Wizards of the coast continues to reveal the upcoming Magic: The Gathering Arena piece by piece, and today we got another developer stream that focused primarily on Aesthetics but also included a Q&A part. The developers discussed how they came to the decisions they did on things like card look, tapping animations, and so on, all of which were accompanied by videos showing the evolution of the design. For instance, they talked about the importance of keeping the cards facing the player throughout a match, which influenced how the cards will look like when they are tapped. Finding a way to show tapped cards well was much trickier than it sounds, and I have a hunch the developers’ thought process was also influenced by how the game might look like on tablets and phones in the future.
If you’ve been wondering how the game will look and wondering what the reasoning is behind each of those design choices, you should definitely watch the above video. The Q&A is also very informative, with the developer explaining design decisions, changes that might be coming to the future, and much more. The PC beta is getting closer, and I’m very curious to see what the end-result will be. It does look that there’s a lot of attention paid to this digital client, so I’m optimistic about the future of Magic on our phones and tablets.