Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #792: George Fan

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

In this podcast, I interview George Fan, creator of Plants vs. Zombies. I talk with him about his love of Magic and his year spent on the Magic design team.

All right. Can I do the honors? Go ahead. I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay, guys. So I'm here interviewing George Fan,

probably most famously known for the creator of Plants vs. Zombies, but I like to think of him as magic player extraordinaire. And George had a chance to work with us. We'll get into all that. But anyway, that, by the way, is the first time

I'm not the person to do the intro. You're the first person ever to do the intro. That's not me. Thanks for humoring me. We had to get like 780, 980 things in before that happened. But so, okay. So, George. So, anyway, I always start these by, anyway, guys, I'm here with George Phan.

So, George, let's start with the question I always start with, which is, how did you get into magic? Okay. So, this was back, let's see, I was in high school. And I was in a, I was in an sat prep class along with some friends of mine we were all there and you know i had not i had not heard of magic obviously but i saw i saw some people from another school in a corner of that class playing this game and they were saying things like i attack you with shivan dragon and i was like i i like to say i had a kind of like a radar for what um what looked fun and what you know usually my radar

is pretty on point and i just i just from the aura of being in their presence i could tell i could tell that game looked fun and so with the same friends in my class uh that were from my school we we decided we were all going to buy um what were they called back then they were the start like they were starter decks and booster backs okay i we bought some starter decks i think we bought like one starter deck each and at our next sleepover uh we busted out these cards and we opened them and it was so it was so it was so uh mysterious, we busted out these cards, and we opened them, and it was so, it was so, it was so mysterious, and like, what are these cards, and I'll always remember the first rare that I opened was Force of Nature, 2GGG, and it was an 8-8 trample, so I just looked at those

stats, and I was like, oh my god, I, this is, my God, this looks awesome. And the art was, you know, like this swamp creature all like glaring at you. And it was just, yeah, it was super iconic for me. And from then on, I just

love the color green. But anyway, yeah, we played these decks and we did our best to learn the rules. What edition was this was revised revised okay yeah and um yeah and then you know the way we played magic back then was just we shuffled all the cards together and just one giant library yeah there was no there was no such thing as culling any colors or even any cards. We just had one giant library. And then, you know, a few, I think it was just the three of us that night. And we played and it was a blast.

And we got some of our other friends into it. And then we, I remember soon after that, we had like a circle of, we were going around. This is like, you know, it takes more time to get to your turn than any Commander game. We had like a circle of like eight or nine players, and we would just go around the circle and each take our turn. And then you could see who had spent more money on the game because their decks were like 100 cards big or 150 cards big. No one had any inkling to kind of of uh say like oh my deck would be more streamlined if i took any cards out it was just whatever decks you you bought or you maybe maybe you traded for some of them and um this was this was pre-internet like at least pre-internet being

like a real thing and so you know nobody could look up like oh this is what you're supposed to do i like to think at least in that group i was the first person that was like hey remember i remember how i mentioned i like green so i was like hey wait what if i just played only green cards that would make it so like we would have you know when i'm looking for my other mana uh i wouldn't get uh mana screwed as much or color screwed and so um it was like a you know a an arms race so once i scaled up everyone's like hey that seems like a good thing to do and then they all did it too and then yeah those were those were i you know, those moments could be captured more in games. Like where, where these, these days it's a lot, it's a lot harder to do that.

But when you're just exploring and everything's super mysterious and, you know, no one really knows what to do nowadays, you could probably, I mean, for most things you can just easily find that information. And so, yeah, it was kind of, it, yeah, it was a magical time back then. Yeah, the internet does, I mean, it's funny how you talk about the evolution of games, the environment you live in very much of, like, it's hard to have mystery when you can look up anything up at any moment. So it's very hard to have that.

Yeah, I live to find those moments these days. A really quick tangent, but I just I played this. It was like a Legend of Zelda fan game, but it was so obscure that you couldn't look up anything on the internet about it. And so to find, you know, I had to actually map out stuff on paper and everything just like the old days. And so it was a cool experience. But anyway, we're talking about magic here. Okay, so here's my first sort of interaction with you, although it wasn't a live interaction. It was just I started playing Plants vs. Zombies, and I remember coming into work and saying, this person plays magic.

