Distinct Possibility Studios 携 Valesong 4 人在线卡牌游戏回归，登陆 Discord Activities | 独家

Distinct Possibility Studios didn’t succeed with its big shooter game last fall dubbed Reaper Actual. But it hung onto a small team and it’s back with Valesong, a new online fantasy collectible card game.

This title isn’t as big a swing as Reaper Actual, an extraction game with triple-A ambitions. But Valesong is built with AI and it’s a free-to-play, four-player game that will enter early access as a Discord Activities on October 29, 2026, at noon Pacific time.

I spoke with founder and CEO John Smedley about the game, and he said it’s like a mix of Magic: The Gathering Commander and Hearthstone. The team made the game after Reaper Actual failed, and it had to get by with a much smaller group. That’s where AI came in.

His full-throated endorsement of AI is rare, as some CEOs would rather hide from that admission. And Smedley’s own standing in games makes him an important voice in the discussion around the use of AI in games.

Smedley is a pioneer of gaming who brought to life games like Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, DC Universe Online, H1Z1 and more. He worked as the leader of Sony Online Entertainment for many years, but he stepped down after Sony sold SOE to Daybreak Game Company in 2015 — and after he had public fights with a hacking group. Then he started Pixelmage Games to make a fantasy RPG called Hero’s Song, but the project foundered in 2017. Then he joined Amazon Games to help make MMOs there, but he left in 2023 and the studio was later closed. At that point, he created Distinct Possibility Studios, working on Reaper Actual.

“I’m a very large proponent of AI. I also don’t have my head in the sand. It is going to cost jobs, but it’s going to it’s also going to alter a lot of people’s jobs and make games better, in my opinion. I strongly believe that. There’s just no way around it. You can’t have this kind of productivity gain without loss of certain types of jobs.”

While AI is useful to Smedley now with his team of just five people, he said he doesn’t actually believe that AI art is going to win the day.

“I definitely don’t, even though we’re using it. I don’t actually think the Miyazaki’s of the world and all of the brilliant people in our industry are never going away. There’s always a hunger for really great art, and AI art doesn’t have the same soul, and I definitely know that. But it’s interesting and what I’m seeing happen now in the industry — it’s really difficult.”

The details of Valesong

The game invites players into the beautiful world and lore of Valesong, brought to life through its characters, creatures, and cards. Players build decks, make alliances, share units, and play cards during each other’s turns in a game designed to bring the strategy and conversation of a card-game night directly into Discord.

Valesong is designed to appeal to players who enjoy the social multiplayer dynamics of the Commander format in Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and the digital card battles of Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone. But facing three other players changes the decisions you make.

Do you commit your resources to attacking, hold something back to respond during another player’s turn, or help an opponent who can keep a bigger threat in check? An alliance can help you survive, but the player you help is still competing to win.

Players build decks around seven classes, combining creatures, spells, equipment, artifacts, enchantments, abilities, heroes, and companions. Sharing units lets players support each other on the board, while the ability to play cards during other players’ turns keeps everyone involved in the action. A player struggling against the strongest board can ask the table for help, negotiate support, and give the others a reason to cooperate. Those conversations are part of the game: make alliances, share units, and talk people into things that help your board.

The experience is as much about the fun and social dynamics as it is about strategic cardplay. Playing with old friends means knowing who might honor a deal and who needs a little convincing; playing with new people means discovering that together. Winning matters, but so does enjoying the unique journey that every game becomes when you’re having fun with other people.

Launching as a Discord Activity lets players gather where their communities already spend time. Players can launch Valesong from their Discord servers, party up, and join their friends in the game. Voice and text chat are enabled by default, making conversation part of the experience from the start, while players who prefer not to use voice can turn it off.

The Early Access release includes a launch set of 400 cards and seven playable classes: Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric, Ranger, Beastmaster, and Necromancer. Many cards are available free, and additional cards can be earned through play as players expandtheir collections and experiment with different decks. Future expansion packs will introduce more cards and classes.

Community creation is also part of Valesong’s vision. At launch, players will be able to use AI-powered tools to create their own cardbacks, bringing something they helped create into every match. The studio plans to expand those tools over time, with the longer-term goal of allowing players to create full card sets and eventually sell them.

