Neverrift Trading Card Game Logo

What is happening in the rift?

Kickstarter, Deckbuilder & German Cards

Hey, Tamer!

Today we’re serving up a freshly baked delivery of Neverrift news. We start with our first official German test print, followed by an insight into the creation of the Neverrift board game as the main course and the specialty we’ve all been waiting for as dessert: News about the launch of the Kickstarter campaign!

Cards with German texts

 

Yes, we know: We took our time printing a German version. But this time we had a few thousand cards printed for testing and the result is impressive: rich colors, crisp text and perfectly rounded corners will delight the collector’s heart (and the designer’s heart as well). We will therefore prepare enough decks for the next trade fairs so that all interested parties can play Neverrift without long waiting times. That brings us straight to the next topic:

Planning further test rounds

 

We are going to be at Dreamhack in Hanover! From 15.12. – 17.12.2023 you can try out the new print of the card set right away. There are also a few minor changes to the cards: for example, our overpowered otter has had its claws trimmed:

As the last beta test of the app also provided such good feedback, we are planning further beta tests for the coming year. There is no exact schedule yet, but we will keep you up to date with beta test announcements via our social channels.

 

Insights into the board game production

 

The Neverrift board game has to be epic, so much is certain. A complete list of all the details we have to pay attention to when creating the print data would go beyond the scope of this article. The design team is working simultaneously on a Neverrift-worthy box and its contents. From the instructions to the player tokens, everything has to be taken into account and created in a printer-friendly way. Sometimes we receive test products of individual parts. For example, we have received shiny boosters that are made of paper instead of foil. The process is an exciting race against the clock to have a finished prototype in hand when the Kickstarter campaign goes live.

 

Neverrift on Kickstarter – reserve your spot now

 

That’s right, Neverrift is on Kickstarter! At least the page already exists and you can support us by clicking or tapping on the “Notify me when the project goes live” button. This will show that you thought Neverrift was cool before anyone else and make sure more people hear about our game! The real campaign is expected to go live at the end of March/beginning of April. At this point, a big thank you to everyone who has supported us so far! Without you and the other early tamers, neither Kickstarter nor the Neverrift board game would be possible.

May we meet again soon in the Neverrift!

Lisa

Playtestings, our first con visit and more!

Hello Tamer!

 

It’s been a while since our last update. We’ve been hard at work advancing the development of Neverrift TCG and now we want to share our progress with you.

 

So, what has been happening?

 

Here’s a brief overview:

– First official tests at the Gate to the Games store in Magdeburg.

– You can now visit the store and try out Neverrift TCG.

– We attended Contaku and introduced Neverrift TCG.

– We are working diligently to prepare the cards for printing.

– Some cards will have cool special effects!

– The app has been improved.

– The app had its first official closed beta test!

card enthusiasts enjoying a round of Neverrift TCG

Want more details? Of course!

 

If you live near Magdeburg, you can already dive deeper into Neverrift TCG. Visit the Gate to the Games store or the Magdeburg eSports e.V. and play a bit! The cards are not the final versions, but we are working on finalizing them!

 

Our visit to Contaku came with a few hurdles: We got the confirmation very last minute, but the team improvised a great booth in no time! Neverrift TCG was well-received by visitors, and many came back with friends to play again the next day! You can find more about it in our Instagram highlights: Link

 

I used to think that card printing was probably straightforward. You send in the image, and that’s it. Thanks to my colleagues, I’ve learned that there is a lot of preparation involved. Especially if you want cards with effects, you have to consider a thousand things and constantly get feedback from the printing partners. Imagine if we printed a legendary creature 100 times, and not only was the image off-center on every card, but the foil was misplaced, and the metallic effect was in completely the wrong place! 😱 But that makes us even more excited about the final product.

App Updates

 

I (Marie), as a programmer, can tell you a bit more about this. Where should we start?

 

Design

 

The app got a facelift: from random battle backgrounds in the game to deck selection. It’s truly fascinating how a few background graphics and icons can enhance the gaming experience.

