Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #447: Other Wizards Games

Episode Date: June 22, 2017

Magic is just one of the games Wizards of the Coast has made. Today, I walk through the many, many others.

I'm pulling up the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I got a subject suggested by someone on Twitter. I did not say the Twitter name. But they wanted me to talk about all the other games that Wizards makes. Obviously, I talk about Magic all the time. I recently did a podcast on Dungeons & Dragons. I did another one on Duel Master. Those are our three big games that we make. But we, over the years, over the time I've been there and even before, have made lots of games. So today, I'm going to run through all of them. Or I'm going to try to run through all of them. So what happened was, originally I went on Wikipedia to get the list. And then I actually did a podcast. And in the middle of the podcast, I'm like,

wait a minute. They forgot this and this and this and this and this. They forgot like 20 things. So I went to Board Game Geek and helped out and I think I filled out the list. I'm sure I forgot a few things, but I hit the majors up at least. And so we're going to be going through it. I did not work on most of this. I worked on some of it. I'll talk about when I did. And I don't know what all of this is. Some of these games are like, oh, so when I don't know, I'll tell you what I think it is. I don't know all these games. I know a lot of them, but I don't know all of them. So we'll start from the very beginning.

So first is our board games. So most of our board games are part of our Avalon Hill brand. So what happened was when Wizards was purchased by Hasbro, one of the things that happened is they, so Hasbro has a line called Avalon Hill, and it's been, it's existed for a long time. There's a lot of classic games that have been part of the Avalon Hill board game. And so one of the things that we've always tried to do is, you know, we're a game company that's more aimed at gamers. We're the game company for gamers, for sort of people who game is a hobby.

So when we got bought by Hasbro, they're like, you know what? Our Avalon Hill brand is kind of that. So why don't you take it over? And we said yes. So a lot of these games in the board game section are there. Not all of them, and I'll hit the ones that I know were us, that were wizards and not just from Avalon Hill.

So first is Acquire. That's Avalon Hill. That's a fun, that's a classic game that goes way, way back where you, I don't describe all these games, but it's a strategy game. It's got numbers and it's more of a logic and planning kind of game. It's got numbers and it's more of a logic

and planning kind of game. Axis and Allies, of which we've made a lot. This is another Evelyn Hill, probably the biggest Evelyn Hill game. And we've made all sorts of Axis and Allies. D-Day and Europe and Pacific and Battle of the Bulge. That is a

war reenactment game. It's sort of a if you've ever played Risk, it's like Risk on steroids is how I've heard it described. It's a combat game on a board, but very complex, lots of rules, takes a long time to play, and we still make Axis and Allies.

That's one of the most popular Avalon Hill board games. Battle Cry. I think that's another Avalon Hill board games. Battle Cry. I think that's another Avalon Hill board game. I don't know that one. Betrayal of a House on the Hill. So that's a board game that we made at Wizards. I mean, it's part of our I think it's in our Avalon Hill brand.

But we made that. That's something that we made. We recently just put out the expansion called Widow's Walk. Betrayal of the House on the Hill, Widow's Walk. Anyway, it's a very popular game. Like I said, it's probably one of the best-selling games we've made internal from Wizards

for the Avalon Hill brand. Next is Battleship Galaxies. I've never played this. I think what they did is they took the game Battleship, because Hasbro owns the game Battleship, and made a more larger adventure game out of it. I think that's what that is. I think it uses

I think it's like Battleship in Space if I remember correctly. I'm not 100% sure on that one. Cosmic Encounter! One of the best games ever made. Cosmic Encounter probably is famous for you guys as one of the games that was the biggest influence on

magic. On the creation of magic, Richard really liked it. The idea of Cosmic Encounter is you're aliens that are warring. And the cool thing about it is that each person plays a different alien race, and each alien race gets to break a different rule of the game. And so this is one of the games that really taught Richard the fun of rule breaking. And it also has cards that let you do things and cards that prevent the other cards. So it's definitely one of the games that had the biggest direct influence onto Magic. A game called Banzai, which once again I think is Avalon Hill.

