In my third semester studying communication design, I had the oppurtunity to take part in a class on game design that dealt with why people play. The final project for this class was to create a prototype for a game, either digital or analog, and I decided to go for a traditional card game to balance out a semester otherwise firmly rooted in digital work.

The result is a card-game with the working title of “Magistan”, which allows the players to slip into the role of different magicians robbed of most of their power and trapped in an arena by an evil duke. It is now up to them whether they want to gather enough power through killing monsters to teleport away on their own, or to work together and defeat the duke.

The core gameplay-mechanic revolves around creating different spells from element-cards which are rewarded for killing monsters. It’s an easy system to get into, but it requires careful planning and strategy to fully master.