Last summer, we held the closed Alpha testing phase of Silberheim ECG. This marked an important stage in the game’s development process — but it was by no means the first, only, or most significant milestone in the past and future months that have shaped, and will continue to shape, Silberheim into what it is and is meant to be. To give you a better insight into the development of a trading card game, today we’d like to take a journey through its past and future — together with Karl.

If I had to provide a short version of this text, the result would probably look like this:

As strong as my belief in the connection between programming and magic may be, I must honestly admit that there is, of course, a bit more between an idea and a finished game than a few commanding words from Karl that, as if by magic, turn speech into something tangible. For despite my reverence for the conqueror of a thousand programming languages, it would indeed be unjust—and somewhat heathen ignorance—to describe the hard work behind game development as effortless ease.

Moreover, the credit certainly doesn’t belong to Karl alone — Silberheim is, naturally, a team effort. So let’s, for the moment, ignore the fact that Felix also writes code from time to time (when he isn’t completely consumed by the constraints of German bureaucracy—“I am UNhappy”) and that Karl now has an entire IT team behind him.

So let’s start from the beginning again: Karl has already introduced himself once in a YouTube video, where he gave a brief look into his daily work. He is the Head of IT and Technical Director at Beyond Worlds, which makes him the one responsible for all things even remotely technical. Beyond the “repair” of hardware and software — that stereotypical turning-it-off-and-on-again — his main area of focus, of course, is the Silberheim Evolving Card Game.

Karl, however, was seemingly born a programming Gandalf — and only possibly studied computer science later. Legend has it that the very young Karl’s first words were “Hello World,” followed shortly by “Syntax Error.” By the age of eight, he was already programming — mainly to get menacing building-block battle robots up and running. His mother, wanting to nurture this talent, tried to sign him up for a computer course — only to be told that such a class wasn’t available for eight-year-olds. Naturally, a solution was found: while his mother officially enrolled and attended, young Karl simply came along and did the programming for her. By the time he finished primary school, he gifted his teacher an automated grading program. Unsurprisingly, Karl didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps to become a carpenter — instead, he ended up right where he belongs, co-founding Beyond Worlds alongside Felix and Manu.

Now, you should understand why he’s the one entitled to add his two cents to this story.

When I myself began contributing to the Silberheim project in December 2024, Manu very early on told me about a formative event in the lives of the three founders that reaches far back into the past. Felix, Karl, and Manu had, as it turns out, first met while gaming — specifically, playing Eve Online with a few others. It was during this time that a T-shirt-worthy incident occurred, which I was advised to bring up with Karl regularly to ensure that the humiliation was never forgotten. Due to a “brief” moment of inattention, Karl caused the fall of a Titan — a particularly large and impressive spaceship, currently worth around €460. And that’s roughly how it all began. We won’t recount the entire company history here — that would likely take far too long. Instead, we’ll focus primarily on the game itself: Silberheim Evolving Card Game.

Developing a trading card game wasn’t necessarily the first or only idea that motivated the friends to start a company. Simply put, they eventually lost interest in casual gaming and felt a need to spend their time on something “meaningful.” Of course, we could invent a dream that existed from their earliest childhood, a vision Karl and co. supposedly had as four-year-olds, or a shared tragedy that brought them together to create a card game — but realistically, that’s not how it happened. They were just a few friends who got along so well that they wanted to start a company and work together. That it eventually became a trading card game was well thought-out, but ultimately not the core issue.

It was Manu who gave the decisive impulse, fully immersed in TCGs. Then he and Felix began writing the first novel. “At that time, I was building a rudimentary card database,” Karl recalls. “In the meantime, we’ve completely revised it and are now using an up-to-date version.” Initially, the focus was on developing the game itself — not the game client. Rules were created, and cards were designed, but a true digital game with an interface didn’t yet exist. Instead, there was a somewhat… let’s say, “special” first attempt to make the game playable.

“We wanted to test the game, but we were spread across different parts of Germany, studying or working,” Karl explains with a harmless understatement. “So we needed a way to do it remotely without having to do a lot of programming.” Now, dear readers, take a moment to consider: How could you test a card game — one with only rules and relatively concrete card ideas — online, without writing a ton of code?

“The first way to play the game was through a Google Spreadsheet, where the cards were in a sheet,” Karl recounts. “You could copy them onto the playing field, adjust the values if they were attacked, or delete the card from the sheet if it was dead.” My bewilderment is obvious. But Karl manages to dig up the original 2018 spreadsheet and shows me what Silberheim ECG actually once was: plain, unadorned, incredibly dull tables with a single programmed element that randomized card draws. When asked if it was fun at all, Karl simply says, “Of course — eventually you get into it.”

It may surprise some, but over the next few years, efforts were made to make Silberheim look and function a bit more like a proper game. After focusing primarily on the card database, Karl turned his attention to the first game prototype — a real game this time, no more spreadsheets. This all happened gradually, as everyone was still busy with other things at the time, like “studying” or even “working.”

The first game prototype was only marginally better looking than the old spreadsheets, but at least it represented a functional step forward. Many things still had to be entered and updated manually, unlike the largely automated processes today. For example, if a card took damage, it had to be adjusted by hand — a perfect opportunity to cheat! Gradually, Karl integrated the game rules so that the computer could handle most of the work automatically.

