collections, whether that’s tier-based collections, or whether that’s talent-based collections, highlighting either something cool about the WWE or the talent, or maybe even something a little more contextual to your deck. ‘Hey, you have four of the five Alexa Bliss cards. Go collect the last one to get something cool.’ We’d really like to do some dynamic stuff with that system.”
SuperCard has always been good about launching themed events or cards around real world pay-per-views, and Survivor Series will be no different. “We’re definitely going to be doing stuff around Survivor Series. I would definitely say we’ll probably be doing some themed cards, card backs, that kind of stuff. It’s something we definitely want to highlight. I mean, we’re doing stuff about every month now for a pay-per-view, and even tying in some of the NXT pay-per-views,” Plotkin said.
WWE SuperCard isn’t leaving mobile anytime soon. That said, I did have to ask if the team’s ever considered launching on consoles, and it turns out they are open to the possibility.
“So I feel like you’ve almost put that on a tee for me. Well first, let me just lob out the fact that we recently released our Facebook cloud gaming platform version of the app, something that we’re happy to make more accessible, and make available more easily and readily on PC or mobile, anywhere that you want to pick it up and play. That’s something that we’re just excited to continue to develop for and push, but in general, yes, we’ve had discussions internally, as any new platform has either presented itself, or existing platform has presented itself, we’ve discussed a little bit of everything,” Plotkin said. “I won’t commit us to anything necessarily, but we’ve talked about all those platforms you’d expect. Steam, Switch, XBLA. We want to make it wherever players want to play, they can access the game.”
“That’s why we started with mobile, just because of how easily accessible that is and how many people you can touch wherever they may be. But yeah, it’s something that we’re going to continue to look at. I think as Cat Daddy, we’ve always been willing and interested in pushing the envelope, in terms of where we’ve been,” Plotkin said. “We had some VR games, mobile games, Wii games throughout our history. So we’re always going to look at all the platforms that we can touch, or all the ones that make sense for the game. So, yeah, I won’t say that we’re necessarily going to do a console version, especially not like a disc-based version or anything like that, but it is something we will consistently be looking at, and trying to push. I’d love to get us on anything that will support us theoretically.”
You can play WWE SuperCard season 7 right now on both iOS and Android devices, and you can talk all things WWE and SuperCard with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
