In the Switzer household, I have the role of board game🤪 teacher, while my partner is the board game learner. Whenever we get a new game it’s my job to read the rules and learn🎃 the game, then teach her how to play. As someone who is used to digesting rule books and regurgitating them in a more personal, digestible way like a mother pigeon, I think a lot about the process of learning to play games.
Your first impression of a game is developed during the learning process, before you’ve actually experienced the game as it's intended to be played. The way you’re introduced to a new game has a huge impact on the relationship you have with it, and that’s something I find game designers and rulebook writers sometimes take for granted.
That process is exponentially more complicated for trading card games, whose rule books are a living d🍌ocuments that grows and changes four times a year. Long-established games like Magic and Pokemon rely on their players to shepherd new players into the hobby. No one learns to play Magic by sitting down and reading the , they learn by playing with other people who already know how to play Magic.
Card players have an incentive to drag others into the hobby (sometimes kicking and screaming), and it’s great to have a friend who can guide you when learning a new game, but that isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. People learn things at different paces and with different strategies, and some just want to learn on their own without a seasoned pro walking them through it. This leads one to other outside resources, like YouTube videos and guides (we’ve got some great ones). But th🐻e fact remains, TCGs could be a lot better about the way they onboard new players.
For the first year of its life, that includes Disney Lorcana too. The starter decks, which come packed with a crash course on the rules called the quick start guide, is the equivalent of the classic Pokemon Theme deck. It’s a great low-cost starting point with a fairly straightforward deck and a simple intro to the rules, but as a product, it still requires outside guidance. Which starter deck should you buy? What are the best starter decks to pair together so you can actually play the game? What do I do when I encounter a situation that the rules don’t cover? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I love Lorcana’s starter decks, especially for new players and young kids without much tabletop experience, b💜ut they’re going to be insufficient.
Lorcana Gateway is Ravensburger’s attempt at a complete learn-to-play experience, a𒁏nd it’s the most successful one of its kind I’ve ever encountered. By transforming a game of Lorcana into a board game experience and introducing a progression system that slowly introduces new concepts over time, Gateway creates an environment where anyone can learn to play, at their own pace, with all the support they could need. If you want to teach someone how to play Lorcana, or any TCG, you would want to replicate exactly what Gateway does.
Every Card Revealed For Disney Lorcana's Shimmering Skies
It'sꦓ time for a celebration with Disne🎉y Lorcana's fifth set, Shimmering Skies.
Gateway takes the task of learning Lo🌠rcana and breaks it down into individual steps to gamify the learning process. The first thing you pull out of the boxes is a giant rule book with large font and short pages that explain the most basic, barebones mechanics. It tells you how to set up the board (a 👍nice thick game board that mirrors the function of a labeled playmat) and tells you only what you need to know to play your first ever game of Lorcana.
This system is more thoughtful than anything I’ve ever considered before when teaching someone how to play. Each player begins with a preconstructed 30-card deck that’s been stacked a specific way that lends itself to the best possible first-time experience. Where both players will have smooth turns and be able to match each other's plays. Gateway understands the importance of a first impression, and it literally stacks the deck to ensure you’re having fun with Lorcana while you learn.
The real genius of Gateway is the way it transforms the competitive experience of playing Lorcana into a cooperative experience between two people learning to play a game. Taking winning and losing off the table, Gateway redirects new players’ focus to learning and getting used to the mecha♒nics of the game through completing collaborative goals, rather than beating each other. One of the challenges is to have a Hero and a Villain character in play (a way to get new players to start paying attention to character classification) so you and your opponent can work together to get both kinds 🎐of characters on the board at the same time. Another has you questing with three or more characters, or challenging three characters in a single game.
Once you’ve completed all of the goals, you’re rewarded with a small se♑t of cards you can add to your deck, and instruction for those cards’ new mechanic. The goal is to introduce you to all the different mechanics🤡 of Lorcana one at a time, starting with songs, then moving on to items, then Floodborn, and finally ending with some bonus cards, raising the total for each deck to 66 so you can get your first taste of deckbuilding.
It’s a brilliant system for teaching new players Lorcana that leverages a video game-like reward system we’re already used to. These ‘daily challenges’ not only give you a bite-sized way to experien✃ce each part of ♍the game, but they also incentivize you to keep coming back for more.
Whatsmore, these challenges reflect the way Lorcana is actually played in leagues at a lot of local stores. Ravensburger encourages stores to give bonus points to players for specific challenges just like the ones in Gateway. The goal is to have some continuity between Gateway’s l꧑earn-to-play experience and the actual experience of ꦺplaying Lorcana at a store, and it’s beautifully executed.
As good as it is, Gateway is still not 𝕴the end-all-be-all for learning to play Lorcana. It’s going to require frequent updates and new editions to keep up with the game. In fact, it’s already outdated before it even hits store shelves. Locations are a major core꧒ mechanic of the game introduced in Into the Inklands, but they aren’t included in Gateway. A player who starts with Gateway and builds their confidence in the game before heading out to their LGS is going to be shocked when a Ruby/Amethyst player drops a Queen’s Castle on the board.
I hope this is a product Ravensburger plans to support long-term with updates and revisi👍ons, because it’s by far the best learning tool for a TCG I’ve ever seen, like Magic Arena or Pokemon’s Battle Academy. It has an incredibly thoughtful approach to the learning process out there; I couldn’t teach someone how to play Lorcana better than Gateway does, which is something I couldn’t say abouౠt any other game I’ve taught.
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