Desert War, I think is Avalon Hill. Diplomacy. So Diplomacy, this goes way back. So Diplomacy. So diplomacy, this goes way back. So diplomacy is a game, I talk a lot of time how I don't play commander all that often because I don't like politics and my magic. But when I want politics, this is my favorite political game. So the way diplomacy works is it takes place, like World War I-ish, I think. There's seven countries in Europe, and each person plays a country.

And then it's a strategic sort of plotting war game, but you have to make deals with other people. And the idea is you make moves, and then you support other people, get them to support you. But the key of the game is in order to win the game at some point, somebody has to betray somebody, and it's a game sort of famous for causing internal strife. So my story of this is I had a gaming group when I was

in college and one year I brought back Diplomacy from like spring break. My dad had it and I brought back his copy of the game. And I said to my friends before we started playing, I said, okay, be aware, look, this is a game, it's intense, you know, every turn takes 30 minutes and it's going to take us the whole night to play. And at some point, somebody to win the game is going to stab somebody else in the back. And that's what this game is all about. It's all about sort of who can you trust and who you can't. But remember, it's a game. It's a game.

And so, you know, don't take it personally when someone betrays you. Anyway, I won that game that night by betraying my friend Tony. And he didn't talk to me for, like, three weeks. So, to be honest, it's a really fun game. You just got to walk into it knowing what it is. So let's see. Conquest of Nerath. I'm not sure what that is.

That is another game. Lords of Waterdeep. That's another game that we made, that Wizards of the Coast made, that proved to be very, very popular. I think that is... I think Lords of Waterdeep has a Dungeon Dragons IP attached to it. What happened was when... So our current CEO is a guy named Chris Cox.

Before that, it was a guy named Greg Leeds. Greg Leeds' strategy really was... We had our three major brands, Magic, Dungeon Dragons, and Duel Master. And almost everything we made focused on one of those brands. So a lot of the board games and things we made were directed...

were, you know, Dungeon Dragons-themed board games. Lord of the Rings was a box game that we made for a while. I think that might have also been Avalon Hill. I think most of these were Avalon Hill. Monsters Menace America. That's another Avalon Hill game that I've never played. I think you play Monsters

and you Menace America. I think it's a game where everybody plays different monsters. Anyway, like I said, I've never played it. The Dungeon Command. Dungeon Command was an old game. Might have been an old carryover from TSR? I'm not sure.

It says Dungeons, so I feel like it's connected to Dungeon Dragons. But I'll be honest, I'm not sure. Nexus Ops. I'm pretty sure that is another Avalon Hill game. Risk 2010 and Risk Godstorm. Those are both variations of the game Risk. So what happens is the main Risk game is sold by Hasbro and we sell the advanced versions of it.

So both Risk 2010 and Risk Godstorm were advanced versions. I don't think we sold Risk Legacy. I think that was done by Hasbro. Also, we have RoboRally! So RoboRally is another Wizards game that now is an Avalon Hill game. So RoboRally is famous for being the game that

started it all for Magic. When Richard Garfield and Mike Davis came up to Seattle to sell a game to Peter Atkinson in Wizards of the Coast, RoboRally was a game he tried to sell. And RoboRally,

having too many pieces, was too expensive for a small company like Wizards of the Coast to make. So that is when Peter asked, hey, I can make a card game. Do you have any good card games

that we could, with a short time period, that people could play in between role-playing sessions? And that inspired Richard to go, yeah, I think I have something, and ended up making magic. So RoboRally, we've made a lot of versions of RoboRally over the years, a lot of different boards. The flavor of RoboRally is you are racing with robots on a factory floor, and there's conveyor belts and pits and all sorts of different things going on.

And the idea is you're trying to race them and you have cards that program your turns. So you're trying to figure out what you're doing and where you're going and you program your turns in. But other robots can get in your way and mess you up and then sometimes the pre-programmed things don't quite go the way you expect them. It's a very fun game. We still sell it.

If you've never played RoboRally, I heartily suggest you try it. It is a very fun game. We still sell it. If you've never played RoboRally, I heartily suggest you try it. It is a really fun game and Richard managed to make something that seems pretty simple of sort of programming robot moves and just added a bunch of stuff onto it to make it really fun. And like when your robot starts going out of control and like, oh no, I don't know what's going to happen because like what will happen is like let's say you're programming to do something, but another robot kind of gets in your way, and so it changes what happens, and then the rest of your programming isn't right. Anyway, there's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun that comes in that game.