I played the game, and I was watching, like, sort of the resource system, and I just came in, and I go, I don't know this to be a fact, but I believe this person plays magic. And we had this discussion, because everybody was playing it,

and we had this discussion of, like, was there an influence of magic or not? I remember having this. And then, I forget how it was, I read somewhere,

somewhere that you had said somewhere that you play magic. I was like, I was right! He plays Magic! You were dead on, Mark. Yes, Plants vs. Zombies was very influenced by Magic, especially at an earlier stage.

I was playing a lot of Magic at the time, and one of my ambitions was to incorporate what I loved about magic into this new game I was making. And that is, if you play Plants vs. Zombies, you'll know that each plant comes on a seed packet. And the reason they're on seed packets is because I originally wanted them to be on objects that you could imagine could uh imagine that would shuffle together so as you can imagine a stack of seed packets and you can shuffle them and i wanted that um that analogy to come through so that's that's why actually they're on seed packets the game ended up for simplicity simplicity sake it ended up diverging a little bit from the original more heavy, like a deck of cards metaphor, but you can tell that the remnants of it are there.

Yeah, I could see it. It was very clear when I played. It was very obvious to me when I saw it, that I could see a little bit of a magic influence in the structure, so. Yeah, a quick aside. I wonder if your first interaction, okay, so there was one game developers conference where richard garfield gave a talk yeah and um me being a fan yeah i i ran up to

him after the talk and i was like can you sign my two cards one of them was um berserk you know green mage through and through yeah and the other one was this misprint healing salve that i thought was really hilarious. And I had him sign that too. So I had him sign two cards, but I also gave him, I was pitching my game at the time. So I gave him a flyer to my game. And it was a game where you run a fish tank and aliens attack your fish tank. And there's a secret, you know, the thing about this fish tank is that the fish poop money.

So you click on the money, use that to buy more fish. Right. This is in Sanitarium. Yeah, it's in Santa Clara. And he said he took that back to Wizards and got a good, you know, got a lot of the office playing. So I was wondering if that was maybe if you were part of that wave. I remember them playing. I was not playing a lot of that at the time. When would that have been?. When would that have been? What year would that have been?

I'll say 2002 or 3. So basically, my oldest was born in 2000. At that point, I was just... My life was very busy with family stuff. That was your main game. Yeah.

Obviously, at work, I was obviously at work. I would work. But, like, my free time at home was not – it was a little more filled up than it had been in my earlier days when I – when off-time work just meant I could play games. Yeah. But that was super grat – like, Richard said he passed it around and people really dug it. he passed it around and people really dug it and uh i don't remember the exact compliment but he gave me it he gave me a really thoughtful compliment about that game and that was one of you know my early like wow this is like i felt i felt uh yeah i felt like i was doing the right

thing and so that was one of my early interactions with the people that make magic. Okay, so here's my earliest memory of meeting you. I've done lots of interviews that I learned that sometimes my first memory is not their first memory, but here's my first memory of meeting you, is you came to the office, you and a few friends came to the office, and they asked me if I would give you a tour,

because I did a lot of tours back in the day. I still do a little bit. Well, we don't do tours anymore, but back when we did tours, I used to give a lot of tours. Um, but anyway,

they said, we'd like to give a tour. And I was a fan of the game. I definitely, so I showed you around the office. I remember that day. It's, it's,

uh, it's a day that, you know, is very special to me. I will always remember that i think and yeah when i heard that mark rosewater would be giving the tour i was like oh my god that's awesome and i think at the time there was a little bit of like like i think that was after innistrad came out okay and we innistrad had great bramble oh right right right right right yes

yeah and so uh i think just think just the little pieces were getting, the seeds were getting sown into us working together. Yes, yes. But yeah, that was cool. Yeah, so for those that don't know real quick, in Odyssey, we made a card called Grave Rambles, which was a plant that had protection from zombies. In Innistrad.

