Ravensburger's headquarters in Ravensburg, Germany. Lorcana is the tabletop firm's first collectible card game. Photo dustpuppy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Disney's character art is not freely licensed.
Disney Lorcana
What it took directly
- statedDisney Lorcana took from Ravensburger's Villainous board games, which built its relationship with Disney and Disney fans"Our work on the Villainous line of games has helped us forge a great relationship with Disney, as well as with Disney fans," Ryan Miller, co-designer, to Matt Kim, IGN (September 2022)
- documentedLorcana's first cards (revealed at D23, 2022) took from illustrators Simangaliso Sibaya, Nicholas Kole, Luis Huerta, John Loren and Marcel Berg"They include Simangaliso Sibaya, Nicholas Kole, Luis Huerta, John Loren, and Marcel Berg." Charlie Hall, Polygon (September 2022)
- documentedLorcana's cards took from deep cuts in Disney's animation vault, such as the tabard from Mickey's The Three Musketeers"one card, for instance, may reference the tabard from the Mickey Mouse-starring “The Three Musketeers,” and another may simply point to the Beast’s ability to throw a tantrum." Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times (August 2023), from a demo with Ryan Miller
What it learned to do
- documentedRyan Miller (as a card-game designer) learned from Magic: The Gathering, which hooked him as a teenager in Bakersfield"When Ryan Miller first played “Magic: The Gathering” he was hooked." Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times (2023), from his interview with Miller
- statedRyan Miller learned from notebooks of Magic decks and card-game ideas he kept as an Army prison guard at Fort Leavenworth"I still to this day have books from that period where I’m listing out ‘Magic’ decks I want to make, or I’m working on my own ideas for trading card games." Ryan Miller, to the Los Angeles Times (2023)
- documentedDisney Lorcana learned from Villainous's lesson: keep it simple"Francke says the company leaned on its lessons from “Villainous” in making “Lorcana.” Namely, keep it simple." Filip Francke, Ravensburger's global head of games, as reported by the Los Angeles Times (2023)
- statedDisney Lorcana's card balance learned from veteran trading-card players, who did all the play testing"all the play testing and stress testing of the cards has been done by veteran TCG players to make sure there are lots of combos, synergies, and decks to find in each set." Ryan Miller, to IGN (2022)
The tradition it sits in
- documentedDisney Lorcana comes from Magic: The Gathering, whose flying returns in Lorcana as the Evasive keyword"Another keyword that really shows how much Lorcana is taking from Magic is Evasive." Alex Sowa, CBR (September 2022) — a critic's reading of the first cards, not the designers' account
- documentedDisney Lorcana comes from Disney's animation history"“Lorcana” taps into Disney’s storied animation history" Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times (2023)
- inferredLorcana's song mechanic comes from the musical numbers of Disney's animated films"one of my favorite mechanics is the song mechanic. You can have one of your characters sing for you." inferred — Miller describes the song mechanic as a little scene, and the cards name songs such as "Hakuna Matata"; nobody quoted calls the films' musical numbers its source
Where the whole form comes from
- statedDisney Lorcana comes from the immersion Ryan Miller felt at Disneyland, where his grandmother sometimes took him as a boy"Growing up in Bakersfield, kind of on the poor side, my grandmother would occasionally take me to Disneyland," Ryan Miller, to the Los Angeles Times (2023)
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