Disney Lorcana Co-Creator Talks Designing New Cards

Disney Lorcana Co-Creator Talks Designing New Cards

As a seasoned TCG enthusiast with over three decades of gaming under my belt, I can confidently say that Disney Lorcana has quickly become one of my favorite trading card games. Its unique blend of strategy and storytelling is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise saturated market. The team’s approach to designing cards is both intuitive and innovative, leveraging the rich lore and personalities of beloved Disney characters to create mechanically sound and thematically engaging cards.


The Disney Lorcana Trading Card Game stands out due to its multifaceted strategy, owing largely to an extensive collection of creative card designs. These designs offer a wide range of deck customization options, including decks dominated by agile Broomstick cards for swift deployment, decks that utilize the unique singing mechanic in Disney Lorcana for unexpected powerful plays, and strategic decks that manipulate action cards to dictate the game’s course.

Recently, Game Rant attended the Disney Lorcana TCG Challenge in Seattle and had a conversation with co-creator Steve Warner about the methods used by the team when creating new card sets for the game. Although the game has only been out for a year, it has already seen several significant card sets released that have significantly expanded the game’s possibilities for deck building. Warner shared that the team’s approach to design is quite similar to how many video game developers create their mechanics.

Some Disney Characters Are Natural Lorcana Cards

In the creation of fresh cards for Disney Lorcana, Warner explains that the design team employs two conventional strategies in game development: top-down and bottom-up design. Frequently, they select iconic Disney characters with distinct characteristics that can be effortlessly adapted into game mechanics. For instance, they may pick a character like Rapunzel, whose healing abilities align perfectly with her role as a healing card in the game. Similarly, Tinkerbell’s Evasive ability is an example of a card mechanic derived from the fundamental traits of the character itself.

In simpler terms, “Top-down” means I have a clear idea about the character I’m creating, and I can develop its abilities accordingly. For instance, in the story of Rapunzel, her character was designed from the top, as we knew she had healing powers. This was an integral part of her character because it was fitting for who Rapunzel is, but we wanted to make it interesting, so we gave her the ability to heal and draw cards when doing so.

Designing from the Basis refers to a process where we have a crucial mechanic in mind, yet we are unsure about the ideal theme for it until a later stage. For instance, consider the term “Grab Your Sword“, which symbolizes this approach. We were aware that we needed an element capable of dealing significant damage and eliminating numerous characters, but at the time, we weren’t certain what specific card that would be.

In another scenario, the team might opt to incorporate a card featuring distinct attributes that they desire, and then choose a fitting character to embody that function. Warner cited the Grab Your Sword card as an illustration of this method: it’s a card capable of dealing damage to multiple characters simultaneously, which is common in Trading Card Games (TCG), so the team intentionally designed this song card to grant this ability for players constructing Steel Lorcana decks. While Disney Lorcana may begin with a mechanical concept and build upon it, the end result is always purposeful; even cards developed from the ground up maintain a coherent theme, whether they represent characters or actions.

Disney Lorcana’s Card Sets Are Driven by the Storyline

Disney Lorcana Co-Creator Talks Designing New Cards

Warner additionally explained their methodology for constructing card sets that maintain internal consistency within a theme, using the Shimmering Skies set as an example, which was designed post-Ursula’s defeat in the Illumineer’s Quest. To begin with, they create “plain” cards that have only fundamental strength and willpower statistics, along with “French vanilla” cards, these being cards that usually include a basic keyword such as Rush, Bodyguard, or Challenger.

When designing, we initially create what is referred to as the foundation or base structure. There are specific cards that we anticipate will only contain a single keyword, and we refer to these as plain or basic ones. We’ll have a predetermined number of those, and then we’ll have another set of cards, which we simply call vanilla cards, indicating they don’t possess any special abilities.

Afterward, we consider the plot, marketing strategy, and overall tale, and proceed to create the characters that will bring this narrative to life. The journey of these characters within the story is what makes it captivating, so our aim is to ensure their journey is portrayed effectively.

Going further, the team draws inspiration from Disney Lorcana’s plotline and embodies story elements in innovative card abilities and descriptive text. For instance, the Floodborn card, Belle – Accomplished Mystic, bears the text, “The mixed ink had transformed more than just the rose.” This hints at how this Belle character has been affected by the flood of ink that took place during this point in Disney Lorcana’s story. Given the close connection between the narrative and cards, observant collectors might uncover hints about Disney Lorcana’s upcoming chapters hidden within their Lorebooks.

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2024-11-24 15:23