Disney Lorcana wants to expand the audience for trading card games in a big way

polygon.com:

Since the first cards for Disney Lorcanawere shared in September of last year, Disney fans and hardcore gamers alike have had just one question on their minds: What are the rules of the game, and how do they differ from established franchises like Magic: The Gathering and The Pokémon Trading Card Game? Well, as it turns out, it’s hard to keep a lid on this magical little game, and those rules leaked a bit early on Monday. But perhaps the most important part of those rules — their context and their intent — has been missing until now.

Earlier this month, Polygon sat down with Disney Lorcana co-designer Ryan Miller to learn everything we could about the hottest new Disney collectible. What we discovered is a product that has been engineered with a surprisingly light touch. In fact, the rules fit fairly well on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. But don’t mistake that brevity for simplicity.

“What we wanted was something that was accessible. And I like the term accessible, because it doesn’t mean simple,” Miller said. “It’s generally got concepts and things that are easy to pick up for folks who’ve never played this type of game before — and that bore out in our early playtests.”

In Disney Lorcana, players take on the role of Illumineers, powerful individuals who use a unique resource, called ink, to bring versions of classic Disney characters and items to life on the table. Each player comes to that table with a unique deck of cards from their collection or a pre-made starter deck they bought at the store. The goal is to gather up “lore,” a kind of magical macguffin that stands in for life points, or hit points, in similar games. Lore is gathered by sending characters on quests, and the first player to accrue