 

Special Effects & Sounds

 

We’ve also started implementing the first special effects in the app. Now you can see a creature striking during an attack or when a card emits an aura. The app has also received a few sound effects. The Neverrift TCG app is slowly getting its own style.

 

New Cards and Effects

 

Since the last update, more cards and effects have been added to the app. Set 1 is not yet fully in the game, but we are on the home stretch!

 

Neverrift TCG needs more or less bugs

 

I propose that bugs only appear as creatures or spell cards in the future. Lately, I’ve been battling an incredible number of bugs in the code, and yet there are still some lurking. But they are becoming fewer, I promise!

 

Server Update

 

We’ve realized that we need to make some improvements to our server to ensure you have a good and secure gaming experience in the future.

 

First Official Closed Beta Test of the App!

 

On September 2nd, 2023, to September 3rd, 2023, we had our first closed beta test! You could register beforehand and then take a first look at the app during the beta. Thank you for all the positive feedback! We had a lot of fun watching everyone play. Bugs were also found, but nobody minded. Instead, everyone supported us in hunting down these bugs so they won’t happen again in the future. We’ve noted the feedback and already discussed wishes and their implementations. Some were already planned, and it’s great to see that we’re on the right track with the app.

three phones showcasing the app (main menu, ingame battle and an ingame card closeup)

What’s coming up next?

💥 More tests for both the analog and digital games!

💥 Attending events

💥 We’re trying to attend more events and introduce Neverrift TCG. Keep following us to find out when we’ll be at an event near you!

💥 Test printing of the German cards

💥 Fixing bugs in the app

💥 Adding more features to the app

 

Until next time!

Marie

The Status after One Year of Development

Current Status:

 

  • Account creation ✔
  • Polishing app for alpha testers 💥
  • Complete card list, final secret artwork in progress 🤫
  • Values of all creatures and distribution of effects adjusted ✔
  • Waiting for alpha test prints for first deck-building event
  • Trying out different effect prints 🤩

 

1 Year of Team Neverrift TCG

 

And just like that, the first year is over! We have been working as a four-person team on the Neverrift TCG for 12 months now. We are currently looking for support in our game development and social media department. If you’re interested, please send us your application documents. You can find the job postings here at the Gate to the Games page. 😉 We already have one new team member: Benedict is now supporting Marie with coding!

 

Closed Beta Release Postponed

 

We are making great progress with the app development. Our alpha testers can now create accounts and choose an avatar to represent them in-game. Currently, you have to log in every time you restart the app, but we’re already working on that. Bug hunting is in full swing, so the public beta version will arrive as clean as possible later this year. This delays the release date, but we place great value on the quality of the Neverrift TCG. We are also continuing to work on the backend code to integrate all cards and their effects into the digital game.

 

Final Touches on the Card List & Test Prints

 

Speaking of cards, things are also going well with the physical card list. The values of the creatures have been balanced, and the effects have been adjusted. If anything changes from now on, it will only be minor details or game-breakers. Now we’re eagerly waiting for the first test prints of the entire card list to arrive so we can have our colleagues build their own decks. Will the winning streak of our strongest player finally come to an end? Suspense continues! 😄

 

Effect Prints: Let it Shine!

 

In addition to the regular cards, test prints of special effect cards such as rainbows, holos, and others are also being prepared. We can’t wait to finally hold these little treasures in our own hands. We’ll share some of the prints on our social media channels, so keep your eyes open for that!

 

Until next time!

Lisa

New Year, New Game (Sort of)

First things first: The Neverrift team wishes everyone a happy new year! 2023 will bring some major changes to the Neverrift TCG. If you want to know the details, take a look at the milestone plan on our ‘Overview’ page.

 

Online PvP

 

As mentioned in our previous dev blog Marie’s attention was on the online multiplayer update, or ‘the merge’ as we call it. Since we develop both the cardboard and the app version simultaneously, one tends to overtake the other. In our case the app felt behind until now but is quickly catching up. 

