
Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield on 35 years of making games - atomlib
https://www.dicebreaker.com/topics/richard-garfield/feature/richard-garfield-interview-making-games
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masona
Garfield, and M:tG in general, has been a huge inspiration for me over the
years. Magic is such a creative system of constraints, story, card complexity,
competitive ecosystems, strategy and metagaming. It also allows a really
personal approach to deckbuilding, play style and fun in general. Not to
mention the financial aspect of the secondary market, which is an entire field
in and of itself... A lot of the lessons learned from studying the game's
strategy have helped me cultivate new mental models in my approach to problem
solving.

At one point I even took a career break and designed a game, like Garfield
says, that I wanted to play that couldn't find. The game is called Sin Rummy -
a variant on Rummy based on Gandhi's seven social sins. It was tough to
develop, design and produce but I was able to use a lot of intuition from
playing Magic all those years to balance it. My starting design constraints: a
complex game with tons of replayability that would be easy to pick up and
learn, all printed within a single deck of cards. I was super happy with the
end result (even if the Kickstarter didn't go nuclear as I had hoped) and
still play it all the time. If anyone wants a copy, send me your address
(email is on the site in my profile) and I'll mail it to you.

~~~
mastermojo
Looked at your kickstarter. Very cool game! Was your plan to keep this game a
single-run production? I know a friend who is in the intersection of {plays
magic} and {likes game design}. I might hit you up on your offer once COVID-19
shenanigans calm down a little.

~~~
masona
Thanks for the note!

I'm hoping to do a larger run at some point in the future if I can get
distribution but I'm not in a hurry. Card quality is super important to me so
I would rather stick to printing with USPCC, which is more expensive.

Let me know if your friend is interested - I shipped 16 decks yesterday from
that comment alone.

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beefman
Garfield is the great-great grandson of President Garfield (known for his
novel proof the Pythagorean theorem, as well as his purported ability to write
with both hands simultaneously... in different languages).

Also, his great uncle supposedly invented the paper clip.

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tobrien6
It's too bad Valve didn't properly support or listen to players of Garfield's
digital card game Artifact (which he developed for Valve). It was a huge leap
forward in digital card games, involving high-level strategic play not present
in Magic. The 3-lane system inspired by DOTA and the Initiative system were
great innovations in the genre.

~~~
dx87
Valve listened to Garfield, who was telling them that the players not liking
it were wrong because he had data to show that the game was fine. He treated
players like computers and ignored that the game had a lot of feelsbad
mechanics, but he ignored the feedback because statistically it was very
balanced, therefore he thought the players shouldn't dislike it. A Star Wars
TCG he made failed for the same reason, but apparently he didn't learn.

~~~
Ntrails
There was a great Mark Rosewater blog ages and ages ago about how important it
was for him to look holistically at a mechanic/theme/set/whatever and ask the
most important question - is it _fun_.

Obviously different things are fun for different people, but some large
segment of players need to find a thing fun or it shouldn't go in. Regardless
of any other consideration (elegance, purity, cleverness etc etc)

~~~
z3t4
The problem is that the more people you adhere to the more washed out the
game-play will become. So you have to ask yourself if you want the game to be
super fun for a few people, or a little fun for many people. An easy mistake
new developers do is that they take something that is very fun, and make it
_less_ fun in order to attract more people.

~~~
me_me_me
What do you call a super fun game for few people?

A dead game.

Whether its online or physical. Game that doesn't have player-base is doomed
to be forgotten.