Vegas Showdown. That's another Wizards Made game that we now sell on Avalon Hill. Vegas Showdown was created by Henry Stern, who worked on Magic for many, many years. Henry, I'm not sure what inspired him to make it, but we were making different games, and we've had different periods in our time in our company where we had different opportunities. And there was an opportunity for us to be making some games, and Henry made it. The claim for Vegas Showdown is Games Magazine used to do something called the Games 100 every year, which was like the best 100 games. And then each, there'd be categories. Each category would have a winner.

And then there would be the finals. There would be an overall game of the year. And the only game of the year Wizards has ever won was Vegas Showdown. Henry won. And so, quite exciting. A lot of our games would show up. We'd make the games 100 all the time. But we only had one game ever win the whole thing.

And that was Vegas Showdown. Which I say once again. Oh, the idea of Vegas Showdown is you're running a casino. Everybody's running their own casino. And then you're trying to sort of build it. And you can, you know, different facets get you different things. And you're like, how do I want to build my casino? And anyway, it's a lot of fun.

Also, Upfront, which I think is another Avalon Hill game. And finally, What Were You Thinking? So that is a game that we put out. It's by Richard Garfield. When Richard wanted to make kind of a fun party game. So it was called in design, he called it Hive Mind. And I think, by the way, Richard has sort of redone this game, not by us, but called Hive Mind, for those that want to see a new version of it. So what we were thinking, the idea of what we were thinking was

you are given something, and then everybody has to write, everybody's trying to give the same answer, the answer they think everybody else said. So if I said write down three candy bars, well, I'm trying, what, you know, would people put Hershey's? Would they put Snickers?

What would people put? I'm trying to put the thing I think everybody else is putting down. And so it's a game of trying to think like other people. Anyway, it's a really fun game, and we haven't made it in years, but it's a very fun game, and I actually worked on this one. In fact, it's one of the few games that my wife Laura worked on,

because she and I came up with a lot of questions. In fact, I remember there was a New Year's where we were driving down to Portland, because Richard's parents were having a New Year's party down in Portland, and while we were driving down, we were coming up with questions. I think I was driving, so Laura was writing them down. And we made, like, the trip there and then the next day the trip back. We made lots and lots of questions. And so, anyway, it's a fun game.

Okay, so that is our board games. Let's get into our trading card games. Okay, first off was Battletech. So Battletech is one of the four games that was branded a duelmaster game. So if you look on the back of a Magic card, it says duelmasters. People are like, what does that mean? So when we made Magic, we decided that, oh, trading card games are going to be a big thing. So we would have our own special Wizards of the Coast branded trading card game, so you know it's good. Magic was the first one. The second

one was called Jihad at the time. It's called Vampire Eternal Struggle. I'll talk about that one in a sec. The third one was Netrunner, which I'll talk about in a sec. And the fourth one was Battletech. So Battletech is based on a role-playing game. In fact, all the deckmaster games other than

Magic were based on role-playing licenses because Peter was good friends with a lot of role-playing companies. And so early on when they were getting licenses, we tended to make them off role-playing games. Also, Battletech is known for having pods. You could go to certain places and there was like a virtual reality.

You climb in this pod and then you fight with these robots. So it's a game of warring robots, of robot combat. And Battletech was, we ran for a while. I mean, we had tournaments and there was a world championship for a couple of years. So for a little while, Battletech was one of our bigger games. Next, Codename Kids Next Door.

Okay, this was based on a property, a cartoon. I want to say on comedy, and I'm on a cartoon network, but I'm not 100% sure that's where it was. We did a lot of licensed stuff over the years, a lot of licensed trading card games. I did not work on this one.

I think the premise is the kids are spies. It's like a tongue-in-cheek it's like a spy cartoon, but all the spies are kids, I think. But anyway, we made a game for that. I had nothing to do with that one. Next is C23. So that was one of the three Arc System games.