Valesong uses a mixture of human-created art and AI-generated art, alongside AI-assisted tools for programming and voices. The development team makes every creative decision and directs how those tools are used. The studio’s approach also includes a planned opportunity for artists who create without AI to contribute to the game and earn royalties from their work.

After launch, Distinct Possibility Studios plans to introduce an art portal where community artists can ubmit original, non-AI artwork following published guidelines and examples, with video verification of the creation process. Accepted artwork will be used in Valesong’s first card set featuring entirely non-AI artwork, and participating artists will share in royalties from sales of that set. The program is intended to give artists a direct role in shaping Valesong’s visual identity and a financial stake in the work they contribute.

“As a small indie developer, we’re amazed how much AI can help us realize our vision for the game. The iteration time it allows means we can test new gameplay innovations fast, keep what works, and throw away the stuff that doesn’t,” said John Smedley of Distinct Possibility Studios. “Every part of the process of making this game has humans making every creative decision, with AI helping us execute at an unprecedented speed.”

Valesong will be free to play as a Discord Activity beginning October 29, 2026, at noon Pacific. Early Access marks the beginning of an ongoing development process, with player feedback helping shape future updates, content, and community creation features. For more information, visit Valesong.gg.

Distinct Possibility Studios is a game development studio based in San Diego, California, and the developer of Valesong.

Smedley’s thoughts on AI use in games

I said I hope it benefits the small studios with 10 people or less more than it benefits the 1,000-person studios. That could help swing things in favor of indies. His own studio is going full into AI usage.

“I totally agree with that,” he said. “I love the idea that anybody can learn to vibe code. Anybody. It does help. I programmed games for many years in the beginning, which is why I took to vibe coding so well. Anybody can do this, and so the rise of these smaller studios that do 10x, you’re like you’re dead right. I think that is the real the win.”

He added, “I also think at the same time bigger studios are going to use corporate bullshit language. I have no doubt the the big companies think they can do a lot more with AI, so they don’t need as many people. And that’s just a fact. And people that want to try to deny that are crazy. It’s just blatant. It’s right in front of our faces, and it just won’t be called that.”

He added, “It’s going to be hidden behind corporate speak, and I think that’s a shame because we really should have the debate.”

Smedley figured the AI tools would be an issue for some gamers, but he felt like the small studio, which laid off the bulk of its team in December, had no choice. And so far, Smedley is amazed at the progress the company has made with AI.

“My eyes are wide open about there’s a pretty heavy wave of anti-AI sentiment by gamers. Meanwhile, though, if you look at it quietly, there are AI-made games that are succeeding on Steam, even though they have full AI disclosures, and they’re making real money,” he said.

Over time, players will be able to make their own card sets. Players will be able to submit artwork that they have personally made, and the company will issue its own style guide. Players can then earn a royalty from a pool that Distinct Possibility Studios will set aside. The company will pay players royalties on the sales they generate.

Playing the game

The Magic: The Gathering Commander uses a social format with pickup games. You can play with different people every week, and it’s very different from a traditional two-player Magic game. It’s a four-player game and it’s a free for all. Anybody can attack anybody. What that leads to is politics, and the the politics on the border are very important, he said.

Smedley did a demo for me and showed me what the action was like. It was laid out like a tabletop game, with room for four players. Players played their cards and the movement happened fast.

“Let’s say I have a lot of creatures out, and I’m in a strong position, and somebody’s about to attack me. I could I could talk to one of the other players and say, ‘Can you fireball his attackers, and I will come to your aid the next time anybody comes to you,'” Smedley said.

He added, “That is what makes the game more fun because it’s the politics of of playing with other people. It’s all very friendly. It’s also not a ‘I must win’ kind of a kind of a game because very frequently the most powerful people get taken out first. It is as much diplomacy and your ability to deal with the other players.”

Smedley wanted to make something that felt like that, with a social feel to it.

“That’s thjis game. It’s as if Magic: The Gathering Commander had a baby with Hearthstone,” he said.

Using AI voices

The game uses AI-generated voices, and they sounded pretty good to me. I had to ask Smedley if they were real. He said they’re based on the voices of professional voice actors. They get paid bonuses for usage.

“If I didn’t tell people, they would never know,” he said. “We specifically selected the ones that get paid.”

In the game, heroes come with abilities, one active and one passive. You can add more abilities if you put more cards in your deck. Since there are four players, you can play cards during other players’ turns, which is very different compared to Hearthstone.

