Bloons Card Storm
| Developer(s) | Ninja Kiwi | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Ninja Kiwi | |||
| Platform(s) | iOS, Android, Windows, macOS | |||
| Latest update | Version 6.3 | |||
| Release dates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam | 28 October 2024[1] | |||
| Google Play | 28 October 2024[2] | |||
| App Store | 28 October 2024[3] | |||
| Language(s) supported |
|---|
English
Danish German Spanish (Latin America) French Italian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portuguese (Brazil) Russian Swedish Chinese (traditional) |
Bloons Card Storm (also referred to as just Card Storm[4] and abbreviated BCS) is a competitive card battling game in the Bloons franchise. In the game, two players, each with a Hero and a deck of cards, take turns playing cards and Hero abilities with the goal of reducing the opposing Hero's health to 0. Players can play Bloon cards to attack the opponent, Monkey cards to defend against the opponent's Bloons, or Power cards to activate beneficial effects and/or disrupt the opponent. Many of the game's elements are based on Bloons TD 6 and Bloons TD Battles 2, including the aesthetics and many of the Monkeys, Bloons, and Powers.
Ninja Kiwi revealed Bloons Card Storm to the public on 19 September 2023 in a Reddit post featuring artwork and a short description of the game.[5] They released a series of development blog posts leading up to the release of an early access Windows build called the Firstlook test on 4 June 2024,[6] which had an online testing period that ran for three days. This build featured a limited number of cards and Heroes, early versions of Duel and Adventure mode, and only allowed players to use a few preset decks. A second early access build for Windows (later amended to include macOS) called the Full Playable test released on 20 August 2024[7] to all previous applicants and new applicants, which had an online testing period that ran for 23 days. This build added more cards, card crafting, and deck building. On 26 September 2024, Ninja Kiwi announced that all pre-release Steam keys would be revoked, preventing players from continuing to play the test builds offline.[8] On 28 October 2024, a near-final build unintentionally went live on iOS a few hours before its intended launch period in some regions.[9] Later that same day, the full game officially released on all platforms.
On 9 April 2026, Ninja Kiwi announced that Bloons Card Storm would cease development following version 6.3, citing lack of revenue, and that the development team would be integrated into Bloons TD 6 and Bloons Blitz.[10] The servers and existing content will remain online indefinitely, including re-running past Ranked seasons, and they have expressed interest in community-made balance patches.
Lists
editGameplay
editBloons Card Storm is a two-player turn-based card game. At the start of a match, each player draws their starting hand and can redraw a card in their starting hand up to 3 times. The player that goes first starts with 3 cards, while the other player starts with 4 cards and 1 extra Gold. At the start of each turn, the turn player draws one card and gains Gold equal to their Economy (which starts at 1 and increases by 1 each turn). Players can have up to 8 cards in their hand and can save up to 20 Gold. On each turn, players can play cards, use their Monkeys to attack the opponent's Bloons, or use their Hero's Abilities, and can do any of these actions in any order. Most actions have some resource requirement; most cards cost Gold or Bloontonium, most Monkeys have limited Ammo, and most Hero Abilities require Bloontonium. At the end of the turn, all of the player's Bloons reduce their turn delay by 1 and attack the opponent's Hero if their delay was zero at the start of the turn. When a Bloon hits the opposing Hero, they lose health equal to that Bloon's remaining health.
A match can either end in a win for one player and a loss for the other, or a draw for both players. A player wins and their opponent loses if the opposing Hero runs out of health, the opponent starts their turn with an empty deck, or the opponent forfeits or disconnects. If both players are in a losing condition at the same time, the match ends in a draw.[11]
By playing matches, players earn experience that goes towards increasing their player level and Hero level. Leveling up grants rewards such as Monkey Money to purchase items from the Store, Tokens to craft new cards, and Deck Slots to build more decks.
Cards
editEach player has a deck that consists of one Hero and 40 cards. Up to three copies of each card can be included in a deck (except for Unique cards, which only allow one copy per deck). There are 280 different cards in the game, but 17 of them are not normally part of a deck. There are three major card types:
- Bloons: Bloon cards are the main way of attacking the opponent. Each Bloon has a delay stat that determines how many turns the opponent has to defend and a health stat that determines both how much damage the Bloon can take and deal. The turn delay decrements at the end of the player's turn and attacks the opponent if it reaches zero, dealing as much damage as it has health remaining. Playing a Bloon card also generates Bloontonium equal to the card's Gold cost. Bloons can have additional effects, such as giving extra Gold to the player when destroyed. Each player can have up to 8 Bloons queued at a time, and more Bloons cannot be played if the player's side is full.