Artifact didn't even took off and the playerbase tanked to 200-300 people
weekly. Who is going to wait 30mins to find a match? And what are the chances
of even match-up?

~~~
z3t4
I was not referring to any game in particular. Once you have a very good
solution to a real problem, or a game that a few people think is really fun,
it's no longer a design/engineering problem it's a selling/marketing problem.

When you have few users it's not the time to water it down to suit the general
public, you should only do that once you have the ship in motion. eg. million
of users.

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throwaway5752
This is such a great excuse to post this for MTG fans
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/season/24/phoenix-
az/appra...](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/season/24/phoenix-
az/appraisals/1993-magic-the-gathering-beta-cards--201901A18/)

Black Lotus, Mox jewels... and the person had no idea of the value. Just an
enjoyable watch that isn't worth a separate submission.

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Fnoord
I'm a bit less positive with regards to MtG. Though I have not played it for a
long time (mainly did in 90s). IMO they innovated the combination of loot
boxes and pay to win, which with regards to children I find especially cruel
(I was a kid in 90s).

The only good card game I played in recent years is Slay The Spire. Inspired
by Netrunner it has a static, one time fee less than 20 EUR (buy to play),
rogue like elements, unique characters with unique playstyle, and a balance
between RNG/adaptation/skill. It also has a unique, simple art style which is
I guess indy like. I find it daring and refreshing.

Hearthstone I was enthusiastic about during beta. I quickly figured it was pay
to win (or a massive grind which is IMO an excuse).

Garfield and Blizzard might have made good games, and perhaps they still do.
But it's also big business.

I've seen a myriad of other card games on Steam. If anyone has any
recommendations, I'm interested (solo or multi-player).

~~~
andrewzah
> I quickly figured it was pay to win (or a massive grind which is IMO an
> excuse).

A grindy system basically -is- pay to win for anyone who has a fulltime job
and responsibilities. Good luck grinding for what you need if you only play
~30-60 mins every other day or so.

I've always disliked league due to this. On top of cosmetics, I also have to
purchase heroes...? I guess, or I can just play dota (which is a better game,
no bias here :-)).

> IMO they innovated pay to win

With MTG it was entirely too expensive for our group, so we used Cockatrice to
play it for free online. Commander/EDH is fun with friends. More so when you
can play decks where the only limit is your creativity.

However, one fun and relatively inexpensive format is booster drafts for mtg.
I used to play this every once in a while at my local card shop.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_formats#B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_formats#Booster_Draft)

> Hearthstone

At least you can sell MtG cards. Hearthstone was manageable when it first came
out, but I took a break for a while and was overwhelmed when I came back. That
devolved into a soulless grind of a game unless one started spending some
money on opening packs (... for each expansion).

Hearthstone also made me realize I dislike trading card games in a competitive
environment. I like fooling around in EDH with wonky decks with a few friends,
but trying to climb the hearthstone ladder was terrible.

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big_chungus
I just re-discovered MTG a week or two ago. I was wondering with a few friends
what we could do to socialize, and as none of us are big video game guys, we
decided to try playing via Cockatrice. I was able to quickly set up a server
and get everyone playing; lots of fun. In case any Cockatrice developer sees
this, thank you!

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HenryBemis
One of the things that made me stop playing MtG is that WotC bought TSR and
they killed Spellfire. I do understand that it wasn't raking £€¥$ like MtG
was, but still I loved Spellfire, I still keep all my cards in dossiers in
plastic sleeves and taking good care of them.

~~~
onefuncman
That was 1997, you hold a pretty serious grudge...?

~~~
airstrike
This is both really funny and really true.

I remember being incredibly upset that all my friends were abandoning
Spellfire to play MtG – I ultimately realized the latter was the better (more
complex, strategic) of the two games, but playing 3v3 Spellfire games was
absolute chaotic fun and I don't think MtG was ever able to be _as much_
casual fun as that, despite also being very good

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pcmaffey
I just discovered Nvidia's cloud gaming platform [1] as a way to play MTG
Arena on a Mac. Works great, without having to partition my already thin
hardrive...

Limited booster drafts are one of my favorite things to play since forever
ago. Finally found a way after a bunch of years (had tried Cockatrice, etc..)

[1] [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/](https://www.nvidia.com/en-
us/geforce-now/)

~~~
doubleunplussed
I play on Linux using Lutris. Worked out of the box, is pretty great.

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airstrike
I still have old Magic 2013 iOS app in my OG iPad and it's one of the most fun
things I can do in my spare time. I've probably spent more hours than I should
playing this game over the course of the last ~20 years but I still can't get
enough of it...

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-2013/id502588466](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-2013/id502588466)

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airstrike
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but since virtually all of us are in
quarantine, I thought this might be an opportune time to ask for
recommendations on family-friendly (think 3 generations...) board games to
play while stuck at home. I really don't want to play Scrabble, Monopoly,
Risk, Game of Life or Clue... but have no idea if I should go with Jaws: The
Game, Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride

EDIT: Thank you all for the great responses!