I did a podcast on the Arc System games. We decided that we would try to do a simpler version of Magic. It only had three colors. It only had lands,. It only had lands, creatures, and sorceries, I believe. So it was a much simpler version of...

I mean, it was Magic rules, but a bit simpler. I don't think there's anything in it that Magic didn't do, but it had a lot of things that Magic did take in and out. So it was a simplified Magic. So C23 was the first

of the Arc System games we put out, and we decided that we wanted it to be something that we owned, that it wasn't a license, the other two were licensed. And so we worked with Jim Lee, who's a famous comic book artist, and he made a brand new comic, made our own IP for us, and it's called C23. The 23 stood for chromosomes, I think. The number of chromosomes. C-23 is like... It had something to do with chromosome hacking or something. The only thing I remember about it,

I think I've mentioned this before, but I just find it so funny, is the main villain of the game starts out as the best friend of the hero. So in the first comic, he's his best friend. He hasn't yet turned on him. But the name of the villain is Nemesis. Now, for a villain, that's a great name. Oh, oh no, I have to fight Nemesis. But when Nemesis starts as your best friend, like, should you befriend someone named

Nemesis? That seems like a mistake. Hi, my name's Bob. What's your name? Nemesis? I'm sorry, Nemesis, I can't be your friend. Okay, next. Duel Masters. So Duel Masters is what we still make. So basically, we had the Pokemon license for a while. I'll get to that in a second. And then after Pokemon was big,

there was a game called Yu-Gi-Oh that was big. We didn't make that. And both those games had started in the Japanese market and then moved to the American market. And those were the two most popular kid games at the time. So we decided we would try the same thing. We would make a kids game in Japan, start in the American market. And those were the two most popular kid games at the time. So we decided we would try the same thing. We would make a kids game in Japan, start in the Japanese market, and then we would move it to America.

So we did that. It was a giant hit in Japan. And then we took Duel Masters and we moved it here. And we tried it very tongue-in-cheek. It had really long names, and we were just trying to create this sort of fun atmosphere to it. Never quite picked up here in America. We brought it back later. I'll get to that

in a second. But in Japan, the game's been a huge success. I think we're 15 years in. We did not expect the game to be 15 years long and it's still going great. There are years it's been the number one game in Japan. There's years it's near the top but not number one. But it's been a really good game, like, there are years it's been the number one game in Japan. There's years it's, you know, near the top and not number one.

But it's just, it's been a really good game, a very big game in Japan, like I said, for 15 years. And we still make it. So, Doom Masters. Next is Doomtown. So, Doomtown was, for a while, when we purchased TSR, we also purchased Legends of the Five Ring Publishing, which, among other things, made a game called Legends of the Five Rings, which I'll get to in a second. But one of the games they made was called Doomtown. It was a Wild West trading card game, and the mechanic of it, I remember, is every card had on it, in the upper corner,

I think, a playing card, like one of the 52 playing cards, and maybe the jokers too. And the idea is combat revolves around who had the better poker hand. And so you would lay down a poker hand based on cards in your hand. And it was, I remember it was a very clever design. Like I said, once again, I had nothing to do with that one. But I thought it was kind of neat and it was a cool mechanic. Next is Dune. Who made Dune? Dune wasn't

made by our the internal trading card. I worked for a long time before. Before I was just on Magic R&D, I was in trading card game R&D. And a lot of these trading card games I did work on. But Dune, we didn't make. I don't know whether Dune was made through Legends of the Five Rings or

somebody external. But anyway, Dune was based on, obviously obviously the famous series of novels, science fiction novels, and we made a trading card game at one point. I know really little about it. Eye of Judgment.