- Monkeys: Monkey cards are the main way of defending against Bloons. Each Monkey has an Attack Power stat that determines how much damage they deal to Bloons, an Ammo stat that determines how many times they can attack before needing to reload, and a Reload stat that determines how many turns it takes to restore their Ammo. Players can spend Ammo to attack their opponent's Bloons at any time during their turn. Monkeys can have additional effects, such as having more Attack Power when at full Ammo. Each player can have up to 5 Monkeys on their side at a time, and existing Monkeys can be replaced by playing new Monkeys if the player's side is full.
- Powers: When played, power cards instantly trigger an effect, then are discarded. Some Powers require a target, such as selecting a Monkey or Bloon, while others have no conditions. Some Powers cost Bloontonium to play instead of Gold.
Heroes
editHeroes are characters that each player has during the game at all times. Heroes start with 500 health and come with three Hero Abilities, each of which requires the Hero to have a certain amount of Bloontonium to use. Each Hero Ability has a different effect and Bloontonium requirement. When a Hero loses all their health, the opponent wins.
Storm
editThroughout a match, a phenomenon known as the Storm attacks players on specific turns. When it triggers, it first attacks the side of the player that did not go first, then attacks the other side on the following turn. Initially, it spawns Bloons, starting with Yellow Bloons and spawning stronger Bloons and/or more Bloons at a time as the game progresses. On later rounds, it can also stun Monkeys.
Maps
editMaps are environments that apply a modifier to both players, such as increasing a stat of certain types of cards. Before a match begins, one map is selected at random. Each player can veto the map before the match starts to reroll it, which will always be a different map from the previous one (or two if the other player vetoed first).
| Icon | Text |
|---|---|
| Badlands At the start of each turn: Deal 10 damage to the other Hero |
|
| Dark Castle Bloons gain 5 Health |
|
| Dread Depths Enter the lair of the Armored Behemoth, Dreadbloon! |
|
| Game Night Monkeys have +5 ATK |
|
| High Finance Players start with 2 additional Gold |
|
| Bloontonium Refinery Players start with 4 Bloontonium |
|
| Monkey Meadow Where adventure begins! No special rules |
|
| Workshop Players start with 1 extra card in their opening hand |
Currencies and resources
edit| Icon | Name | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Monkey Money | Buys Heroes, deck slots, and Daily Deals. The player cannot hold more than 20,000 at a time. | |
| Tokens | Used to craft cards. There are eleven types of Tokens: ten for each card class, plus Universal Tokens, which can be used to craft any class of card. The player cannot hold more than 60,000 of each class-specific Token and 100,000 Universal Tokens. | |
| Deck Slots | Permanently increases the number of decks a player can have saved on their profile. | |
| Card Packs | Unlocks five cards of a specific card set when opened. The player is always guaranteed two Commons, two Uncommons, and one Rare, Super Rare, or Ultra Rare they do not already have max copies of (unless the player already has max copies of all cards of that rarity in the set). |
In-game tips
editWhen the player loses three times in a row, an in-game tip will be placed on the top-left corner of the rewards screen. The first in-game tip was added in the game launch, but the other ones were added in version 3.0.
- "Try changing your deck to counter your opponent."
- "Try sending Bloons in waves to overwhelm your opponent's defenses"
- "Build a balanced deck with Monkeys to defend and Bloons to attack"
- "Gold is saved from one turn to the next. Save up for a big Bloon send!"
- "Don't play Monkeys early if there are no Bloons, save your Gold and see what your opponent does!"
- "You can change your deck in the card collection screen"
- "Check the store for card packs to boost your collection"
List of cards
editGame modes
editCampaigns
editCampaigns are tutorials for the general gameplay of Bloons Card Storm. They do not count towards feats or quests. They replaced the original Tutorial in version 6.0.