“We have a very different way to go about doing it. We also let you share units with other human players,” he said.

A hybrid game, made with both humans and AI

The game board was designed by people, while the cards were made with AI. The items dubbed board tokens were built by both humans and AI.

The team’s art director made the board, and the cards themselves are made with AI art. But the effects are all made by humans. You can play against AI, but if you play against humans, it can take a lot longer. You can play cards on anyone’s deck. The Hearthstone part is the fast play.

“The goal here is to make something that is both familiar, but also completely new because we have so many different types of cards than than Hearthstone does,” he said. “You have to watch the board with four players to see what’s going on. It’s fun watching watching the smack talk get bigger and bigger.”

The green felt on the table has the vague outlines of a fantasy battle. You’ll see that battle progress over time. That’s a cool effect, created with AI, he said. The team built its own bug-tracking system in about 45 minutes. Each night, Smedley runs an AI agent that he built to fix the bugs. Real people on the QA team found the bugs, but Smedley uses the AI agent twice a day to fix the bugs.

The task left over for the humans, like the art director and the CTO, is manageable.

“We’re able to spend 100% of our time on what matters, which is gameplay,” Smedley said. “In a day, we creating a new blocking system. That iteration time is what will make games better, in my opinion. We’re not just shipping a game. We’re also building a platform for us to make future games. That gives us the ability to punch above our weight.”

If Smedley had a lot more money, he would have hired artists to do the work. But he noted that AI gives the non-artists (like himself) to express themselves and show what they can do.

“I feel it gives us the ability to express creativity in a new way is going to be a game changer in our industry, and I think it’s going to be great for players,” Smedley said.

The collapse of Reaper Actual

This act of creation was a kind of relief, or a salve, after the pain of watching the big game fail despite having a lot of resources that other game makers would die for.

As far as the fate of Reaper Actual, Smedley doesn’t mince words. The company raised $33.5 million to build the game, but raising more money to finish it became hard over the three years it took to build the title.

“Reaper Actual failed,” he said. “I don’t like it when people try to dodge these questions with BS words. I don’t want to do that. It was a lot of effort to have it go up in flames.”

The company is still updating Reaper Actual, and it put some patch notes out this week, with a patch coming. They’re doing the patches more slowly now because of the lack of staff. The hope is to grow a little from the proceeds of the game and get more people working on Reaper Actual again.

“We’re not done with that game,” he said.

Smedley had a team as large as 40 working on Reaper Actual, but there was an earlier layoff. In December, another 15 jobs were lost. In May, the company did its early access launch and it didn’t resonate with players. He acknowledged the team launched it too early, but it was difficult to raise money in the environment for financing.

“That was all all human effort, and we ran out of money, and it was hard to raise then,” he said.

As far as pulling off Valesong, he said there was some money to get it done. Decasonic, one of the company’s investors, was willing to support Distinct Possibility Studios because they liked the idea of Valesong.

The company made the pivot to being an AI-native game company.

“We’re having a blast doing it. This is fun, but we’re small, and so you you do what you can, and we’re not giving up on on Reaper Actual. But you know it does suck when people just didn’t like it,” he said.

Smedley did much of the work on Valesong, which materialized after Reaper Actual. Once the team got a little funding, he was able to expand it to about five people.

The game is debuting on Discord Activities, which is a fast-growing game platform that has been under the radar. So many people use Discord every day that more and more games are debuting there.

As far as Discord Activities goes, Smedley feels like it’s the early days of Zynga. Games can go viral, and they have a shot at taking off with huge audiences.

“There are millions of players,” he said. “There’s an RPG that launched recently and hit a million players in a week.”

So Smedley dove into it.

“We decided to launch there first before we launch on Steam to give ourselves a chance to feel the game out, see how players like it, give us a chance to make any changes that players want,” Smedley said. “It really gives us a chance to be in front of a lot of people fast. And from our perspective, Discord has been so supportive. They are they are amazing. Their API, their social SDK, and all of the tech pieces. Getting everything stood up was a matter of hours. So it’s it’s kind of a a pretty neat place to see some cool games, and we plan on being one of them.”

After Discord Activities, Smedley believes he could launch on Steam within 30 days, if all goes well. Then it can debut on mobile and he thinks it will take about a week to take the game to Unity.