In Innistrad, so not Odyssey, in Innistrad. What happened was I had realized that zombies were in blue and black because that was the colors that had zombies and that their shared

enemy was green and so just like it just lined up perfectly the idea that the enemy of the zombie colors were a protection from zombies

and anyway it just seemed too perfect not to do so yeah it was yeah I have

I have like a 100 copies of that card i mean the funny thing is i didn't know you were really into green ironically ironically i like i just was trying to be like just lined up and then it happened to be green which obviously not knowing that even even better but uh so anyway okay so i i gave you a tour um and then i we would keep we kept in touch after that i think we went out to dinner at gd i came to gdc and went to dinner um one year yeah and anyway we at that point we we sort of kept in contact with each other and um so the next part of our story is Great Design Research 3 happened. Yep. And then so you contact, you can tell your side of the story.

So what happened with Great Design Research 3? So this was when I was in the middle of, I was getting ready to ship my next, my latest game. So really shouldn't be doing anything but that, but you know, the, the idea of participating in the great designer search seemed like, so I just, I just had such, it seemed like so much fun to me that I was like, really, I, it, but there were a few things in the fine print I read. For instance, if you worked at Wizards before, then you're not eligible for doing this. And I made a card with you with Wizards. Oh, wait, wait, wait.

Let's talk about that. So talk about the making of a card. We've skipped over that. Tell me the making of a card. We've skipped over that. Talk about the making of a card. Rewind. It was shortly after that. That was, see, for more than one reason,

that tour that day. Because we asked you that day, right? Yes. That was the day you pulled me aside and then there's, you know, I got asked, hey, would you like to make a magic card? And, of course, I mean, you know what I said.

I said, yes, very loudly and emphatically. Yeah, it's, you know, as someone who's played and loved magic for most of my life, it was such a cool opportunity. So let me set up for the audience that doesn't know this. So Magic 2015 had a promotion we did where we went outside to find other game designers, people that didn't design Magic, but other game designers. And I forget how many we had, but we had a whole bunch of them each design a card, and then their name was on it. And so, by the way,

you and I had the same number of cards, I think, with our name on them. Because I did the art for Look at Me at DCI, which is the only magic card that had my name on it. So you're credited as the artist. I'm the artist, yeah.

I've never been credited as a designer in anything, even though I've made a few magic cards. That was a rare... It didn't happen very often. It happened before that, right? No, that was the first time you ever credited designers on cards. So what did you make?

What card did you make? I know, but the audience says, what card did you make? Yeah, it was a really cool part of M15 where you could look over these 15 cards. No, they were all designed by people outside of Magic. I think that was the value for me. It was like, here's a take on Magic that is from people. They're all designers, so know they're gonna have a a you know a pretty good starting point for where making something cool but um they were from a

mentality that wasn't someone who's designed cars for for decades or something like that and so you could maybe get something get something special out of there that you might not you might not otherwise just because their their viewpoint is you know they're coming from a different maybe get something special out of there that you might not otherwise, just because their viewpoint is, you know, they're coming from a different vantage point. Yeah, there were some fun, very quirky designs. Yeah, there were some very neat designs. What did you make?

I made a card called Genesis Hydra. Like, I keep going back to group. So I submitted five designs, one for each color. And I knew it was going to be a core set. So I, I tried to make, um, for the most part, they were like iconic creatures. Uh, there was like, I made an angel. I made, I think I made a zombie. I didn't make a, I didn't make a demon, but I, you know, when it came to green, it had to be a Hydra. And I was, I was inspired by Genesis Wave. And in general, I love the, I love mechanics like Cascade, because they're, it is like a pleasant surprise. Like it's like a, it's like a cool surprise. You don't know exactly what you're

going to get, but you're going to get something something good and so i just channeled those two inspirations into uh making genesis hydra that was actually that was my my play test name that was my the submitted name for it i think originally it was a little bit of a simpler card it was it was maybe more powerful to you, maybe too powerful. It was 1G and X, and then it got any permanence, so it could actually get lands. Well, same with the card dots. The audience might not know what the card dots. Oh, okay, yeah. Genesis Hydra. X.

GG. It's a creature. Plant Hydra. And as a quick aside, I didn't add the plant part at first. Some cool person did that, I'm guessing it's kind of an homage to what I do. And then so when you cast Genesis Hydra, you look at the top X cards in your library for a non-land permanent of Converted Manacost

X or less. And so if you cast for four, you could get anything four or less out of the next four cards. And then you take the rest of the cards, and you put them on the bottom of your library, and then it comes with an X X creature, essentially. In the form...