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| The Basics |
A four-step introduction to the basic game mechanics. |
| Card Storm 101 |
A five-step tutorial of advanced game mechanics. |
Multiplayer
edit| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Duel |
An unranked multiplayer mode where the player faces other players online. After choosing a deck, the player joins a matchmaking queue until an opponent is selected. Both players have up to 30 seconds to veto the map before the game begins. The turn order is assigned at random. |
| Ranked |
A seasonal competitive mode where players play matches to achieve the highest ranks. Winning matches earns points that increase the player's rank and unlock rewards on a rewards track, but losing matches causes the player to lose points. There are six tiers, with Paragon being the highest tier, but players at Paragon tier can win more matches to increase their Paragon Rank up to rank 100. At the end of each season, the ranks of all players reset and all participants earn a medal based on their ranking. Matches in Ranked mode can have different stipulations, such as different Storm patterns. |
| Boss Battle |
An event mode where the player plays against a Boss Bloon, who acts as a non-playable Hero with exclusive cards and multiple phases. The player earns points for damaging the boss, and earns more for clearing all phases based on the number of turns it took. The player's top score for each day goes towards their score on a leaderboard and the Global Score, which unlocks rewards for all players and changes the boss's deck and ruleset each time it reaches a milestone. |
| Private Match |
Allows the player to create or join a match with another player using a code. Does not earn experience or count towards feats or quests. |
Challenges
edit| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Daily Challenge |
A daily event where the player can play against an AI opponent with preset decks and maps. Each challenge completed earns 50 Monkey Money. |
| Training |
Allows the player to fight an AI-controlled version of each Hero. Does not earn experience or count towards feats or quests. |
Adventure
editAdventure is a singleplayer mode where the player plays against AI opponents with custom decks and modifiers. Each Adventure has its own gameplay and mechanics. The player only has access to a small portion of each Adventure initially and needs to purchase the full version from the store.
| Adventure | Campaign text | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Amelia's Adventure |
Prologue Who is the greatest Wizard Monkey of all time? Perhaps Gwen and Quincy know… |
Medium |
| Amelia the Amazing! Amelia is an up and coming Magician with stars in her eyes! She can’t wait to be the main attraction at the Big Top and she’s ready to prove herself. |
Challenging | |
| Striker's Adventure |
Striker's Battleground Choose a starting Hero, deck, then prove your mettle on the Battleground while you build your deck. Use powerful items and potions well to achieve victory! Every playthrough is unique! |
Normal |
Reward systems
editDaily Rewards
editThe player can claim a Daily Reward once per day. Rewards include small amounts of Monkey Money and Token, random cards with no duplicate protection, and Card Packs on every seventh day.
Quests
editQuests are objectives that the player can complete to earn rewards. There are two types of quests: Daily Quests, which reset daily, and Weekly Quests, which reset weekly. Daily Quests reward 20 Monkey Money and 150 Tokens of a random type, while Weekly Quests reward 150 Monkey Money and 1,000 Tokens of a random type. Each quest type has three slots. There is a reroll feature for quests that can be used even when quests are completed, but rerolling is tied with the daily/weekly reset timer. Quests do not progress when playing in Tutorial, Training, or Private Match mode.
Weekly quests reset on Monday at the same time as Daily quests.
Store
editThe Store allows the player purchase items with real money or Monkey Money. With real money, the player can purchase item bundles, Monkey Money, Universal Tokens, Card Packs, and Cosmetics. With Monkey Money, the player can purchase Heroes, Card Packs with no duplicate protection, and Token bundles. On mobile, players can watch an ad that refreshes daily that gives 50 Monkey Money. If the player has made any in-app purchases, they can claim it without watching an ad on mobile and can claim it on Steam as well.
Feats
editFeats are objectives the player can complete to earn rewards, acting as the equivalent of achievements in other Bloons games. Playing Tutorial, Training, or Private Match games does not count towards most Feats.
Gift codes
editGift codes are codes distributed through official outlets that players can redeem for in-game rewards.
Customization features
editAll players start with the following cosmetic items by default:
- Boomerang Monkey (Avatar)
- Dart Monkey (Avatar)
- Standard (Card Back)
- Good Game! (Text Emote)
- Good Luck! (Text Emote)
- Nice Play! (Text Emote)
- RNG! (Text Emote)
- Thank You! (Text Emote)
- Thinking (Text Emote)
- Waiting (Text Emote)
- What Happened? (Text Emote)
Profiles
editThe player's profile displays statistics about their gameplay, such as win/loss rates and Daily Challenge wins. The player can customize their Avatar and Emotes.
Heroes
editHeroes are customizable with Pets, which appear alongside Heroes in a match; Platforms, which change the appearance of the plinths that Heroes stand on during a match; and Voice Packs, which enable more voice lines Heroes can use.
Decks
editDecks can have custom names, which are not shown to other players, and Card Backs, which change the appearance of the back face of cards during a match.
Relation to other games
editGame references
edit| This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: More game references |
- Some of the map names reference previous games:
- Monkey Meadow shares its name with a map from Bloons TD 6 and Bloons Blitz.
- Workshop shares its name with a map from BTD6.
- Dark Castle shares its name with a map from BTD6
- Many of the Monkeys are reused from upgrades of towers from Bloons TD 6.