Eye of Judgment was listed. I don't... So Eye of Judgment was made by an external company. It mixed a trading card game, a physical trading card game, with a virtual trading card game. And that you would buy real cards,

but then you would play them and they'd go inside the game. And then inside the game, they'd have, you actually had a, there was a thing that would monitor to see the cards. So the cards were components you had to play,

but then they came to life on screen. Now, the weird thing with this one was, I know they worked with, uh, Wizards of the Coast, um, but they didn't work with Trading Card,

TCG Trading Card, Trading Card TCG, R&D in Trading Card, TCG R&D. They didn't work with us, but they had worked with, like, Brand or other people,

and so, they had advertised that they had worked making the game with, with the site. They advertised they made the game with Wizards, which was technically true, but it kind of implied that

the people that make magic had helped make this game, and we hadn't, so that was kind of a... Anyway. But that was another game that we were connected to. Next, G.I. Joe, a game I did do. I was the lead designer for G.I. Joe, at least the leader of

the version that actually got made. So what happened was Hasbro really wanted to make a G.I. Joe game, one of their IPs. And so we spent, I don't know, a bunch of different time trying to make games, a bunch of different people trying to make them. And I got brought in the end saying, okay, there's a bunch of different games, none of which quite work, but we need to make a game and we don't have a lot of time left, Mark.

Make this game. And I did not have a lot of time. I had like three weeks, I think, to take all these different systems and try to find something. We ended up making something new, although it took components of different games. So we sort of took components from different games and made a new game, combined them in a new way,

and we added a bunch of stuff. It actually turned out to be a pretty good game. It was a fun game. And it did some neat things that I've... One of the cool things I remember was when you were fighting, you would flip over cards and there were a certain number of bullets on the card and that had to do with how strong it was. So there was a neat balancing system where the weaker cards could be more value for the flip value. So when you're putting stuff in your deck, you both could say, well, how powerful is the card as a card,

and how powerful as this resource of determining how powerful other effects are. So it was a neat balancing thing. So what happened back in the day is we would make a game, and then because there were so many games we made, one person would oversee sort of the expansions and stuff. And the person for G.I. Joe was Aaron Forsythe, who was a big G.I. Joe fan. Next, Harry Potter.

So I had not much to do with Harry Potter. Harry Potter was another trading card game we made. The flavor of it was the... You were in school, and the different sort of factions were different classes. You know, you could take potions, or defense of the dark arts,

or, you know, all the classes that showed up in the Harry Potter novels. And then you could build different decks based on different things. And there were things representing different monsters and different spells. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Elaine Chase, who's

currently the VP of Magic Brand, actually oversaw that for R&D. The one thing I do know about this game is we actually did go to Europe, not Europe, yeah, yeah, to London, and not me, but some people who made this game went and met with J.K. Rowling, which was very exciting for the people who got to do that. And so one of the things I talked about is on the back of the card, it shows Harry Potter's forehead with his lightning scar.

Because he has a lightning scar. When he was a baby. I don't want to, if you haven't read the books, go read the books. But anyway, on the back of our card, the scar is sideways. And every time you've ever seen it on the book covers, in the movies, it is up and down. So why is it sideways? People say you got it wrong. So what happened was, when we were making the game, it was before the movie

came out, or movies came out, and we were talking with J.K. Rowling, and we said we wanted to put the scar on the back of, like, we wanted the image of the back of the card to be as close to Bo's forehead with the scar. And she goes, you know what? Here's something interesting. The book shows it up and down, but that actually

is incorrect. The person who did the book cover got it wrong. It's really supposed to be side to side. So we're like, okay, well we're talking to J.K. Rowling, so we made the back of the card side to side. We made it the right way. And then they make the movie and the movie just based it on the

book cover, and so they did it up and down and then it just becomes default, like that's what it is. It's up and down. And we're like, well, we are different from everybody, but hey, hey, we have the correct way, even though no one other than J.K. Rowling seems to know that.

That was Harry Potter. Next, Hecatomb. So Hecatomb was made by Mike Elliott, I know, and it was a game where the cards were see-through. I mean, they had components on them, but you could see through them. And the idea was

you could lay cards on top of cards and the mechanics cared that components could be combined between cards. And I know the game didn't end up doing well, but it had a cool mechanic to it. We were just trying something different. Next is Hercules

The Legendary Journey. That was our second ARC game using the Hercules brand. The problem was the Hercules was a syndicated show all about Hercules and by the time we used it, the show wasn't particularly popular anymore. It sort of

waned in popularity. That was one of our problems. It's spin-off I'll get to in a second because we also did that. Next, Kaijudo. So Kaijudo is the second version of Duel Masters. We cleaned it up a little bit. We made it a little easier, so the rules were tweaked a little bit. And we had a TV show to go along with it.

