Disney's Lorcana: A New Way to Play

There are many ways to enjoy a trading card game, and Disney’s Lorcana is attracting eyes from all areas of this hobby. A brief look at the online communities that have sprung up around this new game will find seasoned Disney collectors looking to fill binders with complete sets, fans hoping to open rare cards in booster packs, and gamers weighing up different strategies. Regardless of where you fit in this picture, it’s undeniable that the gaming elements of trading cards are an attractive part of the hobby, even for collectors.

It’s not just the flavour text, art and worldbuilding that forms the interactive storytelling of Lorcana. How the game plays, the strengths and weaknesses of different cards, and the themes explored as each game progresses are equally important to the narrative of the TCG. With the game launching just around the corner in August, let’s look at how the rules and gameplay fit the Disney brand for an immersive player experience.

The Concept of a New Way to Play in Lorcana

Part of the charm and wholesomeness of Disney movies comes from the fact that they are made from familiar ingredients. Whisk together a strong protagonist, a traditional story, and a comedic sidekick or two. Add a pinch of family drama before seasoning with a struggle between good and evil. Leave to set in a magical kingdom where our heroes can adventure and grow together. Garnish with some catchy songs and a happily ever after. These tales may be as old as time, but they’re deeply satisfying and scratch an emotional itch for many of us.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to see card games like Lorcana through a similar lens. While there are different kinds of games that mix in new and exciting mechanics, most TCG enthusiasts enjoy the familiar elements of gameplay. Putting together our own decks with cards we want to play. Shuffling up sat with friends and opponents. Drawing that hand of cards that perfectly lines up our opening turns. Carefully laying out our cards on the tabletop in an attempt to build towards a win, or snatching back victory from our opponent’s grasp. How we combine these immersive elements, however, needs to be refreshed, balanced, and themed to the setting and world of each trading card game for the player experience to really stand out.

This article is mostly about how Lorcana plays, but to fully understand this, let me first give you an overview of the backstory. Lorcana takes us on an adventure into a Disney world we haven’t explored before. The Great Illuminary, the setting for the game’s launch set “The First Chapter”, is a place where characters are drawn into being using magical ink. They find themselves as either the movie heroes and villains that we all know, or as warped versions of these same characters; like Marvel “What If…” doppelgangers interacting with their cannon counterparts. These characters band together in your deck to quest in search of their “lore”, and to attempt to stop their opponents finding it first.

(The backstory and themes of Lorcana are fully explored in my last blogpost)

Exploring the Immersive Experience of Disney's Lorcana

In building this thematic world Lorcana’s designers have considered the TCG ingredients available to them and written a recipe where the rules of the game enhance the flavour of Lorcana in a way that feels uniquely Disney.

Where most Trading Card Games feature a PvP battle between two opponents, this simply couldn’t be the case for a game set in a Disney universe. While the movies certainly depict some epic battles between good and evil, they’re not just about the struggle. They’re about the friendships that help win these battles. They’re about the lessons we can learn along the way. Lorcana, therefore, features a race to a goal of 20 lore points. Characters can be used to challenge and (hopefully) banish your opponent’s cards, but can also be turned sideways to “quest” and collect this lore.

The cynics amongst you might say, “Well, hang on. There’s hardly any difference between getting to 20 points in Lorcana, and eliminating either 20 of your opponent’s life points in Magic The Gathering, or six(ish) of your opponent’s team in Pokémon TCG'' And while I’ll take your point, the subtle difference is that the lore collection happens while the band of characters in your deck challenges and seeks to disrupt the plans of the characters in your opponents’ decks. Like Frodo creeping ever closer to Mount Doom as wars rage around him, Lorcana sees the side quest become the win condition.

There’s a mounting tension in many games of Lorcana where one player may seem to have the upper hand in the battle between characters, but their opponent is just more effective at collecting lore. When a player reaches their goal, it doesn’t matter how many characters their opponents might have played.

That’s not to say that the boardstates you build with your cards don’t matter. Those of you who have played Fantasy Flight’s unique deck game Keyforge may be familiar with this element of collecting resources while controlling the board, but that game featured a lot of resource generation outside of the characters collecting it.

Through the cards already revealed for Lorcana we can see that lore collection will initially be almost entirely through character cards taking a turn off to quest and generate lore. This is also a thematic strength; the new-found friends in your deck will need to work together to win the game.

Interactive Storytelling: Engaging with Lorcana's Narrative

Playing to their strengths, Disney’s characters are therefore the centrepiece of the game. It couldn’t be any other way. The same excellent character design that has seen these veteran animated movie stars appear everywhere from billboards to lunchboxes is honoured here with new art for each card and thematic rules text to go alongside it.

One of the best examples of gameplay echoing the storytelling is Ariel On Human Legs. Most character cards can be turned sideways to pay the ink cost (Lorcana’s resource system) of song cards. Thematically they are using their turn to sing the song, a very Disneyfied way of performing an in-game action like returning a card from your discard pile to your hand. Ariel’s human card has rules text that doesn’t allow her to do this. Of course, she has sold her voice to Ursula in return for her human legs!

Another amazingly flavourful card is Robin Hood Unrivalled Archer. When you play his card you may draw a card, but only if an opponent has more cards in their hand than you. Clearly this mirrors the poor (in this case the Robin Hood player) benefitting from their rich opponents thanks to this cunning thief.

Other cards see Mulan giving bonuses to your other characters, but only if she has activated first, showing her leading your forces into battle like the warrior she is. The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland performs a vexing disappearing trick by vanishing one of your opponent’s cards when he himself is banished by their actions. Hades, the lord of the undead, demonstrates his necromantic abilities by returning creature cards from your discard pile to your hand.

This interactive storytelling through gameplay isn’t limited to the stories we know - there are new narratives to discover in Lorcana’s alter-ego “Dreamborn” cards. Mickey Mouse’s blue card is a detective who takes clues in the form of cards from the top of your deck, and puts them face down into your “inkwell” to use to generate resources throughout the game. Meanwhile Belle’s blue card is an engineer who reduces the cost of playing items. Quite how these altered clones will add to the story of Lorcana is yet to be revealed, but whets our appetite for the next sets. Game producers Ravensburger plan to release four sets each year and I’m sure a narrative thread will weave through these releases.

Unleashing Magical Adventures in Disney's Lorcana

Perhaps the most exciting stories will be told through multiplayer games. Lorcana is designed from the ground up to cater for any number of players. While there is limited interaction on other players’ turns, rounds are quick and game states constantly need reassessing. The easy-to-learn rules conceal deep strategic decisions and the race to victory will mean there is a constant jostling to stay ahead in multiplayer games. Fans of Magic the Gathering’s Commander format will find a lot to enjoy here with alliances between players, politicking and betrayal adding to the narrative of each game. Lorcana’s rule set adds the benefit of all players staying in the game until victory is declared; a relief to anyone who has been knocked out of a game early and had to spend another 45 minutes waiting for another player to eke out a win.

Lorcana’s launch will bring with it an ongoing collaborative narrative with Ravensburger’s game designers, Disney’s timeless stories and us, the fans all having our parts to play. With well loved characters interacting with their new dreamborn twins, I can’t wait to get stuck into this new way to experience Disney’s movies and I hope you’ll join us for the ride.

Simeon Smith is half human and half snorlax. He is also a cohost of the fan-made Lorcana Podcast “We Don’t Talk About Uno”. He lives in Wales with his pet tortoise Shelldon Koopa.