Flesh and Blood, Magic’s biggest competitor, is launching a new expansion set called Bright Lights. We spoke with the creator about how it changes the game.
In the ever-evolving world of the Flesh and Blood trading card game, where warriors and technologists battle for supremacy, the upcoming expansion set, Bright Lights, introduces a new take on equipment cards. It will completely change the way players build decks around new and old Mechanologist heroes.
At its core, Flesh and Blood is a turn-based strategy game that pits unique sci-fi and fantasy heroes against one another in brutal combat. A bit like Magic: The Gathering meets the Pokémon Trading Card Game, players start each game of Flesh and Blood with their single chosen hero in play, and use a variety of weapons, equipment, and attack cards to swap blows until a hero’s health total is reduced to zero.
Central to each hero’s identity and play style is the equipment they wear on their legs, chest, head, and arms. Equipment cards are essentially the hero’s armor, and protect the hero from opposing attacks or provide additional benefits that might synergize with a given hero’s play style or card pool.
Unlike traditional equipment cards that all hero classes have access to from the start of a game, the new Bright Lights expansion introduces a cycle of Evo equipment specifically for Mechanologist heroes that are instead shuffled into the players’ decks. Players then have to draw the cards in order to play them for the powerful new effects these equipment cards introduce.
“As game designers, I believe our primary job is to provide fans with a compelling puzzle, with game pieces that inspire them to want to build different decks, try new strategies, and have fun exploring new ways of playing,” wrote creator James White in an email. He’s also the CEO of the game’s publisher, Legend Story Studios, based in New Zealand.
“‘Bright Lights’ is our first time taking fans to Metrix, the City of Wonder,” he continued, “so we needed to deliver an experience that felt true to the sirens call of Metrix; That the future of Rathe is reinvented daily in research centers of Metrix, that anything is possible, that you can Become More Than Human!. Getting to build badass Evo mech suits to become more than human captures that vibe.”
Among the design goals of Bright Lights, expanding FAB’s Mechanologist archetype with new heroes and equipment is central to the set’s theme. The heart of Bright Lights lies in the transformation of underpowered base equipment into state-of-the-art Evo upgrades.
