Hey Mages! Today is thursday and we’re back again with a quick update on what we’ve been doing lately.

What’s up since last week?

We’ve taken the time to take a new look at our current game.

Questioning the basics

Making Mage Noir as a collectible card game was pretty much a certitude not so long ago. Changing the business model of the game was the right thing to do, and it kinda opened our eyes. There is no certitude. So we’ve taken some time to question de basics. It’s always a good thing to do for many reasons.

  • First, it allows us to see and avoid obvious flaws that we might have missed.
  • Second, it allows us to make the game better by changing what is not right.
  • Third, it allows us to have even stronger certitudes if we come to the conclusion that something is definitely good.

So far it allowed us to change the Mana system for instance, which is currently being tested and reviewed. We should present this new version to you soon. Reviewing the way Mana is used allowed us to create something that we think is more interesting and practical to use.

We reviewed its use, but also its whole concept. And while the manipulation of Mana had to be changed, the concept of a shared Mana pool was just so great that we are now even more convinced that we would lose a lot of depth by removing it from the game.

What else did you review?

The whole concept of rarity is currently being deeply reworked. Rarity in card games is a very interesting and complex subject actually. It is much more than a “How frequently do I find this card in my booster pack ?”. It also represents both the complexity and the level of influence of a card in the game.

Since we’re moving to a self-contained card game we won’t have booster packs and thus, no rarity as in “opening frequence”. However, it previously helped us balance this complexity and influence factor during the creation of our cards.

This is why it’s a concept that is way harder to handle than just removing it completely. We’re currently working on it and it is a very interesting exercise. We’ll tell you what we decide to do with it once we’re done.

Water healer by Camille Fourcade

Printer friendly house gaming

We’ve received quite a few messages from players that wanted to try the print and play but had some trouble with the amount of toner it requires.

When creating the print and play version, we wanted to give you Mages the closest representation of what the game would feel like. Thus, we chose put the whole layout, but it uses a lot of toner. So we’re working on a more printer friendly version, that will be cheaper to print. Stay tuned Mages, we’ll tell you once it’s done.

A small word about the current situation

The whole world is on hold lately with the recent events. It affects the development of the game a little, but not so much. It’s just that it’s harder for us to playtest together when we make changes. Aside from that, there isn’t much change in how we work. So this paragraph isn’t much about us or the game.

We just wanted to have quick word for you. We hope you’re safe and we hope you’re doing good. Take care of yourself.

That’s all for this week Mages!

We wish you all the best and we’ll see you next week for another weekly update.