In August 2020, the Beyond Worlds GmbH was founded – the company we still are today, the company behind Silberheim ECG. Needless to say, we probably couldn’t have picked a worse year to start a business. But let’s ignore the elephant in the room and focus on what Karl was up to.

“After the founding, nothing really happened with the game for about six months because I had to program a lot of stuff for the online shop,” he explains. Now you’re probably wondering what this online shop was all about. In the beginning, Beyond Worlds didn’t have any grants or funding available. So it was necessary to somehow generate revenue. To achieve this, a collectible card online shop was run, primarily managed by Manu. This was practical for making money, but at the same time, it was a hindrance to further developing Silberheim. As everyone knows, you don’t do things halfway.

“Felix and I basically worked for ourselves as part-timers while still keeping our main jobs,” Karl adds. “In the mornings I worked for the university, and in the afternoons for Beyond Worlds.” While Manu had already spent his first years in Landstuhl, Felix and Karl moved to West Palatinate much later – Karl from near Nuremberg, and Felix supposedly from Bielefeld. Of course, I asked Karl what he thought about this “Bielefeld.” His answer: “About what?”

After the six months during which Karl’s programming skills were focused on the mysterious online shop, work on the game finally resumed. The most noticeable changes and progress were initially visual. In 2021, Nathalie, aka Sunny, joined us as an intern and tackled some fundamental design and concept tasks. For the first time, the game board didn’t look completely terrible – admittedly, I wouldn’t have done any better than Karl!

The following year brought another change that would significantly alter the game’s appearance. One fine autumn day, an internship application arrived – from a certain “Zongi.” It shouldn’t be surprising that this internship eventually evolved into a combination of a study-accompanying position, a bachelor’s thesis, and ultimately a full-time job.

In the same year, but before Zongi’s arrival, Beyond Worlds also visited Gamescom for the first time, where the Silberheim prototype (back then still under the name Dystopia) was presented. This happened within the framework of the Rhineland-Palatinate media funding program, at whose booth we were allowed to set up and whose funding we had received twice.

Two years ago – in 2023 – things started to get more serious and professional. With media funding from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the project progressed to federal funding, a financing round, and more. And so the four were now able to dedicate themselves to the project full-time, and the online shop was handed over to others. The game could finally be tackled properly. What had once been a prototype was now beginning to transform into what Silberheim ECG was meant to become. While the prototype had primarily served to test the game with its developed cards and rules, what Karl now started programming would bring Silberheim to life on the technical side. He began working on the Unity game client.

Things really picked up pace last year. In 2024, many new employees joined, and the team grew – including, of course, the IT team. By the end of the year, three programmers were suddenly sitting in the office – without Karl having undergone any sort of cell division. Additionally, 2024 also brought another Gamescom visit, where the current state of Silberheim ECG could be admired and played.

With the larger team, the next milestone came this year: the alpha testing phase! Summer 2025 was all about Silberheim and our many dedicated testers, to whom we can never thank enough. Compared to the game last year, the alpha included several technical milestones that were successfully programmed and implemented. For example – brace yourselves – players can now actually own cards in the game (WOW!). Previously, it was only possible to play with pre-made decks, but now specific cards could belong to specific accounts. PvP was also introduced, meaning I can finally lose to Karl instead of the bot. On top of that, during the alpha, music finally played in the game – our soundtrack Promise was released.

How programming is currently handled is something Karl also tried to explain to me, and I tried to understand. The short version: “The first 90 percent of a project take the first 90 percent of the time, and the remaining 10 percent take the next 90 percent of the time."

In detail, Karl and his team mostly try to work independently. Unity is currently – and hopefully for a while still – our engine of choice. However, we want to be prepared in case that changes. Unity is therefore intended only to display the game. The game logic is programmed in a way that it could also work outside of Unity.

“Developing a collectible card game is a special case compared to other types of games,” Karl explains. “The requirements and things that need to work are different. In a racing or shooter game, it has to run smoothly, feel good, the physics must be realistic – the demands for a trading card game are lighter in that sense.” Milliseconds of delay in the display aren’t so critical for a trading card game. A shooter, on the other hand, would become almost unplayable.

However, there are of course other challenges. “Each of our cards has different content because the whole principle of trading card games is the rules. On every card, there are additional rules that modify the general game rules,” Karl elaborates. “Theoretically, this would mean that every card would have to be programmed individually with its own rules, which would be far too labor-intensive.”

This is where Karl’s current side project comes in. He is developing a kind of rules system that allows non-programmers like Manu to add new cards and their rules. The system then automatically applies the appropriate logic without requiring manual programming each time.

At the same time, a move history is being developed, so that players in the future can follow what has happened in the game and no longer wonder why their peaceful Wolby family was suddenly destroyed. Work is also underway on stacking cards and deck organization – in a manner similar to the rules system: a system is programmed that defines how cards can be stacked, without having to program the stacking itself. Confused? Me too. In any case, it’s all about automation, and this Sisyphus-like groundwork will make everyone’s lives much easier in the future – thanks to forward-thinking programming.

Aside from all these clever programming tasks, Karl is also preparing for the beta test phase. In particular, this involves scaling: compared to the alpha, many more testers are expected, and the technology must be able to handle this. The beta is scheduled for next year – and Silberheim ECG is also expected to launch next year, so you can assume the beta won’t be pushed to the very end of the year. For the beta, an English translation of the game is also planned!