Hello and welcome to the final Blog Showdown!

This is where one of eight pilot blogs will be posted and the one that has the best engagement after three weeks from their posting will become the new permanent Monday blog!

On this last blog we are going to be debuting From Exile, where I talk about a card game that wasn’t quite successful and talk about what happened and how it potentially could have been fixed, at least with the knowledge that I can find.

Today we are going to be taking a look at MetaZoo 1.0, a card game that has gone but has in fact come back in a different form. We are going to be talking about the first version of the game, thus the 1.0, what made it appealing, some issues that came from the game, and what ultimately ended the game.

What is MetaZoo?

MetaZoo was a card game that had was based around cryptids and magic, where you take the role of a caster and you use your deck, called a spellbook, which contain your cards which are known as pages where you can cast your beasties and magic spells, with the goal of the game being that you reduce your opponents life points from 1,000 to 0.

Beasties are the term that is used for the cryptids, of which they span all sorts of cultures and theologies which is solid in terms of which cryptid gets a representation rather than the classics of just say Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.

You also have access to artifacts which provide you abilities to use in game but could be destroyed by your opponent’s Beasties, spells and potions to act as one time effects that are usually played on your turn with some being able to be played on your opponent’s turn.

In order to play these cards you need to use the proper resource, which in MetaZoo is called Aura. Similar to lands in Magic, you can play one of the ten Aura types each turn in order to play your cards of the appropriate Aura type.

The most unique card type in MetaZoo are the Terra cards, which are meant to replicate locations and or weather effects because one of the big things that MetaZoo includes in the game are “fourth wall” effects, which are effects that occur when there is something outside the game that can effect it.

For example a Beastie may have an ability that triggers when you have a Raining Terra page in play or if it is actually raining outside.

Another interesting aspect of the game is that the cards have, right below their name, the amount of copies of the card you can have in your spellbook, the deck size being at least 40 cards.

What Worked

MetaZoo as a concept is interesting because while it takes common elements of having a hard resource system in their Aura cards, what it does well is that it has an aspect that adds its own twist to card games as a whole.

The very concept of “fourth wall” effects adds a random element to the game which may seem silly in some cases, like needing to make additional noises or sounds to play a card, but one thing that I think that the card game space needs is a game where you can be a bit goofy.

Sure there will be a competitive scene where it reduces the risk of those random effects, but for the more casual player this can be fun to grab some random cards, play in a forest because some of your cards have an effect that makes them better in a forest while your friend wants to play at noon because that may have an effect on their cards.

Another massive appeal to the game was that the art style was very evocative of early Pokemon cards. I know some people who were fans of the art style, and while it isn’t to my personal taste, it was something that helped people buy into the original Kickstarter.

What also helped, at the time, was that it was releasing during the card craze of the COVID pandemic, and there was a demand from players and collectors to get the cards…which was one of the major aspects of its eventual downfall.

Why it Failed

One of the biggest things that made the game much harder for people to get into was that there was a large contingent of individuals who wanted to buy and hold onto the game.

This lead to a heavy “investor” market for the game where a large number of the boxes of the game were being held by these “investors” and sold for ludicrous amounts of money, especially early sets of the game.

It is also because of this “investor” market where one of the biggest mistakes of any card game was made, and that was the creation of The Reserved List, where certain cards would never be reprinted in any form to include functional reprints of any card that is on The Reserved List.

I have never been a fan of restricting printing cards in order for them to retain any financial value, and having a Reserved List being a major part of the game is one aspect that will turn myself and a lot of people away from a game.

With that hoarding mentality of the game, this also led a lot of people not playing the game, and when stores actually had product to sell, it would just stay on the shelves and no one would buy or play it

Another aspect of the game that also drove people off was one of the positive aspects, and that was the art of the game. Like I said, some people really liked the art style, but there were also a lot of people, in some cases a lot of louder voices, who did not like the art style.

This among some behind the scenes issues that I cannot verify the validity of, including sponsored deals not coming through and the potential production of a television series, ultimately had the game formally shut down production on January 29, 2024.

However, a year later the game would come back under new management, development, and art direction and is currently ongoing, having released three sets as of the time of writing.

Insofar as how successful it is or will be has yet to be seen, but there has been a lot of skepticism with how poorly the original game was handled towards the end of it life that it has burned a lot of good will that it has to earn again.

What to Learn

There are plenty of lessons to learn from MetaZoo that the new version can learn from.

The first lesson is that you can have a game that has plenty of familiar elements from other cards games, it is what you add to the game to make it different that let’s people become interested.

The second lesson is that you can have fun and whimsy in a card game. I think a lot of card games take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes, so having a card game being a bit more bold in what it takes into consideration was a solid idea for the game. Some aspects could have been adjusted so you aren’t a nuisance, but there was a step in the right direction in my opinion.

The third lesson is that art design is an aspect of game design that has a dramatic effect on the perception of the game. If you are trying to evoke a certain style, be aware that not everyone may enjoy that style and that could effect how your game is viewed as a whole. While the saying is to not judge a book by its cover, there are plenty of people who will judge a game by its art.

The fourth lesson is to not completely focus on the collector or “investor” side of the game. While they are the individuals who have the deepest pockets, catering your game to them will make the people who actually want to play your game have a harder time getting the cards to play the game, which ultimately will have your game crash once the “investors” lose interest.

In Conclusion

This was an interesting blog to write because I have been wanting to talk about MetaZoo for a while but never had an avenue to do so. I originally wanted to cover the game way back when as an early iteration of Started Decked when I learned that the game failed, and when doing research for a Casual Chat, I learned that MetaZoo came back.

Thank you for reading the Blog Showdown! If you want to see more of this sort of blog, engage with it and we’ll see how it compares with the others! This is the final of the original eight pilot blogs, and with all of that being said, three weeks from now the blog that had the most interaction will be chosen as the new Monday blog!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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