foxhull

SBE's design team is not the same as their programming team - Justin Gary, for example, is not a programmer, but a designer. Playdek was hired specifically to port the game, nothing else. I can't give an explicit source (though I do know most of the guys there personally), but Ascension is Justin's baby, and I really doubt he would let the design of it (any of the design at all) go outside of SBE.

EDIT: Well, there's your source right there!

For reference, Playdek has nothing to do with the actual game development of Ascension IIRC. They're the people in charge of the port to electronic media. StoneBlade Entertainment (of which Justin Gary is the CEO) is the group that actually made the game.

Not yet anyway.

Depends on what's involved in what they're deciding.

The card design itself is completely handled by SBE, that much I'm sure of.