Next to the big TCG apps we all know and love now sits the red Neverrift TCG logo on our phones ready to be tested whenever we like (and another player is online). Shout-out to Marie who is bombarded with our feedback on a daily basis and somehow managed to stay sane nonetheless!

 

Alpha Testing

 

With our official alpha version on the horizon, we shift our current focus towards creating a convenient way for our testers to submit their feedback. It needs to be super easy to give for them and full of valuable information for us.

Psst! 🤫 When the decision of who will get access to the Neverrift TCG alpha is made, we will let you know. You reading this may very well be included. That is all the insight I can give you for now.

See you in the Neverrift!

Lisa

About the App...

Hello world and tamers!

 

In our last update we gave you a little insight into the app and today we’re diving deeper!

But before we begin, a little fun fact: At the end of November the Neverrift team had the first in person meeting! I came all the way from Sweden to Germany just for this occasion and of course we took the opportunity to properly test the app for the first time. We learned a lot and it was nice to see how our colleagues really tried their best to crash the app.

 

What is the current state of the app right now?

 

The app has been under development since the beginning of Q2 2022 and has taken shape quite well. It’s especially noticeable that we develop both the physical and digital versions at the same time because both versions come with their own unique challenges. For example should players sit opposite from or next to each other when playing Neverrift TCG? This is a question that doesn’t arise in app development. In the app version we rather question if the displayed selection options are intuitive or not.

In addition to these challenges we are collecting a lot of bugs in the app that need to be addressed. So many bugs and it’s already long past Halloween!

 

Apart from the Untold Spells the basic logic of the game has been implemented in the app but what does this mean exactly?

 

It’s time to add multiplayer to the game so that we can all play together no matter where we are in the world! In December the plan is to free the multiplayer version from the biggest bugs (the bugs come in as swarms as soon as something new is implemented!) and test it thoroughly to see where we need to improve the user interface and whether the game runs smoothly.

You can see that we still have a lot to do with the app but we are getting closer to a solid version that you will be able to test soon!

Another highlight in December was the gameplay video. The Sworn and the Royal Empire fought a battle that will go down in history! Or in our case: as a video on YouTube (you can find it below this blog).

 

Until then, I’ll see you in the code of Neverrift!
Marie

Fall Update

Hi folks!

The weather is getting cold but the Neverrift is getting hotter each week! Our very first giveaway is over and we are about to test the game with the 5th and last card type, untold spells. They work like traps or secrets you might know from other games and are triggered by your opponent’s actions during their turn. 

 

News about the Neverrift TCG prints!

Another big task is looking through different holo patterns, varnishes and foils and picking the best approach for the first set of the Neverrift TCG. There are many details that must be taken into consideration. Our chosen card finishes will probably fill a whole dev blog at a later time.

Mobile App Screenshot from January 2023
The image shows the current state of the app and is not representative of the app that will be available in the future. Nothing you see is final.

News about the Neverrift TCG app!

Now that the mobile app is taking shape I’d like to quote our programmer Marie: ‘Bugs. Bugs everywhere.’ With the multiplayer mode in near sight we test as many card combinations as we can trying to find (and fix) as many bugs as possible beforehand. Despite that our focus for the next few weeks will be on improving the overall user experience. Lastly, no game is complete without cool special effects and sounds so we will work on that, too!

 

The current app status in numbers:

  • 90% artworks 
  • 90% card list
  • 95% starter decks
  • ✔ game logic
  • 4/5 card types

 

Thank you for your support! 

Until next time!

