Yesterday, 100 people were invited to an exclusive Lorcana Pre-Launch event held in Berlin, Germany. The day featured presentations on the design, art, and gameplay. It also featured exclusive new cards and lore reveals!
Many community members and Lorcana super-fans were part of the lucky crew. They included Artem of the Lorcania.com, Lorcana Germany, Whippet Plays, Jam Pingul, Peter Brockhammer, and Tales of Alex. Many thanks to them for the original images used in the header and article, the videos, and the information.
New Card Reveals!
Four new cards were shown in their German versions. This comes after many new Lorcana cards have been revealed to and by the community on various platforms. We’ve got the card details and rough translations to English below.
After painstaking translations and double-checking, followed by giving up on getting the article out for Sunday: we have English cards. Many thanks to Whippet Plays who got them from the German Ravensburger team.
The artist Peter Brockhammer got to show off his new Aladdin card, along with design details and an art timeline. He also answered a question from Artem, saying that he illustrated at least eight Lorcana cards…
Unknown Minnie Mouse Always Classy
There was a presentation from Ryan Miller and Steve Warner, then Shane Hartley, where they spoke about the starting steps of Lorcana. They went in-depth into the background work that went into the gameplay and the story and the visual design.
During the presentation, another card was held up by Ryan. Previously we just had a blurry image but now the full reveal was shown in the Lorcana HQ Discord.
Minnie is sporting her trademark polkadot dress, so this fits right in alongside Mickey Mouse True Friend as a classic representation of a Mickey character.
Much of Ryan’s talk was about gameplay design choices that lead to the “simple to learn, difficult to master” philosophy, with less confrontational choices in the language.
Lorcana Ink + Illuminary Design
Shane Hartley’s part of the presentation revealed much about much of the lore that allowed so many characters to be in one game. The Lorcana logo itself – called the Illuminary icon – represents the Illuminary and the Foundry inside the main hall.
The outer part of the icon is a silhouette of the Great Illuminary. The lines in the logo in the logo are called leylines and show the six different inks swirling toward the center of the icon, creating a glimmer.
Glimmers are created in the Illuminary. The star catcher is the hexagon-shaped device suspended from the ceiling inside. It hangs over the ink casting station, where glimmers are created from story stars and ink.
The stories or moments – seemingly referred to as story stars – are held in the star catcher, then cast by the Illumineer (you!) with an Inkcaster, using ink from the different columns in the building.
Branding Design + Illumineer Named!
Even the packaging incorporates some of the lore and tries to tell the story. The booster packs include the columns and the glimmers (characters) being created at that moment, with their ink being cast.
The booster packs show three of the ink types, and the starter decks include the other three. The First Chapter gift set and the Illumineer’s Trove also show off those columns.
One thing Shane mentioned is that the Illumineer we’ve seen in some of the promo images has a name – Xuan Ze! (or at least that’s what we heard…)
Card Back Hidden Mickey + Ravensburger Logo
Previously we were told about the hidden Mickey on the card back, but Shane also mentioned the Ravensburger logo was also included in a way. Ravensburger’s logo is a nice little triangle in the bottom right of all of their products. Having it hinted at on the card back is a nice touch!
Lorcana’s Design
Many different versions of the inks were shown, as well as previous logo design sketches. A breakdown of the star catcher showed how detailed the lore and design were intertwined. Plus we also got some really interesting looks at what the Great Illuminary looked like in mock-ups.
The ink designs were also talked about with their different themes and personalities entwined. For Sapphire, it included some sacred geometry hints and a hidden eye in the intertwining pattern.
Some of the interesting things Shane mentioned were: –
- The top spire of the Illuminary asks as a sort of lighting rod for story stars going into the building
- He said there are different ink casting rooms, so not just one main hall?
- He mentioned the “Curator” who found this “pocket universe”
- This character has been mentioned before on the leaked website, but wasn’t in the live version and hasn’t since been mentioned much, if at all
- Story stars can’t be captured, but the stories within them can
- The Illuminary seems to be alive, and the different panels and parts of it move around, and the “contents within can change”
- This leaves a lot of story open to explore
- The current Illuminary is Gold with Purple parts, put an opposite version was shown – it could be to do with the Floodborn characters and an ink flood…
- The leylines are the grooves on the floor (?) of the ink casting rooms where ink flows in
- Ink doesn’t just power the creation of glimmers, but also everything in the realm of Lorcana and the Great Illuminary itself
Lorcana Themed Food, Cocktails
The event looked amazing, and players were treated to food, drink, and desserts themed to the ink colors. The invitees really got treated!
Non-Disclosure Agreement Ends Tues 25th
All of the attendees had to sign an NDA for the information given in the later part of the day. The NDA lifts on the evening of Tuesday 25th. That means we can expect some more details from the attendees after that.
It’s likely this gives them enough time to prepare more high-quality content and videos about what they’ve seen. We’ll make sure to spread the word on our Twitter account. Make sure to follow us and the other creators – Artem, Lorcana Germany, Whippet Plays, Jam Pingul, and Tales of Alex.
For the fun of it, here are our guesses for what will be revealed:
- More info on the curator and the lore behind Lorcana
- How the Illumineer found the realm of Lorcana
- More cards!
- A variant on card art or art cards that aren’t playable but are collectible
- Set 2 name
