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Gizmodo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Wizards of the Coast Is Beginning to Get ‘Magic' Fans' Gripes With Less Fantastical Aesthetics
Magic: The Gathering is having an even bigger moment than usual this year, thanks to a lot of attention around its splashy crossovers and its rapid rollout of sets. But with that attention, there's definitely been some consternation about just how wide-reaching Magic's aesthetic is getting, between experimental in-universe sets and those aforementioned 'Universes Beyond' bringing more and more licensed material into the game. In a fascinating new article looking at the major sets of the last year, the game's head designer is starting to reckon with those lessons learned… lessons that are going to make for a very interesting reaction to the game's next big collab. Today Magic head designer Mark Rosewater released his 2025 State of Design article on the official Magic website, looking back at feedback and lessons to be learned from the release of almost every major Magic set released in the last year (up to, but not including, Edge of Eternities, which released on August 1). There are lots of interesting points Rosewater makes in the piece, reflecting some of the biggest fan concerns about Magic's direction from a mechanical and aesthetic point of view, from the game's eagerness to move on from themes every set, creating an issue where mechanical elements are introduced and then left unsupported, to an awareness of the game's complexity creep from the sheer amount of interactions possible even when Magic introduces individually simplistic new mechanics. But one of the most intriguing lessons to be learned that Rosewater highlights across several of the sets covered in the piece—Bloomburrow, Duskmourn: House of Horror, Foundations, Aetherdrift, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Final Fantasy—is a regular criticism Magic has faced as of late: that the game has occasionally pushed its fantastical too far into elements that don't capture Magic's feel. One particular pain point Rosewater highlighted was in Duskmourn, a horror-themed set that included several more direct aspersions to classic horror media, rooted in our own world. 'Players, it seems, are not fans of what I'm going to call 'mundane modernity.' Magic has had many sets, such as Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and The Brothers' War which push into more of a science-fiction feel, with items far more technically advanced than one would normally find in a fantasy story,' Rosewater wrote. 'That doesn't generally bother many players. Some things Duskmourn: House of Horror did for the first time bothered players, like having characters wearing and using things that we actually use: things like sneakers, or jeans, or a baseball bat. Part of fantasy is the idea that you're coming to a world that is fundamentally different than your own. Fantasy wants to be inspirational, and seeing everyday objects which are a part of all of our daily lives deflates that.' As Rosewater acknowledged, not every Magic set is rooted in explicitly fantastical material, from the sci-fantasy of sets like Edge of Eternities to collaborations in Universes Beyond like Doctor Who or Warhammer 40,000, which have fantastical elements rooted in science-fictional or real-world designs. But Magic also has a strong history of being able to root that kind of aesthetic in fantasy, which Duskmourn's more explicit horror callouts lacked. At a time when Wizards is also reckoning with the increase of non-Magic-original sets in the game, depending on the crossover, it's going to be an issue that continues to concern players (even beyond the general existence of Universes Beyond, complaints around which Rosewater acknowledged as a 'sentiment [that] continually shrinks over time'). It's an interesting thing for Rosewater to acknowledge, though, as Magic is now little more than a month away from the release of its next set, Marvel's Spider-Man. Although there are fantastical elements in a set about a superhero scientist and peculiar foes, like most of good Marvel, it's built into the so-called 'world outside our window.' The Final Fantasy set did a great job translating Final Fantasy to the world of Magic, while drawing on a myriad of aesthetics from steampunk to sci-fi to more traditional medieval fantasy, and managed to effectively balance those aesthetic styles with what players typically expect from Magic. Will Spider-Man walk the web-rope and balance that vibe, or will it end up with reactions like Duskmourn? We'll find out if there are more lessons to learn when the set hits shelves at the end of September. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Yahoo
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"My savings had run out": In a few months, a Sonic 3 animator made an N64-style game based on an iconic Animal Crossing mechanic and chucked it onto Steam because "I needed to pay rent," and it worked