Using AI tools with open source platforms

After Discord Activities, Smedley believes he could launch on Steam within 30 days, if all goes well. Then it can debut on mobile and he thinks it will take about a week to take the game to Unity.

The game is platform agnostic. It uses Go as the backend and an open source platform dubbed Nakama as well as Hiro from Heroic Labs. The game can stand up multiplayer games within minutes, and the team can add new features to the game within minutes.

“You probably never heard of Nakama, but a lot of indies use it, and they also have so it comes with multiplayer baked into it. It’s all open source real time multiplayer competitive so they handle the queuing and they handle the the matches,” he said. “We license Hiro so we’re built on top of this stack. It gives you a wallet, it gives you inventory, and it gives you live events, the ability to do leaderboards, teams and guilds. We actually have guilds up. That was about a 20-minute build. All these things are part of this, and it’s very reasonably priced.”

That all gives the team the ability to really add features quickly and easily. Smedley said he was working on an achievement system and he was expecting to do it in a day.

“I’ve made multiple card games in the past. Now keep in mind that was that was me as president of SOE, but I’ve worked on them heavily because it’s a love affair that I’ve had with them since Magic, and the amount of time it takes to just build,” he said.

Smedley added, “With a text editor and a rules compiler, that kind of work was a six-month build at Sony Online Entertainment, with good quality engineers. Our rules compiler was about two hours. And the reason that took time is because I had to actually explain how to build it. So once you have that, though, now I have a rules engine. I could add new keywords, new types of cards almost immediately, and it goes in there. So what takes time now is describing what I want to get something fun, and then trashing it if it was a bad idea.”

How to deal with the AI hate

As far as the AI criticism goes, he said, “I do respect, and I know that we are going to catch grief for this thing. I do realize that there are a lot of players who are going to have a problem with the AI. That is where we hope that our AI art generation system we’re going to open up to players will give players the ability to get things they want. They can make it look the way they want. I have no doubt that people, when we let them make full card sets, are going to create amazing stuff.”

He thinks players will like it when they’re invited to create their own cards.

He added, “Will people still have a problem with AI art? Probably, but at the end of the day, that’s why we’re doing building the infrastructure so that people can do submissions of real art. We’re going to require them to submit with a video of them making it, and we’ll be able to spot if somebody’s doing something bad, and what’s really cool is all of this system is auto moderated.”

I asked Smedley what he would say to gamers who might look at his game and decide not to play it because it’s an AI game.

He replied, “It’s a free to play game. Give it a try. See if you think it’s fun and remember our goal is to actually get a full set of real artist-made cards in here. We’re a small company and we could use the help and support to get there, and give us the feedback that we need to make it great.”

Smedley added, “And then when we’re able to actually get those cards made by real artists, we’re all going to end up being happier. I will say this. I too prefer real artist-drawn cards. I love Magic: The Gathering. I collect Magic cards, and a lot of the reason I collect it is that art. I am I am both aware of that and agree with that. But I also think the game plays so unique, and it’s fun. It’s just a very different. It feels a lot like Magic Commander, and that’s not a feeling you can get anywhere else right now except on pen and paper. So give it a try. There’s nothing to lose. It’s completely free. We give away a free card set that you can build decks from, and then of course we’re going to sell packs. From where I sit, it costs nothing to try.”

Saving jobs?

Under the circumstances that Smedley faced after his big game Reaper Actual failed, it became clear that making a game with AI was the path to saving his company and the remaining jobs. Smedley gets credit for trying, and that’s what he’s done through his long career making games like EverQuest, Free Realms

“I think there’s a lot of hate on AI art. Every company I know is using AI coding now, and the ones that are are not talking about it publicly are probably using it even more. I actually sent Tim Sweeney a thank you email because of the air cover he just gave a lot of people. He was a lightning rod for it. He was on an unfiltered diatribe. It was brilliant. Everything he said, I so strongly agree with, and yet I’m also aware. This is going to cost some jobs.”

Smedley said he also uses AI to figure out which of the Steam curators that are upvoting his games are real, and he reports those that appear to be bots or fraudulent — and there is a lot of fraud, he said. The fraudsters ask for free keys for the games which they turn around and sell. But if the company refuses, they review bomb the game.

“What’s interesting to me is how the U.S. audience hates AI versus China. They’re going batshit crazy for AI over there. They love it,” Smedley said.

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