But that still wasn't enough. It was funny that Kaijudo was basically the game Duel Masters. So in Japan, it had an English name. And in the United States, it had a Japanese name. I thought that was kind of entertaining. Next is Legend of the Five Rings. So when we purchased TSR, we also, part of the brokering of it, purchased Legend of the Five Rings. So that is a game that, and the game still exists, just we don't make it anymore. The big thing of the game is there are clans.

And the game still exists, just we don't make it anymore. The big thing of the game is there are clans. It's a Japanese-flavored game. And the clans all are different animals. The clan of the... I don't remember exactly all the different animals. And the idea is that it's very story-based, really strong story. And a big thing of what they did is they would allow the players through tournaments and things to actually impact the story. So like the World Championship every year, which was a big event, something would and things to actually impact the story.

So like the World Championship every year, which was a big event, something would happen that was part of the story and then the outcome of that event would flavor like who won. So if you cared about who won a certain battle, you might have to play a certain clan to make sure that outcome is the way you want it to come out. And players were very dedicated to their clans and, you know, it was a little more evolved than Magic, but it was super, super rich in flavor and the hook of the audience getting involved in flavor was a big part of it. And there are a bunch of people I know who worked at R&D that really were giant fans of Legend of the Five Rings

and played a lot. Next, Magic the Gathering. I think I worked on that one I don't know it's a game we made a while ago I think we still make it next Looney Tunes that's one of the T's and G's we made in like a blink of an eye I didn't work on it we made it

it was there and gone really fast Maple Story or I Maple Story it or iMapleStory, it was based on an online world that I think was out of Korea. South Korea, I think. Anyway, it was... Not that there weren't people playing in the U.S.,

but it was very, very popular overseas, especially in Asia, I believe. And we made a trading card game based on it. It was kind of like an RPG, but like an interactive RPG where everybody could play it once. But it had this anime style to it that was very unique. But anyway, we made that. MLB Showdown, which stands for Major League Baseball Showdown.

NFL Showdown, which stands for National Football League Showdown. And NBA, which stands for National Basketball Association. So we made all three of those. So for a while, we did sports cards, which made a lot of sense. We started with MLB Showdown, and that's the one we made for the longest amount of time. I think both NBA and NFL, we made for a shorter amount of time. I know all the sports games, Worth was the person who oversaw them, Worth Wilport, who later went on to do Magic Online. And the idea was they were like

baseball cards. And it made a lot of sense. Baseball cards were I don't know if they were the original trading cards, but one of the most famous trading cards. So why not turn that into a game? We did. And you'd play baseball, or play football, or play basketball, and then you'd use the stats of the players.

I mean, it was a lot like sort of fantasy football or fantasy baseball, whatever. You sort of have things representing the players, you use the stats, and players. I mean, it was a lot like sort of fantasy football or fantasy baseball, whatever. You sort of have things representing the players. You use the stats, and then you play a game. Next, Netrunner. This was the third duel master game. I think, in my humble opinion, after Magic, I believe, it's my opinion, it's Richard's second best trading card game.

The unique thing about it was it took place in the Netrunner IP. Either you're the hacker trying to get through the system or you're the company protecting the system. It takes place in the future and there's a lot of virtual reality and hacking. It was a cyber space type of game. The unique thing about it is each side had its own deck. So the runner side had its own cards

and the corporation side had its own cards. And so when you made a deck, usually you'd make one of each side and then when you sat down, you determined who played which side. But it was, you know, each side had a different deck. That was really different. We had never done that before.

And it was a fun game. I mean, definitely, it was... There were a lot of rules and stuff, but it was a fun game. It was a really neat game. It's still made. We no longer make it. It's still made. Somebody bought it from us a while back and makes it.

It's called a living card game, which means I think you get all the cards at once. You don't buy boosters. Next, Pokemon. So, Pokemon was made by Nintendo. The guy who made it, Pokemon was a game from the Nintendo system. He was inspired by Magic and decided to make a trading card game for Magic.

