083 – Richard Garfield on Physical and Digital Card Game Design

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This week I have the honor of hosting one of the best game designers in history. Without overstating, I can say that he and his games are the reason I got interested in game design in the first place. And I know many of you feel the same way. At least, you’ve repeatedly asked me to invite him to the podcast. I hope you enjoy my interview with Richard Garfield, designer of Magic the Gathering, Keyforge, King of Tokyo, Artifact, Bunny Kingdom, Android Netrunner, Robo Rally, Vampire the eternal struggle, and many many more.

These are some of the topics we talked about on the show:

• The struggles of translating Magic the Gathering into the digital world
• Designing Player Turns and player interaction (with digital implementation in mind)
• What to consider in the early design stage
• Downtime in Games
• Card Effects and Mechanics Richard Garfield always wanted to implement but was never able to because of limitations of the physical world
• The difference of randomness in physical and digital games
• How to present randomness in games
• The importance of replayability of games
• Why are card distribution mechanics so important?
• How to implement multiplayer combat in card games
• Passive Aggressive Games vs. Aggressive Games