Wild Country is a cozy, yet competitive strategy card game with city-building elements developed by studio Lost Native. Set in an animal-themed world, players can collect cards and challenge friends and other competitors to the card battler game of Wild Country, all while exploring its cozy setting of Big Sky Canyon.
In a recent interview, The Best War Games spoke with CEO, co-founder, and design director Becky Matthew about how Wild Country's city-building, collectible card gameplay works. Matthew also detailed the title's relaxing, cozy gameplay elements and how the team approached multiple genres, as well as why the team decided upon this approach in the world of popular online card games.
How Wild Country's City-Building, Collectible Card Gameplay Works
In Wild Country' s card battle gameplay, the goal of any match is to earn five thousand dollars and the most profit before a player's opponent can. This is done so through a blend of card and tile-based city-building, where the placement of tiles has positive or negative effects. Matthew further explained how there are "a lot of shared mechanics" with the city-building game SimCity, but these are showcased in "card format," enabling players to build Residential or Commercial-focused systems according to the type of cards they choose and how they place them. How those interact is equally important, with Matthew explaining,
If someone's building, for example, a commercial deck or Commercial-focused city and you have a Residential-focused city, you can build into their city and take all of their benefits.
Matthew also mentioned some mistook Wild Country as appearing "quite light" in terms of gameplay, but noted it has "a similar level of complexity" and "depth" to games like Hearthstone or World of Magic for those that want it. Matthew also revealed Wild Country currently contains over 100 cards, with plans to increase this to 150. Its various card types also do different things besides building cards, including spell cards that allow players to destroy, freeze, and convert cards or those that cause unpredictable events like snowstorms, which Matthew compared to SimCity's thunderstorms. There are also special cards, which altogether, aim to "create a full cinematic experience" within Wild Country.
How And Why Wild Country Integrates Relaxing, Cozy Gameplay
Although Wild Country looks to include complex game mechanics, how it integrates cozy gameplay could make its offerings unique. While games like Slay the Spire include elements of storytelling and rest as players move across its map, Wild Country includes relaxing open-world gameplay elements where players can explore and interact with other NPCs in Big Sky Canon through a third-person perspective, playing as a customizable animal character. While the choice of character doesn't impact the card gameplay in any way, Matthew explained that exploring Big Sky Canyon is purposeful to gameplay, as not only something it lets players experience the story, but it also how players can obtain more cards through activities like quests and mini-games.
Diving into some of Wild Country's various reasons for blending multiple genres, Matthew explained the team also wanted to incorporate relaxing, cozy gameplay to help make its more complex mechanics more approachable to card game newcomers or even those who rarely play games. It's also a game that aims to be stress-relieving, allowing players to compete in a safe, cozy space that Matthew added isn't punishing. Cozy video games remain an ever-popular genre within the industry, so it makes sense to lean into this area as something that could also potentially attract new audiences. While Matthew mentioned blending multiple genres has been a challenge, Wild Country's unique blend of card game mechanics with city-building elements and cozy mechanics is a mix that could appeal to both veteran and newcomer CCG players alike.
Wild Country is currently in development.