Lately, my mind has been occupied by game design. Not necessarily video games (but included, of course), just game design in general. Last week, my thoughts were mainly occupied by Magic: The Gathering (MTG) and World of Warcraft: The Card Game (WoW TCG).
MTG has been around for a long time now and is largely regarded as an example of good game design (I highly doubt it would last this long if it wasn’t). The game is very mature now, and with thousands of cards available, the strategic possibilities are immense. Richard Garfield, the creator of MTG, even patented (U.S. Patent 5,662,332) his creation. Regardless of what new collectible card game comes out, I think MTG will always be there. It’s no longer just a card game, it defined a genre of gaming, and a new gaming culture, IMHO.
The new collectible card game making it big right now is the WoW TCG. Based on what I’ve currently seen, it’s what I envisioned “Rage” was in 1995, except much much better. WoW TCG has some game mechanics that I found to be very strategically interesting, particularly regarding resources. The game is a little more expensive, though (even for a collectible card game), and the way the card dependencies are designed, you’re probably going to be shelling out quite a sum to be able to make a good, cohesive, customized deck. My friend used the term “A-list” collectible card game, and I agree.
If WoW TCG manages to get past the fad phase, perhaps I’ll dig myself a bit deeper into it.
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