- Some card artworks include characters that have never made appearance in Bloons Card Storm but appear in other games such as Bloons TD 6 and Bloons TD Battles 2. Among these include Agent Jericho and Bonnie.
- Some Heroes in BCS, like Quincy and Adora, have their likenesses from BTD6 instead of BCS on card artworks released before version 2.0.
Reused assets
edit| This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: More reused assets from previous games |
- The sound effect for matchmaking with a player is the same sound effect as completing a Quest in multiplatform version of BMC.
- The sound effect for all Boomerang-type Monkeys are reused from the Boomerang Monkey easter egg in the main menu of Bloons TD 6.
- One of the random sound effects from the attacks of all Bomb-type and Mortar-type Monkeys are the same as that of Captain Churchill's downwards cannon shots in Bloons Pop! and the individual MOAB Barrage missiles of Captain Churchill from Bloons TD Battles 2.
- When holding the Sound Effect volume toggle in the Options menu from the main menu, the quote "Yes?" by Quincy from Bloons TD 6 is reused from the Hero volume toggle in that game.
Development
editBloons Card Storm began development with a proof-of-concept made using paper cards, which was later turned into a digital proof of concept.[12] Ninja Kiwi revealed the game to the public on 19 September 2023 and released a series of "Developer Diary" Reddit posts detailing features of the game and showing cards as they were implemented over time. The game was initially planned to release in June 2024[5][13] but was pushed back to mid-October, before finally being confirmed to release 29 October (though it technically released on 28 October in some time zones).[14] Overall, production took 20 months.[13]
Prototypes
editDesign Prototype
editThe Design Prototype was an internal build of the game made approximately 6 months into pre-production. It had no in-game art.[13]
Firstlook test
editThe Firstlook test was a beta test build that included Quincy and Gwendolin, five preset decks with no support for customization, an early version of Adventure mode, and Duel mode. Online playtesting was held from 4 June 2024 to 7 June 2024, but it could be played offline at any time.
Full Playable test
editThe Full Playable test was a beta test that introduced new cards and Obyn Greenfoot, deck-building, currencies, quests, balance changes, updated graphics, and changes to the Adventure mode. Online playtesting was again held from 20 August 2024 to 30 August 2024 (later extended to 11 September 2024), but it could be played offline at any time until all the Steam keys were revoked on 26 September 2024.
Build 1050
editOn 28 October 2024, a near-final build unintentionally went live on iOS a few hours before its intended release window in some regions.[9] This build is very similar to the final game, but with minor differences in graphics and text.
Pre-release images
edit| This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: There are more dev diaries with early images |
December 2023 Developer Update
editThis developer update included one image depicting the Wizard Monkey's card art, a deck of cards, concept art of Heroes (later shown in full in the following Developer Diary), and concept art of various monkey facial expressions. The cards in this image used an early design for their backings, which appears in other pre-release material.
March 2024 Developer Diary
edit- The "how to play" image features several differences from later builds:
- The HUD for Heroes, Monkeys, and Bloons is different.
- It features an early design for Bloon cards with a card called the "Big Red Bloon". It uses the card art and model of the Red Bloon, but it costs 1 Gold, has 1 charge, and has 50 health. The Big Red Bloon was not playable in any officially released builds or shown in any other promotional material, but it did have placeholder card art in early builds, and an image of it appears in the Firstlook test's tutorial.
- The Heroes concept art includes Benjamin, who does not appear anywhere in the game, and Ezili, who did not appear in the game until version 6.0.
- The class icons in the card sample image are positioned differently from the final game.
- The Monkey Meadow concept art is similar to its finalized appearance introduced in the Full Playable test, and is very different from the early design used in the Firstlook test. It has rectangular areas for the Heroes instead of a semi-circle of rocks like in the final game.[15]
-
"How to play Bloons Card Storm" image
-
"Cards" image
-
"Heroes" image
-
"Maps" image
Unused concepts
edit- The developers mentioned that there would be a way to convert class-specific Tokens into Universal Tokens during development, but no method of doing this exists in any version of the game.[16]
- The developers experimented with Bloons that are immune to certain attacks, like in the Bloons TD series, but "having them be completely immune to most monkeys didn’t feel fun".[17]
- The developers had planned a 7.0 update, including an exclusive Hero and a new Arena, and had advertised it as part of the game's 2025 roadmap.[18] It was initially scheduled for November 2025, but was delayed to December[19] before development ultimately ceased by April 2026. The community-made card backs added in the final update, version 6.3, were initially scheduled for release in 7.0,[20] making them the only known remnants of the update.
