''Storybook Brawl'' was an

auto battler '' Dota Auto Chess'' (2019) was the codifier of the genre. An auto battler, also known as auto chess, is a subgenre of strategy video games that typically feature chess-like elements where players place characters on a grid-shaped battlefield du ...

video game developed by American studio Good Luck Games. Development began in 2020, and the game was released in

early access Early access, also known as alpha access, alpha founding, paid alpha, or game preview, is a funding model in the video game industry by which consumers can purchase and play a game in the various pre-release Software release life cycle, developm ...

for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

in June 2021. The game and studio were acquired by cryptocurrency exchange

FTX FTX Trading Ltd., trading as FTX (Futures Exchange), is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after ...

in March 2022 to develop

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

integrations, a move that faced player backlash. Servers were shut down in May 2023 in the wake of the

bankruptcy of FTX The bankruptcy of FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, began in November 2022. The collapse of FTX, caused by a spike in customer withdrawals that exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, served as the impetus for its bankruptcy. ...

Gameplay

''Storybook Brawl'' was a fantasy-themed card-based

featuring gameplay inspired by '' Hearthstone Battlegrounds''. In each game, players first selected a hero which granted them a passive ability. The game was then divided into alternating shopping phases and combat phases. In shopping phases, players spent a limited amount of resources per round on cards representing characters to play on their boards, as well as upgrades for these characters and non-character treasures and spells. These were followed by combat phases, automated fights against other players' boards. Players' boards contained up to seven characters, and one of the primary difference between Storybook Brawl and previous card-based auto battlers was that cards were played on two lines instead of just one.

Development

The studio Good Luck Games was founded in

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington. It had a population of 55,605 at the 2020 census, making it the state of Washington's 23rd-most populous city. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County, and the central city ...

by former '' Magic: The Gathering'' professional players Matthew Place, Josh Utter-Leyton, Matt Nass and Brandon Nelson. Some other members were Rubén Luna de San Macario as VFX artist, Johnathon Conbere and César Romero Albertos as programmers and Antonio Vargas as QA. They later hired Luis Scott-Vargas as vice president of marketing, totaling a staff of seven working on the game as of August 2021. Development began in 2020, and ''Storybook Brawl'' released in

on 18 June 2021. Good Luck Games was acquired by cryptocurrency exchange

on 22 March 2022. FTX, whose founder

Sam Bankman-Fried Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 5, 1992), commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a ...

named ''Storybook Brawl'' his favorite game, sought to use the game to test and improve the reception to cryptocurrency integrations in games, and planned to integrate the development team as part of its FTX Gaming division. Plans for the game included

-based in-game collectible items, as well as traditional, art-based NFTs. Due to the

, the game's servers were shut down on 1 May 2023, and a planned tournament in the

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

was cancelled.

Reception

''Storybook Brawl'' received mixed reviews. It was favorably compared to ''Hearthstone Battlegrounds'' by ''

Screen Rant ''Screen Rant'' is an entertainment website that offers news in the fields of television, films, video games, and comic books. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publications including Comic Book Resources, Collider, MovieWeb and XDA Developers. ...

'', stating that its two rows, greater depth, and wider variety of mechanics led to more replayability. However, ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'' criticized these elements, describing the game as "crowded" and that the "sheer number of random elements causes games to vary wildly from one to the next". After being acquired by FTX, the game was

review bomb A review bomb is a malicious Internet phenomenon in which a large number of people or Sock puppet account, a few people with multiple accounts post negative user reviews online in an attempt to harm the sales or popularity of a product, a service, ...

ed on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

due to backlash against the plans to add blockchain features and non-fungible tokens to the game. The game's rating, which had previously been "mostly positive", dropped to "overwhelmingly negative".

