As promised, we want to dedicate the next few Friday posts to present interviews with various persons interacting with Minion Masters in different ways. Some create content, others try to stay as competitive as they can be. We have people organizing community events, the developers of course, players that just play the game on different levels of skill and knowledge. All of them have one thing in common: they play Minion Masters on a regular basis and love it.
Let's do this!
Minion Masters meets Swongolians
Hi Swongo, nice to have you! Even though you’re a regular Minion Masters streamer, would you introduce yourself, please?
My Streamer name is Swongo, I am a 45-year-old husband, father, gamer and retired game dev. I have been playing video games since the days of Pong and have been passionate about it ever since. I chased my passion for gaming into a career that took me on one hell of an adventure. Some of the best times in my life were during my days in the industry. My passion for gaming even rubbed off on my sister-in-law who has become a game dev as well and now even streams on her free time. Games have been a strong presence in my life for as long as I can remember, and I am grateful to have a platform like Twitch to be able to share my passion with the public. I run and operate the Twitch channel SwongoTV. I currently stream a variety of games 6 days a week on Twitch at twitch.tv/swongotv.
I stream Minion Masters several days a week as well as some other games (mostly indie games) to keep the stream fresh and interesting. SwongoTV just celebrated our 9-month anniversary exceeding 900 followers with a Minion Masters stream and giveaways every hour. We had a great time and made a lot of new friends and Swongolians. The channel is growing so fast and the community is one of the best on Twitch in my opinion. Stop by and follow the channel and become part of the Swongolian Nation (I call my followers Swongolians). Much love to you Swongolians out there if it wasn’t for your support I would not be here today <3.
Sounds awesome! As someone playing Minion Masters on a regular basis, would you agree with Minion Masters being more than just another card game in the CCG pool? And if so, why?
Minion Masters is much more than a card game in my opinion. I find that it is more of an organic strategy game full of tactics in the same genre as a table-top game like chess. However, instead of each player having the same board pieces they have different cards that transform into characters on the playfield and battle it out before your eyes in an exciting mash-up of action. Cards are an important part of Minion Masters. Deck building is one of my favorite things to do in Minion Masters, creating a strategy, testing it on live players in the arena can be very satisfying as well as a learning experience. Once you’ve built your deck and enter the arena the cards transform into warriors and spells for you to activate. It’s the arena were Minion Masters feels less like a card game and more like a tower attack/defense game or even a single lane MOBA.
What do you think makes Minion Masters stand out compared to Clash Royale or other popular CCGs?
First and foremost, it’s not played on a tiny phone screen, playing on PC is a huge difference. I have a few games on my phone and tablet, but rarely play them because I have a PC and large monitor with a keyboard and mouse. In Minion Masters the characters come to life as soon as you play their card as opposed to many other CCGs that when you play a card the card lays on a virtual tabletop as a card with little to no life in it. As price points go, Minion Masters is hard to beat too, although some CCGs are Free-to-play they are also micro transaction heavy games that require a massive grind or a significant purchase to stay competitive.
At this stage of Minion Masters development, I feel that a player can remain competitive without a significant strain on a players wallet. The core deck that new players receive is very strong and will keep them competitive for some time all the while earning new cards to add to their decks without any investment required. I have paid some money into the game not because I needed to but because I wanted to support the Dev team that created this game and felt that I simply didn’t give them the money they deserved from the purchase price of the game. Also, I got me some skins ;)
Speaking of being competitive: ever thought about competitive Minion Masters? If so, how do you feel about the state of it?
I have thought about competitive Minion Masters but if I am completely honest, I am just not good enough yet. However, I have been getting some great tips and knowledge of the game from the community as a whole and getting better every week. Who knows, maybe you’ll see Swongo in a tournament in the future. As for the current state of the competitive Minion Masters scene I feel we need some new blood out there. Exciting as the tournaments are getting it seems that the same players are at the top of the leaderboards every week. Having many of them as followers of SwongoTV I pick their brains on many Minion Masters strategies and card plays in hopes to educate the viewership and get some new faces in the leaderboards (maybe my own as well).
Not good enough... honestly Swongo, when can your audience and the rest of the community expect to see you in tournaments?
I need some more training before I can enter a tournament. There is still a lot for me to learn about the tactics, play styles and overall value of each card. I don’t mind losing, I just want to make a good fight of it. When I feel that I could at least give a good fight, you’ll see me out there. With the help of the community (which is very helpful I might add), I will get good enough to put on a good show. Then again, my destiny may be to commentate on the sidelines, we’ll see what the future holds.
The future is a good point for the next questions: where do you see Minion Masters in 2 years?
With proper marketing and continued balance of development, I see Minion Masters being very popular. One of the many things I like about Minion Masters is that you’re not committed to a long play session when you sit down to play. You can join a game, play it and be done in 10 minutes or less. Alternatively, if you want you can strap yourself in for a ladder climb and play for hours. The versatility of the game is very appealing. I can’t wait to see the numbers when you full release on PC and Xbox. It is a fun game for casuals, an addicting game for competitive players and a fun game to watch. The Minion Masters community is very kind and helpful and seems to be growing all the time. I’d love to see a larger presence on Twitch and eventually even some eSports events. Perhaps a good showing at a Con like E3 could push Minion Masters into the larger audience that it deserves.
Thanks for the interview and if you want, leave some shout-outs!
I would like to shout-out some other Minion Masters streamers out there that have been very supportive of me and SwongoTV: Kexaron, Excaliber80, Truteo, Videogamer77 & my buddy TheHairyHippo. Go check out these guys' growing channels and pick their brains on any Minion Masters questions you might have.
I would also like to take a moment to thank BetaDwarf for being so supportive of SwongoTV. You guys have always answered any questions I might have, given me codes for giveaways on stream and been all around great Devs in my book. I hope we can continue to build our relationship and grow together. Thank you, so much and keep up the good work.
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Well, what could we possibly add at this point? Nothing else than have a nice weekend everyone, good luck with the last days of the Draft event and don't miss our next blog post on Monday, when we talk about the upcoming Update 62 for Minion Masters!
Cheers from BetaDwarf