Lisa

99 Neverrift TCG rounds full of fun

We held a play testing event at Gate to the Games! Over the course of five days, our colleagues with their varying taming skill levels played almost 100 games. We collected a lot of data and analyzed the results. Here is what we learned:

 

  1. The current average duration of a round is 24 minutes.
  2. 55% of winners had the last turn. Sometimes that was strategically planned, sometimes it happened by chance.
  3. The most draws at the end happened between the Sworn and the Royal Empire. Coincidence or did the Sworn plan this behind our back? We will keep you updated. 😉
  4. It is possible to play the Neverrift TCG as a 2 versus 2 game on a 4×8 arena. This will double the playtime to 48 minutes per game and is extremely fun up until the last turn.
  5. Our best player has a win rate of 82% proving that skill beats luck!
  6. The most picked deck was the Verdant Pact deck.
  7. The Verdant Pact deck won 65% of the games it was picked at. We will definitely work on that.
  8. The tamer effects were often forgotten. We will address this issue soon because it is such a big part of the gameplay.
a sketch for a Royal Empire tamer
another sketch for the Royal Empire tamer
the final artwork of the Royal Empire tamer

With this amount of valuable input, we can continue our quest to perfectly balanced starter decks!

Let’s put cardboard gaming to the side for now and focus on the Neverrift TCG mobile app. A total of 52 effects are already in the game! That includes the passive and active tamer effects. Only two already tested effects are yet to be implemented, and we have to create another type of spell that can only then be added to the app. Still, it’s crazy how far the app has come in the past eight months. Right now we are bug hunting and focusing on the user interface. Our goal is to guide you through the game well. 🙂

 

Thank you for reading!

Lisa

Summer Update

Hello there! This is Konsti from Neverrift. I would like to take a moment and give you some insight of what went on in the rift for the month of August. 

First of all we tried to survive the heatwaves here in Germany, as I am sure, most of you did. Don’t worry though. We got enough “cool“ stuff to share to get you acclimated. 😉

We are glad to share that artist commissions are right on track with what we planned and will be finished in the foreseeable future. We will share some of those new cards on Instagram and have some more interactions on our socials with you, like the choosing between two sketches of a card artwork in our Instagram story.

a sketch for the card college of magical studies
another sketch for the card college of magical studies
the final artwork of the card college of magical studies

When designing a card game with over 150 cards there is a point where a revamp of the phrasing is necessary. Especially if there are multiple people throwing in card ideas, you will end up with many variations of descriptive texts. In August we did this and came up with a good system for now. Maybe you can spot the changes in future cards.

Right now we are preparing for our second internal playtesting on a greater scale. This will have card game enthusiasts of Gate to the Games battling for four days, testing all five starter decks against each other. There is much to catch up on since the last greater playtesting happened with only the Sworn and Outcast decks. We can’t wait to be able to have some of you join us in playtesting at some point in the future.

And last but not least here is some info about the digital version of Neverrift: There have been some major updates in regards to progress. Since they would be pretty long to discuss in detail, here are some bullet points:

 

  • Base game logic has been implemented
  • Creature, spell and place cards have been implemented
  • Starter Decks for each fraction implemented
  • Currently we have 25 different effects implemented (more if you count similar effects for creatures, places and spells as different)
  • You can choose between faction decks before playing

 

Huge tribute to our programmer Marie! 🙂

I hope you liked my short update. Stay tuned for more!

Till our next meeting

Konsti

We are online!

Hello Tamers! It is official now: We are online and ready to connect with you via Instagram, Facebook, our newsletter and Discord. A lot happened in the last week. Some highlights are:


  • 💯 In just one week the Neverrift TCG community on Instagram reached over 100 people! Incredible! 
  • 💀 The majority of tamers over on Discord chose the Sworn as their faction, closely followed by the Outcast and the Verdant Pact. As a Sworn representative myself, I count that as a personal win! It is interesting to see how this ratio changes the more people join in.
  • 🥳 The five starter sets for internal testing are done! More on that below.


It is no secret that developing a card game comes with a lot of trial and error. The five faction starter sets are relatively balanced now and fun but challenging to play, depending on the opponent. We aim for a unique feeling for each faction, allowing every kind of player to find a faction that fits their style.

What’s next? We will continue to balance the existing decks, add more cards and keep you updated about our progress. If you want to talk to us, don’t hesitate to reach out on your favourite social media platform.

Thank you for reading

Lisa