Yeah, like all hydras do, it comes into play with plus one plus one count is equal to how much you pay for it. Yeah. And what was your response when that first came out? What was it like having your first magic card happen? I remember going to the M15,

a local M15 pre-release, and I got to sign some cards there that was amazing um i mean really it was a dream come true like it it didn't happen like overnight so i i got to just live it up over the course of like maybe a couple years but uh it was a dream come true i i i know that on my bucket list was if i didn't think i could ever achieve it but it would be to design you know design one magic card and so but wait your bucket list had more items in it yeah okay so let's go back to the great designers search three you were excited so you thought it'd be fun to do um so real quickly let me add in that you had contacted me because you wanted to make sure that you were allowed to enter

it because you had done because you had done this one card you're like oh does that so i checked no no you're fine george you you can enter yeah um yeah and so and you said some, you said, you said, uh, I believe you said at that point, some other stuff too, but in any case, I, I did my best. I, I think the first, the first step was the essay questions. So I spent, I spent the time to do that and it was a lot of time. If I remember right, there was one question where I was like, you have a chance to remake an old mechanic. And I tried to tackle banding because that one, that was a sore spot for me.

As a person, as a designer, I just don't like things like that. And so I was trying to do my take on a person, as a, as a designer, I just don't like things like that. And so I was trying to do my, my take on a simplified, more intuitive banding. Um, so I, I, but I recognize the way I think, I think you've mentioned this, the way you do it is you do the essay questions because that's a bigger hurdle for, for, for people to write. How, how many words was it? Like 3000. It's 3000 per question. So it's, and it's 10 questions. for people to write. How many words was it? Like 3,000 words?

It's 3,000 per question, and it's 10 questions. Yeah, you have to be committed. I'm sorry, it's 3,000 total. There's 10 questions, 300 words per question. It's 3,000 words total. That was a lot of words.

We just want to make sure that we want people that really want to do this, right? And so it definitely makes some... Shows some dedication. Okay, so then you chose a test, multiple choice test. I chose a multiple choice test, and I remember the question. I remember the question.

So I think— Did you miss by one? More people—yeah, the result is I was off by one. I missed the cutoff by one. And this year was, like like more difficult than any previous year because you had just more entrance, right? Yeah, yeah. We had way more entrance.

I thought, oh, if I miss one or two, I'll probably still be good. But – Any other time you would have been good, by the way. Every other one, like you can miss like five or six and get in. And this time it was two because so many more people entered. It's – I i mean everyone wants to be a match designer mark but uh so go ahead okay i remember the question it was the one about um what common what commonality is this creature and it was a i think like a 5R, 5-5 Menace, Prowess, okay?

Yeah. And my first instinct was to make it uncommon. Mm-hmm. And then I overthought it, and I went and looked up Khans of Tarkir. Darn you, Khans! Yeah, done it by Khans of Tarkir. I went to look up Khans of Tarkir,

and there was a card that was common. I forget the name, but it was like also six mana, five, I believe, a flying prowess. So I was like, surely a menace equals flying if all things are equal. And then I was like, I don't know. This doesn't feel quite right, but I'm going to change my answer. That was the last question I changed my answer to, and then I submitted it. Oh, so close. And I found out. I got some of the, if I remember, I got some of the infamous green-black

Sarah Angel question. I got that one right. I got a lot of the more controversial questions right. Yeah. But I missed that one, and it will forever haunt me. Except it won't. It won't haunt you. So basically what happens

is you would express to me the reason you were entering was it had been on your bucket list to work at Wizards for six months was something that would just be an awesome life experience you said. And I think I even said at the time, like, George, there's other ways to do this than win the

great designer search. So I actually went back to the office and I talked to my boss and I said, hey, look, I would love to bring George. George said he's interested to work for six months. Hey, I would love to bring George over for six months. I think that'd be awesome. And

they signed up. They said, okay. And so we got you. In fact, you ended up staying a year. So you ended up obviously having hopefully a good time. That's a lesson for everyone listening. The fast track to working at Wizards is make a hit. Just make a hit game is all you got to do.

And you too can work at Wizards. No, that was really gracious. I mean, reflecting on it, that was an awesome year. Yeah, it was everything. This item on my bucket list, I dreamed it would be.