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web , title=Preview: 'Magic' pros and 'Hearthstone' vets team up for card-game auto-battler 'Storybook Brawl' , url=https://www.geekwire.com/2021/preview-magic-pros-hearthstone-vets-team-card-game-auto-battler-storybook-brawl/ , date=20 August 2021 , last=Wilde , first=Thomas , website=

GeekWire GeekWire is an American technology news website that covers startups and established technology companies. The site launched in March 2011 and is based in Seattle. It was founded by journalists Todd Bishop and John Cook with investment from Jo ...

{{cite web , title=Storybook Brawl tries to iterate on what Hearthstone Battlegrounds started , url=https://www.pcgamer.com/storybook-brawls-tries-to-iterate-on-what-hearthstone-battlegrounds-started/ , date=2 July 2021 , last=Bolding , first=Jonathan , website=

{{cite web , title=This new free-to-play fairytale card game was designed by former Magic pros , url=https://www.pcgamer.com/this-new-free-to-play-fairytale-card-game-was-designed-by-former-magic-pros/ , date=19 June 2021 , last=Cassidy , first=Ruth , website=

{{cite web , title='Storybook Brawl' developer acquired by crypto exchange firm FTX , url=https://www.geekwire.com/2022/storybook-brawl-developer-acquired-by-crypto-exchange-firm-ftx/ , date=22 March 2022 , last=Wilde , first=Thomas , website=

{{cite web , url=https://kotaku.com/nft-crypto-blcckchain-storybook-brawl-card-f2p-steam-re-1848708120 , title=Devs Announce NFT Plans For Popular Game, Get Review Bombed On Steam , date=26 March 2022 , last=Zwiezen , first=Zach , website=

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

{{cite web , last1=Nicolle , first1=Emily , last2=D'Anastasio , first2=Cecilia , title=Sam Bankman-Fried's Favorite Video Game Is Shutting Down , website=Bloomberg.com , date=25 April 2023 , url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-25/sam-bankman-fried-s-favorite-game-storybook-brawl-to-close-post-ftx-bankruptcy , access-date=7 January 2024 {{cite web , last=Tidy , first=Joe , title=The fall of the FTX 'King of Crypto' Sam Bankman-Fried , website=BBC News , date=13 November 2022 , url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63612489 , access-date=7 January 2024 {{cite web , title=Exclusive: FTX buys Good Luck Games in quest to convince gamers to love NFTs and blockchain , url=https://www.zdnet.com/finance/blockchain/exclusive-ftx-buys-good-luck-games-in-quest-to-convince-gamers-to-love-nfts-and-blockchain/ , date=22 March 2022 , last=Gariffo , first=Michael , website= ZDNet {{cite web , last=Chalk , first=Andy , title=FTX collapse has done lethal damage to an up-and-coming card game , website=PC Gamer , date=25 April 2023 , url=https://www.pcgamer.com/ftx-collapse-has-done-lethal-damage-to-an-up-and-coming-card-game/ , access-date=7 January 2024 {{cite web , title=Storybook Brawl Early Access Preview: Fine-Tuned Fantasy Fun , url=https://screenrant.com/storybook-brawl-early-access-preview/ , date=3 July 2021 , last=Gravelle , first=Cody , website=

{{cite web , title=Card autobattler Storybook Brawl review-bombed for NFT integration , url=https://www.eurogamer.net/card-autobattler-storybook-brawl-review-bombed-for-nft-integration , date=24 Mar 2022 , last=Nightingale , first=Ed , website=

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

{{cite web , last=Dastoor , first=Vaspaan , title=Storybook Brawl Dev Reveals NFT Plans, Instantly Gets Reviewbombed , website=The Gamer , date=27 March 2022 , url=https://www.thegamer.com/storybook-brawl-nft-plans-steam-reviewbombed/ , access-date=7 January 2024 {{cite web , last=Wilde , first=Tyler , title=Game immediately review bombed on Steam after crypto company buys it , website=PC Gamer, date=30 March 2022 , url=https://www.pcgamer.com/storybook-brawl-crypto-review-bomb/ , access-date=7 January 2024 2021 video games Auto battler video games Inactive online games Free-to-play video games Multiplayer video games Video games developed in the United States Windows games