Interview: Online card trading game Urban Rivals coming to iPhone

The collision between social and web gaming is continuing apace. We've already had the likes of Mobsters and My Brute crossing platforms onto the App Store.

French publisher Boostr is hoping to hook iPhone gamers with what it considers a more sophisticated experience - its online persistent virtual card trading game Urban Rivals.

You can check out the official website here.

Without getting too heavily into the details, the game works with you playing head-to-head against another player, each selecting a deck of eight characters from your available cards.

These have their own power and damage attributes, as well as more complex support options, which often depend on their class.

In addition, each player has 12 Pillz to use during the bout. These are like multiplers that you apply to your cards to increase their damage, but as you only get to see what card your opponents plays, not how many Pillz they've laid down, the game has a poker-style feel to it.

To keep Urban Rivals fresh, new characters and classes are regularly introduced, and you can buy more cards using real money which you convert to the in-game currency, Clintz.

And there are always ongoing tournaments, in which you can test your skill and level up your cards.

As you'd expect, the iPhone version of the game will link into the existing web game, and you'll be able to log into your account using either a PC or your iPhone/iPod touch.

We caught up with Nick Witcher, Urban Rivals's marketing manager in the UK, to find out more.

Nick Witcher: Because it's a unique game that's fun to play. There's a lot of content (characters, clans etc), and the community is already huge, so finding opponents to fight will never be an issue.

Early on it's likely existing players will rush to download the iPhone game because it's great to be able to play Urban Rivals on the go. But over time we think that the iPhone-only (or iPhone-mostly) community will grow.

The game is designed to help new players discover the game in the best possible way, with an in-game tutorial and level-based game rooms, which mean you don't end up fighting against someone who's much better than you. Also, iPhone users are lucky because the game is now much more 'newbie friendly' than it used to be.

I see two main differences. First of all Urban Rivals is live multiplayer action game.

It's not asynchronous. You're not 'kind of' fighting the other guy but actually watching a video showing the outcome of a fight that was decided on the game servers. You're playing live against another human being - bluffing, trying out of the box strategies, putting on the pressure to force your opponent to make a mistake.

Also, there's no limit to what you can do for free in the game. Sure, the experience is more enjoyable if you go to the shop and buy new cards for your deck or to trade. But if you don't feel like paying, you can enjoy the game without constraints. There's no limit on the number of turns per day or the number of cards you can own, or the number of deck you can create.

Not easy. Obviously the biggest difficulties were ergonomic, since the game is designed for a computer screen and shrinking the interface to the iPhone dimensions wasn't easy. We're more than happy with the final result though.

The design of some screens needs to be polished, as well as features such as the tutorial. We need to finish the card shopping system, too. But mostly it's many small details rather than large parts of the game. We've definitely entered into the final stretch of development.

It's not really a big problem. We'll have two apps; one will be free without micro payments and a paid one (probably the minimum price) that will allow in-game purchases and comes with some credits.

Of course, we'd rather be allowed to charge micro-transactions with a free app but we understand why Apple has this rule. We can still provide a convenient way for the player to get the cards they want.

There would have been many updates to the game even if it wasn't a great marketing tool.

We are constantly working on Urban Rivals, upgrading it, adding new features, adding new content. We're not working on any other games, so all our energy goes into making Urban Rivals a better and better game service. So yes, expect the iPhone game to evolve significantly over time.