And it was, yeah, just super cool. Yeah, so for a year, in fact, George sat right next to me. His desk was right next to mine. And he was, I mean, you were on some teams I wasn't on. But you and I were on a bunch of teams together. I got to witness you eating your famous ham and cheese sandwich. You did, you did. And we played games at lunch. Anyway, so you got the full experience.

So anyway, let's talk a little quick. We have a little bit of time here. So the first thing you were on, I think, was Ikoria set design. Yeah, I don't know if it was the first thing I was on. Maybe the first thing I can remember is joining the diving. Oh, okay. So we'll get to Zendikar Rising in a second. That's the kind of order they came out.

I guess you might not work so. I guess the first thing that came out. Right, was Ikoria. The first thing that came out right was that person that came out chronologically right so what was like working on icoria so it was a few days after i i uh started working there and i i went to the art walls and i just looked at what was the concept art for icoria and there were all these um what was the concept art for Ikoria and there were all these um these awesome looking beasts that involved you know this is something I I love which is like one real world animal meshed with another real world animal and then they just look so awesome so I was like what's I might have said this out I was like what set is this and and you know, I was there to work kind of under your wing. And you're mostly the, you know, you're mostly vision and exploratory.

Yeah. But I knew this set was in set design. And so it kind of, I kind of just took the initiative. And I was like, I kind of elbowed, I found out, you know, Dave Humphries was the lead. And I just elbowed my wing. I'm like, I kind of elbowed, I found out you know Dave Humphries was the lead and I just elbowed my way and I'm like I need to work on this set. It's so cool, it just really spoke to me. It was a very me kind of a theme and so I knew that if I could do anything I would love to work on that set. So I made my way into set design and uh yeah ended up ended up uh contributing to

a few i mean i i designed quite a few cards only a few of them made it to you know the very end but for uh one of the ones was dave needed a king kong card And so I submitted my design and a variation of that ended up being the final card. And then the other cool thing I got to do was, I think in one of the meetings, it was a simple design. It was just, it was forbidden friendship, which was, it makes a dinosaur token and a human token. And it was just,

the name is an homage to one of my favorite franchises. So it was really special to get to work on that set. Okay, so another set you worked on was... You were on Vision Design for Zendikar Rising. That's the first thing you worked on, right? I believe so, yeah. So what was that like? You've got to be on one of my teams now. So it was... It I felt like it was pretty far along already.

Yeah, you wanted to start. It was already mid, you're near the end. Yeah, yeah. It was actually, I think because of the nature of the set too, I really feel like you all had it pre-figured out by that time and the things that we were maybe experimenting with were more like fringe fringe thing i think you already knew the core of the core of the set or would be party yeah yeah yeah we got partied pretty early it was it was pretty solidified like there was part party was already um kind of the focus and then we we

designed some uh peripherals i want to i feel like it was like more peripheral stuff like stuff that to enhance the set yeah other than be like a core part of it like uh we we worked on quests and traps all the stuff that didn't make it to the final set. Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, the key part of the set, I always thought, being on the set, that party was the most intriguing it was the most intriguing mechanic.

In that we hadn't done anything, we hadn't done that kind of like a breath kind of tribal. Instead of going deep on one thing, you just want one of everything. And I thought that would be really interesting and how that played out and so i was i was totally on board with that being you know where a lot of our time was spent making making really good yeah i mean you yeah as far as you were late in the process so like early on you figure out what you're doing and then fine-tune. So you're on the fine-tuning part of vision design. Yeah, yeah.

And I remember we tried out some other... We tried out... Have you mentioned the... There's an Eldrazi tribute, kind of? Oh, yeah. Well, before Kicker, there was... It was called Titan. And it was a Kicker variant that we were going to do

that was meant to be a little Eldrazi nod. But Eric changed it to Kickr in development. So, in set design. Yeah. Okay, so we're almost out of time, but I want to real quickly. So, there was a project. In fact, there were two projects that you were there from the very beginning. One is Strixhaven, which neither of these products I can talk much about

because they're not out yet. But Strixhaven was... I'm really, really proud of Strixhaven. And you were there for the whole vision design. Yeah, exploratory. Without giving any details, how about just talk emotionally what's your take on how you felt about it?

