Remember Scrolls, Mojang's strategy card game which was hit by a lawsuit from Bethesda? Mojang ended development on the CCG in 2015, but its servers managed to hang on until February of this year. When it finally pulled the plug, Mojang said it hoped to release the game to the public with a modified client that would support user-run servers. Today, the studio did exactly that.
"It's time! We're releasing the game for free, for anyone to enjoy," Måns Olson wrote in a post on the game's site. "The team's been working towards this behind the scenes for a long time now. I'm thrilled we're finally here! To those of you who've waited patiently for this, thanks."
Olson also announced that Scrolls has been renamed and is now called Caller's Bane. "I'm sure there's a good reason for it," Olson said, cheekily referring to Bethesda's claim that the game's original name infringed on The Elder Scrolls. "Perhaps we just didn't like the sound of 'Scrolls'. Either way, it's still the same game you've known and loved."
Going forward, you'll need to create or connect to a specific server Minecraft-style in order to play Caller's Bane. The folks who run the tips site Scrolls Guide have already set up a community server of their own, which the new client defaults to. The free download package also includes tools for players to set up their own servers, not to mention "re-balance the game entirely, change some of the rules, create new trials, and many other things, straight in the database."
"There's a few caveats," Olson explained. "First, you'll all get the opportunity for a fresh start, as we can't bring everyone's collections of scrolls and decks over to community servers. But don't worry; server owners can decide to give everyone a full collection straight away, or change the gold and card distribution however they like. Second, there's no ingame friends list, as you won't be using the Mojang account system on community servers."
Scrolls was never a bad game, just an exceedingly unfortunate one. But as we said in our review, Scrolls' community was always one of its greatest strengths, so who knows, now that the community's in control of the game, it may well get its second wind.
