Disney Lorcana, a magical deck building card game

Disney Lorcana, for me, has been a bit of a curveball. It came to us out of the blue and at the outset seemed like a good idea. I mean that card game in The Witcher games was good, wasn’t it?

The premise makes sense, a deck building card game that draws on the multifaceted layers of the Disney catalogue. I’ve grown up on Disney, and so have my kids so we were keen to see where this went thanks to producer Ravensburger.

Maybe we have a Sleeping Beauty on our hands.

Having little to no experience of this kind of game I was impressed by the packaging and the quality of the cards. The artwork, suitably Disney and emotive, while the flashy foil specials are attention grabbers for sure. Once you get past the artwork, they are awash with lots of text, one could almost say too much text. It’s undeniable the effort that has gone into replicating these characters and scenes and tying them up the the themed release decks. I admit it was nice to see the classics of yesteryear getting some love alongside the Moana’s of today.

Also in the deck packs are ‘the board’, which is basically a half piece of folded paper the design of which feels both incomplete and too fragile to be a component of the game. Essentially it does fit the rules as you stack cards and count up you score, with the cardboard pieces that are also in the pack, but it just doesn’t feel like it quite got there. Quite a drop in consistency from the quality of the cards, if its a card game make it a card game, make the mechanics fit rather than shoehorning in counters and paper boards.

Playing the game is a mixed bag of emotions, perhaps being an adult has something to do with that, but my eight year old had a similar vibe once we’d punched through a few games. Where I felt it was a bit empty, her takeaway was positive without really ‘getting it’, and I put that down to the Disney factor.

This is no Toy Story.

The concept is set around magical ink and Illumineers, as the player you need to draw cards from your hand to represent characters on the board. These characters spend subsequent turns collecting Gems or in combat against your opponent. I mean I kind of get that idea, because it reminds me of the classic spectrum game Chaos, but with more regulations.

Each turn you replace cards from the deck, fill your Inkwell, gather gems, fight your opponent, put characters on hold if they had an action, then be sure you’ve read all the small print. There is a lot of smallprint, it controls conditions, allows extra attacks, actions out of turn and just goes deeper and deeper. To be fair there should probably be a solid education on the rules and ramifications of the game before you go anywhere near a table.

As the game progresses it went one of two ways, either stalling in the middle depending on your hands or being over in a flash. It was more often over in a flash and this didn’t leave us wanting more. There’s a lot going on, and a lot to remember especially for younger players with little reward.

We also had questions about the rules, “could we use the full amount of ink every turn? Or did we have to wait for it to build up again?” The attached rule pamphlet is off-putting and the sequence of play doesn’t really do anything to grab your attention, it recommends you go and watch official youtube videos to catch up, but that gets old pretty quickly.

Ultimately, and this is coming from both age ranges – we just didn’t really feel engaged, there was no narrative pushing us forward, we were going through the (contrived) motions without any sense of achievement of reward. Imaging winning a game of draughts, you have goals, you know what is required, you can strategise. WIth Disney Lorcana, it just seems to happen and any opportunity to manage the flow of play hangs on how well your lizard brain can regurgitate the oddball rules that cards may throw up.

The themed packs (Chapters (?)) are releasing regularly and again, they are steeped in lore, excellent design and effort.

Less Magnificent, more Maleficent.

I get that deck builders like this are about obsessing over your own deck, managing the cards you play with and ensuring you have an army of favourites you can take into any situation. In this instance I cant see how I can engage enough with Disney Lorcana to fully appreciate all its nuances, or have the energy to want to play enough to get that familiar.

The game offers potential, its been crafted with love and a desire to grow collectible decks of cards, I just find the rules, the gameplay and the overall theme make it really hard to find a cause. For Disney fans, collectible fans or deck builders looking to flex their muscles it will probably hold some appeal. For this old fellla and his eight year old it missed the mark, we just didn’t know what Disney Lorcana really wanted to be or how we could make it fun for ourselves.