You can't talk about the details, but was it fun working on? Yeah, it was a blast to work on it i i felt this set was special because it it was it was playing in a space that seems uh it almost seems like well we should have we should have already done something like this before. Yeah. That's great design. You're like, how have we not done this before? That's good design.

When you say, how have we not done this before? I think that's when you know you've got something good. Yeah. And so I think this is going to be really special because it is, it's kind of stuff I like when tackling something new. That's where I get a kick out of design. Yeah, the vision design team was me and you and Ari. And who was the fourth member of the team?

I'm blinking here. It might have rotated. It might have been more than one other person. But anyway, it was... I know Daniel was on the exploratory. Oh, Sidney was on Exploratory, not Vision. But anyway, it was a blast. I really enjoyed it.

It was a fun vision. It's a really, really cool set. I am super excited for the audience to see it. In fact, you haven't even seen the finished product because you left before we finished it. But we had our slideshow not too long ago, and it's really good. It is insanely good.

And then, this is what I can't talk to you less about. You worked on a mystery product that hasn't been announced. But maybe when mystery product happens, I'll bring you back on and we'll talk again about mystery product. I would love to get your take on mystery product once it's a known thing. I'll say,

I think I can say it. Perhaps out of everything that I worked on while I was there, this is the one I'm going to remember the most. Okay, well, once it's a thing that people know about, we can bring you back to talk about it. This was very special.

Yeah. But anyway, I see my desk up ahead, so I know we're Oh, we're at work almost. Yeah, we're at work almost yeah we're at work almost so uh how about before we get before i wrap up so encapsulate your time at wizards give me like the the one minute sort of what was it like to to fulfill your bucket list of working at wizards okay i might go okay so in the beginning the first week was awesome we because i love reading spoilers and you you you

gave me access to all the spoilers yes so i knew what i was getting into i was reading tons and tons of spoilers and then i knew that for the next for the next two years or whatever magic spoilers would be less exciting yes but it was worth it but that was that was an awesome week it was like kid in a candy store yeah and um yeah working there so i got to really appreciate so i i feel i feel like i have you know i'm confident in my designer skills however it was kind of humbling being there because i got to work next to people who had been designing cards for forever even even that you know like Ari and Chris who you brought on from the designer search I realized that there is a skill set that you need to design magic cards

and you need lots of practice doing that and I I you know I designed Genesis Hydra but I haven't designed that many cards in my life and so that year actually was spent uh I feel like I was I was getting up to speed for a lot of it I was kind of learning from the people around me but I was just very impressed by the people that were there, you know, the designers that were there, how, just what skills they had in coming up with awesome Magic cards, and I got to see that firsthand. So that was super cool. Yeah, what else can I say? It was just, it's something I've always wanted to do. I will never forget my time there. And, uh, I highly recommend it.

And I will say before we wrap up, um, I've now fulfilled one of my bucket lists, which is I got to work with George, which was a lot of fun. I, I really, uh,

it was one of the reasons I pushed so hard to get you there. It was, I really wanted to work with you. And so it was a lot of fun. I really, really enjoyed it. And, uh,

we had a lot of fun. Yeah. So, um, we got to work on some, like some, you know, smaller projects together. Yes. Yeah. So one of the last things that we did was before I left, uh, it was, yeah. So yeah, no, it was, it was fun. It was definitely fun. So I, I enjoyed it all and I, I miss having you around. So, but, uh, same, I miss, I miss sitting next to you and witnessing you eat that sandwich. Yes. Apparently that sandwich eating was more of a highlight than I realized. To me, it's just lunch. It was a sub-bullet point on my bucket list.

Yes. Watch Mark eat sandwich. So did you get all your sub points? Did you manage your year to do all your magic sub points? Yeah. All in all, I feel like there wasn't much that I was hoping to get out of it. I didn't get to do. So it was awesome.

It was an awesome year. out of it and I didn't get to do. So it was awesome. It was an awesome year. Well, anyway, with that, I now can clearly say I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. I mean, this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

So thank you, George. This was a lot of fun. Obviously, I enjoyed having you next to me for a whole year, but it's also fun having you with me at least for a half an hour to talk about it so good to talk to you again Mark so anyway guys I want to thank George for being here and I'll see all you next time

bye bye