Not for Magic, for Pokemon. And so he made a Pokemon trading card game. And in Japan, they distributed it. But they didn't have a distribution for the rest of the world. So they came to us and said, hey, you guys are experts in making and distributing

trading card games. Would you guys do that for us? And we said yes. It went on to be a giant phenomenon. And not just like a, I'm not just talking about a good-selling game,

which it was, but like a cultural phenomenon a good, you know, a good selling game which it was, but like a cultural phenomenon, where like you know, on the episode of the Sopranos, like you see them, you know, smuggling Pokemon cards, or like it got into the psyche

the pop culture psyche was such a big thing and we were the people selling it during the high of that. What happened was at some point they decided that it just made sense to start a company to do that game and so they formed the Pokemon Company who now makes the Pokemon game. So we no longer make Pokemon. Okay, next is the Simpsons TCG.

So the Simpsons trading card game was something we made very fast. I was involved really, really briefly. I didn't have much to do with the system. In fact, the one thing I did, and here's my contribution to the Simpsons game, was you had attributes on the card, and so you were playing different characters because it was character-based based and every character had certain attributes and you cared about the attributes and so I put the attributes

on the card in the funniest order and so you know you had different things that quantified what you were and so I put them in the funniest order just so the cards would read as funny as possible that was my big contribution

I don't remember all about it. I remember that the cards were individual characters, you played characters, and then you... I'm trying to think of the other details of this. You wanted certain qualities and you got things, and I don't remember actually how it played. I remember we were excited to get the Simpsons license, but the game itself kind of never really went particularly far. Okay, next. Star Sifters.

Z with a Z. Star Sifters. So Star Sifters was a trading card game that we made that was aimed at girls. And the gimmick of it was that it came with a bracelet. It came with charms.

And the charms were tied to the game. And so as you played, you had this bracelet you had, and you would pick up charms along the way, and the charms had game relevance. But, by the way, you also made this little necklace. I know Taewon worked a lot on this game. Someone worked for CCG.

Taewon Woodruff. I never worked on it. I don't remember much about it other than the charms. It was the first time we made a trading card game that had something in it other than cards, I believe, because it. I don't remember much about it other than the charms. And it was the first time we made a trading card game that had something in it other than cards, I believe, because it also had the charm. When you bought the packs, there also were the little mini charms inside it.

Next, Star Wars. Well, if anybody... If anybody remembers, I did a whole podcast on this. So Star Wars... So what happened was, there was another company that made, or multiple companies, I think, that made a Star Wars trading card game.

At some point, we got the rights to it, and so we started making a Star Wars game. So what happened was, Richard Garfield was the lead designer for the system, and then I was on that team. And what Richard did, and like I said, I'm giving the short version here. You can listen to the whole podcast for the system, and then I was on that team. And what Richard did, and like I said, I'm giving the short version here. You can listen to the whole podcast for the long version.

He was really interested in making a game that played like a miniatures game, but was actually a trading card game. And so it used dice. In fact, it had a lot of dice. You would roll many, many dice. And the way it worked was there were three areas of battle. There was

the ground, the space, and then personal. So the idea is you know, the ground is the, you know, they're fighting on Endor and they're trying to figure out whether they can get into the thing and the Ewoks are fighting and everything. Or the space, oh, they Endor and they're trying to figure out whether they can get into the thing. And the Ewoks are fighting and everything.

Or the space. Oh, they're up and they're trying to fight the Death Star up in space. Or the new Death Star. This is all Return of the Jedi I'm talking about. Or it's personal. Oh, it's Luke and Vader fighting it out with the Emperor. So the idea was you had to win two out of three. If you dominated two out of three, I think is how it works,

then you would win. And anyway, so what happened was I was on the team with Richard making, like on the design team making the core system, and then I was the lead designer of the first set, the first core set, so the alpha of Star Wars. And that is a game, as I talked about, that I, in order to do research,

we came out right before, what was the second movie called? Was that one Attack of the Clones? It was the second movie, I think, Attack of the Clones. And anyway, so I got to go to Skywalker Ranch, and I got to read the script. The only way I could see the script was I had to go to a special room.