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A few months ago, a cute little game called Merchant 64 was released on Steam to modest acclaim and success. Its developer, Brent Lattery, who goes by SuitNtie online, bashed it together in just "three to four months," he tells GamesRadar+, and it was released in large part because he "needed to pay rent." Lattery has a background in visual effects and animations – a skill set that previously landed him a role on the end credits animation for the Sonic 3 movie – and had worked on mobile games before. He'd also made his own Game Boy game, though it didn't end up selling very much. With Merchant 64, he says he wanted to tap into the nostalgic feel of inspirations like Harvest Moon, as well as a very specific corner of gaming: cozy gamers. It's not that cozy gamers will play anything, but Lattery reckons "cozy games have a very forgiving and wonderful fan base. Your cozy game doesn't have to be super good as long as it looks nice and the vibes are there." "I keep joking with my brother that I'm like, I can make the game look good, but I haven't been able to make it truly fun yet," he says. "So that's my ultimate goal, to make a fun game and then make it look good after that." Lattery says he's still learning some game design fundamentals as well as finer details like UI, and is the first to say "people offer a lot of grace" to Merchant 64. "I, personally, the person who made it, would review it pretty low in terms of fun and gameplay. It's really cute, it's quaint, it invokes good energy and stuff, but there's not too much going on there. It's very simple." "Merchant 64 is basically the turnip trading mechanic from Animal Crossing, and that's, like, the whole game," he adds, championing the type of short and condensed games he wants to make. "And that's totally fine." Merchant 64 is $6.99 at full price, with Lattery trying to balance a reasonable base price with the knowledge that "people pretty much only buy Steam games while they're on sale." (If it "was $30, like, get out of here, don't do that" he jokes.) It's a few hours long, it nails the Nintendo 64 aesthetic, and its 'make number go up' hook is enough to fill out the experience. It isn't one of the best simulator games ever made, but it doesn't have to be. Part of development here was balancing personal tastes with what sells, particularly what sells on Steam. Lattery's process, and recommendation, is straightforward: "Maybe you want to look at what sells, but then look at, what would you do in that area?" The art style of Merchant 64 gave it a cozy Harvest Moon vibe, he says, even when he wasn't strictly looking to make a cozy game, and he says he enjoyed the development process. "Don't just do it cynically," he says. "Oh, you know, Steam Charts says these games sell well, like a deck building game, or visual novels still do pretty well for their tiny little review counts. It's like, how would you do a visual novel? What would you put in there and then try to have fun with?" Lattery released Merchant 64 when he did, he says, because "I needed to pay rent, like my savings had run out. And I'm like, yeah, hopefully this makes me money, so I have to release it now." It worked. Mostly. At first, Merchant 64 got off to a slower start than Lattery might have hoped with around $2,000 in sales in the first few days, but he showed in a video that it grossed over $4,000 within a week. Lattery says it's continued ticking along during sale or bundle opportunities, earning more than expected in the long run. "But it slowly kept rolling in, and it made it past the mark that I wanted it to, just a little bit more over time. So in that sense, I was very pleased. In hindsight now, I'm looking and I'm like, that's great. I'm very happy with it." The dream of many game devs is to make enough money from each game to fund the next game, and Lattery says he's working toward the dream of having a few small games cruising the Steam superhighway to fund sustainable full-time development. For the time being, he's back to a full-time dev job elsewhere, but he's still got ideas for his own projects. His story provides a fascinating look under the hood of Steam and shows one of the many ways that game development plays out. "I think a lot of people have aspirations to make a big Stardew Valley or something," he says. "But that's definitely not it. If I was getting the exact same amount of attention that I am now, where it's like, just little stuff and cool people like yourself will maybe reach out, that's totally fine if the games are still generating money for me to keep doing them. I don't really want to grow into a studio. Some people want to make an indie studio, hire a couple of people, something like that. I wouldn't really want that. I have a couple of dream projects. "I know I made a little cozy game, but I love action games. I grew up on God of War for PS2, Kingdom Hearts, and I recently played through the Devil May Cry games. So I would like something like that, for sure. That's kind of that background, something I can work towards." "Anything related to Silksong releasing would be the doom of the project," lead on gorgeous Hollow Knight fan game once worried, but after 2 years of work it looks like it will launch this year.
