Interview: Disney Lorcana Co-Creator Ryan Miller on Figment, Lore Books, and the Game's Digital Future
D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event was full of incredible opportunities for Disney fans, but for Disney Lorcana players and collectors, it was so much more than the chance to shop for event exclusives and meet some of the artists behind their favorite cards. In addition to new product launches, a free Collector’s Quest event, and future announcements, the Ravensburger booth also hosted the game's first-ever on-site tournament, the Disney Lorcana D23 Challenge Championship Qualifier. In the middle of it all, I sat down with Ryan Miller, co-creator of Disney Lorcana, to talk about how the TCG’s evolution has continued to feel like a real-life Disney dream come true.
Alex: One of the items launching at D23 is the first prose novel tied into the game, Quest of Wonders: An Illumineer’s Lorebook. What's it like for you to see something you worked on spread beyond the original storytelling bounds of the game?
Ryan Miller: The narrative team has done an amazing job. The world of Lorcana was foundational. We started on that before we even started on the game design, because it was important to us. It's important to Disney, and it's important to our fans, that there's a world these characters make sense in. We didn't want to just put characters on a card and drop them into a game. We wanted a world that laid it all out, and that gives us the freedom to do fun, unexpected things within it.
What I find really awesome about the publishing side is that we laid that foundation, but to have fans who are so excited to learn that aspect of it, who really want to delve into the world, that's just really great. I'm a story guy myself. I enjoy writing a little bit, too. It's just really cool to see people who are so passionate that they want to delve into the world.
Alex: There were quite a few announcements here, including the first theme park character, Figment, coming to the game as a promo card. I know what the parks mean to you, but I'm curious: what does it mean to now be at a point where you can incorporate theme park IP directly into the game?
Ryan Miller: Internally, the story of Lorcana for us has just been dream after dream after dream. Back in the early days it was, "Man, what if we're in the parks someday? What if we're on the cruises someday? What if we get to work with Disney artists?" Having that dream, and then having it come true over and over again, has been an amazing journey. Figment is just another example of that. It was, "What if we could put Figment on a card? That'd be amazing."
To me, this exemplifies the delight of a Disney fan. Here's a character who's never been in a film, but he's so beloved and so exciting. When we revealed it, everyone cheered. It was amazing. To be a part of this wonderful universe, in some small way, is an honor. We take it very seriously, but it's also just really cool.
Alex: Ravensburger announced a new level of collectibility: Collector Boosters and a new rarity, Illustrious. What kind of feedback have you gotten from collectors that may have inspired this new level of collectibility?
Ryan Miller: We look at it as a continuing effort to make opening packs more exciting. We saw this with Fabled. We wanted opening packs of Lorcana to be super fun, even aside from rarity, just seeing the characters, seeing the art, all of that. But we're always looking for ways to push it further. If you look at the history of our Legendary rarity across the sets, you'll see little things change: the art starts to come out of the frame a bit, there's a spot of varnish on the characters, always trying to find that next thing.
That's where Epic and Iconic came from: this effort to make the packs more exciting to open. Collector Boosters take that to the next level. Opening boosters is something all Disney Lorcana fans enjoy, so it raises the experience for everybody, not just collectors. When we were figuring out how to make collector boosters really fun, Illustrious was something we talked about and started working with. I remember Steve Warner is the one who came up with 23 as the number of copies. That's when it crystallized for us. It's all about adding that excitement, that wishing-on-a-star feeling of opening a pack. It's just super fun.
Alex: You mentioned 23 copies of each Illustrious card, which is obviously a magic number for Disney. You're also in the middle of your 13th set, which was Walt Disney’s favorite number. Does it feel like all these numbers are intersecting in interesting ways?
Ryan Miller: One of the things that's really core to our process is attention to detail. I believe the foundation of a great experience is love, and attention to detail and hard work are how we show that love. That's something Disney does better than anybody in the world; you go to a park, you see all the detail around you, and that's love. That's something we wanted to take very seriously with Disney Lorcana, and I think we've accomplished that in a lot of ways, though we're always trying to get better.
The reason those numbers matter to us is that it's one more way we can show our attention to detail. Nodding to things like 23 and 13 lets fans know we love these characters, too. That we're geeks about them just like they are. I grew up in Bakersfield, about three hours north of [Anaheim], so working on anything, even in the orbit of the tremendous legacy of Disney, is an honor and, honestly, still mind-blowing to me.
Alex: You also teased the debut of a digital version of Lorcana. I'm curious what opportunities you see there.
Ryan Miller: There are two that come to mind. There are folks who love playing Disney Lorcana, but for whatever reason their opportunities have gotten lower; maybe their lifestyle has changed. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old myself, and that changes how much time you have. Digital gives those players a way to still engage, still practice, still build decks.
The other aspect I'm really excited about is learning to play. There are lots of ways to learn, and that matters because everyone learns differently. Learning digitally is great because you can't break the rules. You learn them properly, and it's a great way to build your confidence and competence so you eventually feel ready to sit down at a table with somebody and play. That's where it's at, sitting down at a table. So I'm excited about both of those aspects.
Alex: Last question — your presence at D23 has grown with every event you've done, and this year you're using this fan event to feed directly into the Championship. What was the decision-making behind taking a Disney fan event and adding on a Lorcana competitive qualifier?
Ryan Miller: A couple of things went into that. Steven "Coop" Cooper runs our premiere play program. He's an amazing guy, and I'm glad to have him on my team now. My official title is Director of Product and Play, so I run the teams that come up with new products and the teams that build our events. Coop comes from esports and brings a lot of knowledge to the table. This was another example of that. He came to us and said, "Hey, can we do a CCQ here? Can we do a chance-invite event at D23?" And we thought, let's dream about this. I'm not sure D23 has ever done an event quite like this, with a tournament of this scale, so we thought it was really cool, and it's great for our players to have this center-stage moment.
The more we talked about it, the more we loved the idea. And with a booth that's four times larger than it was two years ago, I guess that means in twelve years we'll be roughly the size of Manhattan.
Alex: Or at least Walt Disney World’s 43 square miles.
Ryan Miller: We'll get there! But having that space, I think it's neat for Disney fans to walk by and see what's happening, to see the passion these players have. It started as, "What if we did this? Could we do this?" and we just kept going down that road, and it worked out. I've been over there throughout the day, and they're having a ball. We've got our casters doing live commentary on the games. It's really cool.
Alex: Congratulations on all the success, and I’m looking forward to the future of Disney Lorcana.
Ryan Miller: Thank you very much; always a pleasure.
Whether you’re a player or a collector or both, it’s an exciting time to be a Disney Lorcana fan. From new Collector Quests at Disney Parks around the world to upcoming sets like Hyperia City and Cosmit Quest, there’s so much to look forward to. And with a future that includes a digital way to play, it’ll be easier than ever for fans to play and interact with the world of Illumineers.