Around the end of each year, before the entire Team 5 goes on a holiday break, they host a kind of a Hack-A-Thon event called “Free Your Mind”. It’s a voluntary event, where team member scan either work solo or in groups on whatever projects they want – the only rule is that it has to be related to Hearthstone. Blizzard just published a blog post detailing last year’s Free Your Mind event, and it’s quite interesting.
What’s even more interesting is that they listed some of the projects that started during the event and ended up being implemented into the game. Those projects include:
- Random card backs
- Copy-pasting deck codes
- Reordering decks
- Offline collection manager
- Tech behind Battlegrounds parties
- Golden cards in Arena
- Searching for Dust refunds in collection
Of course, there were also a lot of wacky projects that did not make it to the live server, such as crazy Tavern Brawls – rhythm game, dating sim and StarCraft-themed one. Those actually do sound quite interesting…
Last year, the event’s main focus was an AFK tournament showcasing some of the new AI tech that utilizes machine learning. The team simulated an AI-only tournament with decks submitted by devs. The event inspired this year’s Hallow’s End Brawl called “Fairy Tales” (where you played as the Headless Horsemen leading actors, while the match itself was played by AI), which – according to the blog post – was one of the most played Brawls of the year.
There are also a few projects that can’t be shared yet because they might actually end up in the game.
But it’s not only engineers that take part in the event – last year, the team created a special card back in honor of Senior Test Analyst’s dog Nimbus. The dog was often visiting office back when everyone was working from there, and he became sort of an unofficial Hearthstone mascot. Sadly, Nimbus Card Back won’t be added to the game. While I’m more of a cat person, I still hope that Blizzard will reconsider it!
Read more in the full blog post below:
As the year begins to wind down, the Hearthstone team prepares for its pre-holiday break tradition: Free Your Mind! Free Your Mind is an informal and voluntary hack-a-thon where members of Team 5 can choose whether to band together on group projects or go it alone to work on personal passions for the final weeks of the working year. The only rule is that whatever you work on has some tie-in to Hearthstone!
Several features and systems in Hearthstone today were born from Free Your Mind projects, such as the option to equip a random Card Back, copy and pasting of deck codes, deck reordering, the offline Collection Manager, the tech behind Battlegrounds parties, your Golden cards appearing as Golden in Arena drafts, and the ability to search for dust refunds in your Collection! There are other Free Your Mind projects that end up improving live game systems and tools behind the scenes.
There are also many Free Your Mind projects that did not make it to the live server. Some of these are off-the-wall Tavern Brawls like a rhythm game, a dating sim, and one that was StarCraft themed—a StarCraft card set was also presented once upon a time. There are also a few projects that are being considered for the live game that are not quite ready to be shared yet.
As we prepare for this year’s Free Your Mind period, we wanted to highlight a couple projects from last year’s event.
An AFK Hearthstone Tournament
Last year, Lead Designer Pat Nagle helped lead a Free Your Mind group focused on showcasing some new tech around simulations and artificial intelligence (AI) that utilizes machine learning. The group’s project simulated a Hearthstone tournament where computers piloted decks submitted by the greater game team every round.
A total of 32 deck lists were submitted and seeded at random into a single elimination bracket. Best-of-three matches were simulated from there, with the machine learning AI making a grand total of 8,253 decisions on its own over the course of the tournament. The semifinals were best-of-five, and the grand finals were a best-of-seven. The tournament was won 5-2 by a Highlander Hunter deck submitted by John Mcintyre, who you may recognize as the design lead for Madness at the Darkmoon Faire.
That “AFK tournament” inspired the Fairy Tales Tavern Brawl that released in early November, which was one of the most played of the year. In the Tavern Brawl, you play as the Headless Horseman, directing your actors as they try to perform your first-ever production. Each turn you choose a buff that can influence the AI’s decisions, and then watch as the AI plays the game out in front of you. This was one implementation of the machine learning AI, which the team plans to improve for potential use in the future.
A Fun New Look
It’s not just designers and engineers who participate in Free Your Mind. Last year, Senior Test Analyst David Carlock from QA wanted to make a Card Back in honor of his dog, Nimbus. Back when the team was all working from the office, Nimbus was a regular. He quickly became friends with everyone on campus, and is well known for his loving nature and smile. Nimbus was even featured in the Hearthstone Pupdate, representing the QA department. Eventually, many members of the team dubbed him the unofficial Hearthstone mascot!
David was the QA Oracle for Card Backs at the time. A feature Oracle is a person whose job it is to know everything about that feature, so they are able to answer any questions other team members might have about the feature, and also write the test design and documentation for it. That meant David knew a thing or two about making a Card Back. After David did the initial mock-up and preparation, artist Juyoung Oh joined him to help with the final version.
Here is the final result: Nimbus, playing with a Hearthstone ball in his dog bed. While the Nimbus Card Back won’t be added to the in-game collection, it honors his important role on the team as an unofficial mascot for the game, and inspiration for us all!
We’re excited about what could potentially come out of Free Your Mind this year. Let us know what fun ideas you think the team should pursue!
TFW no Nimbus card back…
This sounds incredibly toxic from the outside, but it’s not like I don’t expect this kind of stuff from Blizzard.
Wait, what about the event sounds toxic? I’ve been talking with some devs who were attending it and they loved it.
I’ve heard of game companies asking people to volunteer like this, so they can have a list of people to bring on to the next project and one of people to lay off. That’s not voluntary at all, it’s just companies wanting to own the free time of their employees. Of course I’m willing to believe that this is not the case, and that Team 5 has no problem with it and enjoys the event, but with no further context it seems shady, especially considering Blizzard’s history with overworked, underpaid staff.
From what I’ve heard, they can either continue regular work OR attend the event, and they get normal pay if they pick the event. But most of the devs pick the event because it’s apparently more fun, they can do whatever they want there as long as it’s HS-related.
Of course I haven’t been there myself and I don’t know how it looks like in person, but it sounded like a positive thing overall.
“Reimagine the Blizzcon” with all the hardworker devs and zero *ssh*le people like Kotick, and also
“Free Your Mind” from all the sh*t that’s been going on with Acti-Blizz lawsuit. Because that sh*ts will destroy the game we all love.
Also, drop your price Blizz. I can’t recommend this game to anyone now.