~~~
NortySpock
Settlers of Catan and Ticket To Ride are both good intros to so-called
European style board games, that tend to lack player-elimination and track win
progress abstractly in terms Victory Points rather than money or army
strength.

Play time of either of the two is 60-90 minutes, Catan seats 4 and TTR seats
5.

Of the two, I prefer TTR, and if you can find it I recommend Ticket To Ride:
Europe over the original American one as it has nicer full size cards, adds a
nice friendly track-sharing "station" rule that can get you out of a jam, and
has a random-chance "tunnel" rule that can add a bit of excitement to your
turn if you succeed or fail to dig a tunnel.

I also suggest watching play-throughs or reviews on YouTube. Geek and Sundry
has Tabletop playthroughs with Will Wheaton, and Shut Up And Sit Down has
reviews done by a British group.

~~~
tasogare
Settlers of Catan also have a 1vs1 card game spin-off that I like very much.
The game was ported online [https://catanuniverse.com/en/rivals-for-
catan/](https://catanuniverse.com/en/rivals-for-catan/)

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dangoor
I backed his new game Half Truth (made with Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame) and
it arrived just before social distancing kicked in. It's a fun take on a
trivia game, because it's set up so that it's not so much of a binary "do you
know it or not". You can definitely use some strategy in how you play. Of
course, folks who _do_ know a lot of trivia will still win. It's just that
other players can still make progress, too.

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greggman3
I probably don't have all the facts but it's always bugged by that MTG has
patented (or some rights) on similar card games and has effectively strong
armed any similar and popular game into paying them a license. My
understanding is that game mechanics can't be copyright protected so I don't
get what they are suing over and how they have been so successful in getting
fees

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ncfausti
There's a large story/case study on Garfield in the book Game Design Workshop.
Great resource for anyone interested in designing new games.

[https://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Playcentric-
Inno...](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Playcentric-
Innovative/dp/0240809742)

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k__
I started playing MtG multiple times and hung on for 1-2 years until I needed
a pause, haha.

It always felt like "an old game" to me, even when I started the first time in
1996.

I'm still a bit sad that I sold my cards from that time for 30€ at eBay.

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Riverheart
Artifact might've been a flop but Keyforge has been plenty fun.

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throwaway5466
Slightly off-topic, but if you're in quarantine and wondering how to play
_wondorous_ games of Magic, say no more:

[https://cockatrice.github.io/](https://cockatrice.github.io/)

[http://xmage.de/](http://xmage.de/)

(the latter is way more buggy but has actual rule enforcement, the first is
very polished but you have to do everything by hand as though it were a
physical board game)

~~~
fredoliveira
For people who are interested in playing MTG, their "new" windows game (MTG
Arena) is a pretty decent, modern client, that lets you play for free.
Supposedly it is coming to the mac soon, and rumor has it that iOS and Android
are planned, but based on how the UI has evolved recently, I wouldn't hold out
hope for that.

~~~
Fezzik
Totally my personal opinion, but I much prefer MTGO (Magic the Gathering
Online, windows only also) as it better emulates table-top Magic. I can't
handle all the animations and noises of Arena. Also, much better card/draft
selection on MTGO. Not free though, but not nearly as expensive as paper
Magic.

I am an old fuddy-duddy.

~~~
risho
its still quite expensive though. it's great if you are looking to play the
older formats. getting into legacy for 500 dollars is really nice. that said
it's hard to justify buying into standard or pioneer on there. the prices are
quite volatile and some of the cards are just ridiculously expensive due to
the fact that everyone went over to arena. teferi, time raveler for example.
it also feels bad to buy a playset of them because it's only a matter of time
until they reprint them and the card tanks to 20 dollars or whatever.

arena is nice because you don't have to worry about the secondary market. i
would also suggest that if you turn off the sound in game that arena isn't
actually all that bad. i say that as a person who's played mtgo since 2012. i
agree that draft is bad on arena, but if you want to play standard I actually
think it's better.

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prepend
I learned Usenet and www to buy and sell magic cards in the 90s. My first web
site was to sell magic cards and selling my collection let me buy a car to
drive to proper startups with W2s.

In fact, I think the reason why I sought out the internet at college in 1994
was because a friend said any magic card could be bought online for $5.

It’s interesting how the early magic community was so focused on the net.

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smcg
Big fan of Garfield and his games in general, but shout out to SpyNet which is
fun and underrated.