Promotion
editAnnouncement
editNinja Kiwi revealed Bloons Card Storm to the public on 19 September 2023 in a Reddit post featuring artwork and a short description of the game.[5]
Pick your favorite Hero, fill your deck with Bloons, Monkeys, and Powers, and then do battle!
In true Bloons tradition, Monkeys don't attack other Monkeys, so you'll need to carefully balance your deck with nefarious Bloon cards for offense and powerful Monkey cards for defense. Use Powers at just the right time to swing the battle in your favor, inject some much needed gold into your economy, or draw deeper into your deck.
Quincy, Gwen, and many of your favorite Heroes are here and ready to help you pop Bloons and conquer the playfield.
As you've come to expect from Ninja Kiwi games, we're aiming to build something that is super fun to play, easy to pick up, but hard to put down. With tons of developer and artist time already invested into the project, we're loving this turn-based, deep strategy card game internally, and we think you will, too. We're making great strides and are aiming to launch the game mid-2024. As that date approaches we will be opening Beta testing phases, so keep your eyes peeled to Ninja Kiwi socials for those announcements, most probably starting early in 2024.Pre-order milestones
editOn 3 October 2024, Ninja Kiwi announced that they would distribute rewards at launch based on the total number of wishlists on Steam, pre-registrations on Google Play, and pre-orders on the App Store.[21] These rewards were distributed at launch via the gift code LAUNCHGOALS.
| Milestone | Rewards |
|---|---|
| 50,000 | 500 Universal Tokens |
| 75,000 | 100 Monkey Money, 500 Universal Tokens |
| 100,000 | 100 Monkey Money, Necromancer ×1 |
| 150,000 | 100 Monkey Money, ZOMG ×1 |
Trailers
editReception
editIn July 2024, during NZ Games Fest 2024, Bloons Card Storm received the Accessible Ambrosia Award for Excellence in Accessibility.[22][23]
Descriptions
editStore pages
editNinja Kiwi's website
editReferences
edit- ↑ SteamDB
- ↑ Google Play Store
- ↑ App Store
- ↑ "New Hero! Zee Jay kick-flips his way into Card Storm!" — Version 3.0 update notes
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 (Tue, 19 Sep 2023) "Game Announcement: Bloons Card Storm!". Reddit. Retrieved Sat, 24 Aug 2024.
- ↑ SteamDB
- ↑ SteamDB
- ↑ BennyNK on Discord
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Sam on Discord
- ↑ "Bloons Card Storm - Update 6.3". Reddit. Retrieved Thu, 9 Apr 2026.
- ↑ "Karek_Tor comments on Draw". Reddit. Retrieved Tue, 3 Jun 2025.
- ↑ "We've had physical card versions made by team members over the years and have a bunch of deep card game players on the team. We finally came up with a potential digital proof of concept for a game and the time was right to make one! It's come a LONG way since the initial paper card proof of concept but we're really happy with the mechanics we've landed on" – "BCS - First Look AMA: Part 1/2". Reddit. Retrieved Fri, 25 Jul 2025.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Aimee Cairns. "Bloons Card Storm: How We Translated BTD6 into a Card Game". NZGDA. Retrieved Sat, 11 Oct 2025.
- ↑ "We were indeed aiming to launch next week but have made the call to take an extra couple of weeks to iron out a few last bugs, get some more art polish in and generally let the builds settle before launch." – "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - October 11th". Reddit. Retrieved Fri, 25 Jul 2025.
- ↑ (Fri, 15 Mar 2024) "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - March 2024". Reddit. Retrieved Sat, 24 Aug 2024.
- ↑ "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - September 11th and AMA!". Reddit. Retrieved Tue, 2 Sep 2025.
- ↑ "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - April 2024". Reddit. Retrieved Fri, 25 Jul 2025.
- ↑ "BCS Dev Diary - February 26th 2025". Reddit. Retrieved Thu, 9 Apr 2026.
- ↑ "Dev Diary - July 10th 2025". Reddit. Retrieved Thu, 9 Apr 2026.
- ↑ "Card Back Competition Winner(s)!!!". Reddit. Retrieved Fri, 10 Apr 2026.
- ↑ "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - October 3rd". Reddit. Retrieved Fri, 25 Jul 2025.
- ↑ https://nzgamesfest.com/2024winners/
- ↑ "Bloons Card Storm Developer Diary - 19th July 2024". Reddit. Retrieved Thu, 3 Oct 2024.
External links
editNavigation
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