When the average gamer hears about the famous Blizzard Entertainment, enormous multimillion dollar companies come to mind. In fact, Blizzard is made up of big titles like StarCraft, World of Warcraft and Diablo, each of which rake in millions of dollars for the video game company. These games take on large concepts and worlds that universally-large.

Whether it’s highly evolved psionic aliens, technologically advanced guns or druids conjuring ancient spirits, Blizzard has always made their games as large as possible to keep their customers coming back. However, Blizzard Entertainment recently announced a new franchise, called HearthStone: Heroes of Warcraft.

HearthStone is a free-to-play card game that will be released for the Windows, Mac and eventually iPad, possibly even expanding to other platforms after launch. HearthStone takes place in the Warcraft universe, using minions and spell to eventually overwhelm the opponent.

HearthStone, unlike other Blizzard games, is more simple in concept and design. While other Blizzard titles use large quests, bosses and epic adventures to tell their story, HearthStone presents a different solution: to have fun. Plot is taken completely out of the picture and the goal of the game is to just beat your opponent.

The beta testing (free, early testing to find bugs and glitches) for HearthStone was only released to a small number of people. By the time I received my beta invite on Oct. 29, there were only about 10,000 beta testers. In a matter of a month, however, the number of testers grew to about 200,000. With the continued excitement and hype for the game, finding a person to play with online is extremely easy.

The fact that HearthStone is a Blizzard game was the only reason I was interested, at first. But as I fired up the game for the first time, I realized this would not be like any other Blizzard game. The rules are laid out for you in the very beginning. When I was first inquiring about HearthStone, I wondered why nobody ever explained the rules or the objective of the game itself. Playing it, I learned that the game is so easy to understand that even a little kid could catch on quickly.

Blizzard tries to keep HearthStone extremely self-explanatory and genuine. Playing a card involves actually dragging it to a board. Opening booster card packs involves a lot of action. HearthStone does its best to pay some homage to people who loved playing collectible card games by making the game feel like physical cards being played.

Once I was launched out of the tutorial, I immediately went online to play against other people. I found myself playing for hours on end, even though each game only lasted about ten minutes long (sometimes they went even shorter).

I believe the biggest beauty of HearthStone is that it’s a simple Blizzard game: a paradox to most video game fans. Blizzard has a stereotype of playing games that take hours on end to get good at and have fun with. But HearthStone shows something different. Although the signature Blizzard production, effects, care and effort are there, the card game itself is easy. The system doesn’t feel like a “pay-to-win” system. It’s possible to get good at the game even if you choose to play completely for free.

Overall, HearthStone is a game that anybody could enjoy playing. You don’t need to have experience to be good, but it’s simple that the better player will always win. It’s a great game to play as a stressed-out high school student because it doesn’t require hours of gameplay, games are quick, and you will always have a bit of satisfaction knowing that you can come back whenever you want.