Like, you had to fly there and sit in a special room to be able to read the script. And I could take notes, but the script couldn't leave the room. So I got to fly there and went, and I was at the ranch, and I got to read a Star Trek script ahead of time. And there was a big... for all the different people working,

all the different licensors, there was a big lunch. Anyway, it was really cool. And I got to work on it. And so that was the Star Wars trading card game. Next is Vampire the Eternal Struggle. So Vampire the Eternal Struggle was, we released it originally as Jihad, J-H-Y-A-D. We later changed the name

just because Jihad has another meaning. I think in the role-playing game, they were trying to do a spin on it. Obviously, it's spelled differently. But it just decided it was insensitive, so we changed the name. And it went back to Vampire the Eternal Struggle, which is what the role-playing game is called. So in Vampire the Eternal

Struggle, you are playing a vampire. And there's different clans of vampires. And, um... So this was... Richard made it more as a multiplayer game. Not that Magic didn't end up having people play it as a multiplayer game. But Magic was more designed as a one-on-one game.

This was designed as a multiplayer game. In fact, I don't know if you play one-on-one. I mean, maybe you can. But I don't know if you play one-on-one. I mean, maybe you can, but I don't think you really play one-on-one V-Test or Vampire. And so it was a fun game, but it was a long game. It was definitely, you know, Magic was made to be played in 20 minutes or so. Vampire the Turner Struggle took hours to play.

Now, it was rich and had a lot of neat flavor. The one cool thing about it, I'll bring this up because this will be really important coming this fall, is there's a part of it called the edge. And the idea was only one person in the game can have the edge at the time. And if you have the edge, you get certain abilities that you don't have if you don't have the edge. So this might sound familiar, and that conspiracy had the crown mechanic. You could take the crown, and only one person could have the crown,

and you had special abilities when you had the crown. Well, that happened because Ixalan, the fall set, was going to have the edge, the crown, that mechanic as a component. And it was so early that conspiracy said, oh, that's not interesting. Do you mind if we play around in that space? And they did.

And they ended up really liking what they made. And they ended up doing it. So when I get to Ixalan, the fact that it went away when it did caused a lot of sort of interesting challenges for Ixalan. But it did get used for Conspiracy 2, which used it really well, and it was pretty cool. But anyway, that's where that mechanic started. I mean, Richard had seen it in other games.

So the edge, I guess, isn't unique to Vampyr, but the call of the edge is unique to Vampyr. But anyway, so that is Vampyr the Eternal Struggle. So, what I've realized is I have a list here of things, and I'm like halfway through the list, and I'm arriving at Wizards. So, what I've realized is I have a list here of things, and I'm like halfway through the list, and I'm

arriving at Wizards. So I think this is going to be a two-parter. I did not expect this to be a two-parter, but we make so many games that I just can't talk about all the games. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop here on VTAS. I think I'm literally halfway through. So I'm going to stop here on Vampire the Eternal

Struggle. My one caveat is I'm driving to literally halfway through. So I'm going to stop here on Vampire the Eternal Struggle. My one caveat is I'm driving in the parking lot. I'm not driving Rachel off today because she has an internship. But anyway, the one thing I wanted to say is there's a lot of fun games here, some of which we still sell. For example, I know that Axis and Allies and Betrayal at Hush on the Hill, including the new expansion we just made, or the new version we just made, or the new version we just made.

Robo Rally. Obviously, we make Duel Masters, and we still make Magic. Some of the Risk games. Anyway, there's a whole bunch of Avalon Hill games. Go check it out. All the stuff I talk about. Magic is an awesome and fun game, and obviously, if you listen to me, odds are you play it.

But we make a lot of other fun games, some of which we no longer make. So some of them, you know, if you could track down, like, in a used shop, like, what we were thinking or something, that's a fun game. But anyway, I just want people to know that we're a game company. We make games, and it's sometimes easy to forget, like,

you know, like, once upon a time, I worked on a lot of other games. I mostly just do Magic now, but it's fun to look back. A lot of this is a walkthrough history to me. But anyway, next time I will talk about the other half of the games that we make. But anyway, thanks for joining me, but I'm in my parking lot, so we all know what that means. And this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking Magic, it's time for me to be making Magic. Bye.