Appota has released Magic Stamps: a new way to play card games

Appota, one of the most successful mobile startups in Vietnam, has recently released its newest original game called Magic Stamps. The game is one-of-a-kind for card game fans. For those who don’t know, Appota is a startup focused on mobile content through its own platform. After finding success in their home turf of Vietnam, they have been working on lots of projects aimed at mobile gamers all over the world. Magic Stamps is one of its first moves in this direction.

(See: 10 mobile games from Vietnam you should not miss)

The game launches on both iOS and Android as free-to-play, supported by in-app purchases. Magic Stamps is an RPG trading card game drawn in an anime style. It features the ability for players to mix stamps to create their own personal cards for use during the game. These stamps can take many forms, including characteristics, skills, and appearances. This is one of my favorite features of the game, as you can make new characters by collecting material cards through battles and then combine them together.

Build a strong deck and get ready for battle

Magic Stamps has a large pool of stamps to draw from. There are more than 500 unique stamps—yes, that’s stamps, not cards! These stamps are divided into 6 classes which are human, evil, tank, healer, angel, and material. Each of them has unique functions, which ensures that one set of strong cards don’t always win. You can also find rare stamps to help build up your deck. The more rare stamps you earn, the stronger your deck will be. You have to combine different stamps, strategies, and resources very carefully if you don’t want to end up losing all the time.

But one of the features that I didn’t like about the game is that when you upgrade your buildings, you can’t really see your town changing. It just has the same artwork through the whole game.

Overall, the gameplay is quite hard—I had to play some of the first levels several times in order to understand how all these things worked. I cannot imagine how I would be able to get through 72 levels. Maybe, I just need to get to level 10, because there you can unlock the PvP function. This means you can more easily build up your stamp collection (and kick some ass while you’re at it). PvP was the reason I decided to try this game out in the first place.

One of the coolest things about this card game is the gameplay. It will remind you of the Pokemon—the video games, not the card game! How is that even possible? Here’s how: during battle, you will have to pick a set of stamps that you want to bring to the fight. Then, you have to pick one of those in turn to face a particular opponent, which then fights one on one against your opponent’s choice. This is a far cry from card games like Hearthstone, where you can send out lots of randomly drawn cards on the table.

Fighting in Pokemon style

Moreover, this game also has lots of diverse construction and resource management to deal with, which will definitely keep you busy for a while as you try to maintain balance. It requires serious determination if you want to keep your prosperous kingdom moving.

Currently, apart from developing this game, Appota is also making a sophisticated social network for hardcore gamers called onClan. Through this, they want to help the Vietnamese mobile gaming market to change its direction with social media. The release of Magic Stamps meanwhile is certainly a step towards strengthening their global presence.