Supporter newsletter 75

Issue
This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #75, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hello Supporters,

This week has a lot of exciting announcements. It is a good week to keep an eye on the daily news.

Meanwhile, in the office, work is 100% focused on the new mini-expansion.

Designer Voices

The most recent Magic: The Gathering set had a series of cards made by external designers. It was interesting seeing how identifiable the voices of the designers was. James Earnest (Cheapass Games) had a humourous mechanic that fit his card, David Sirlin had a blind bidding/yomi element on his. You could see the design “voice” of the designer come through what they chose to make.

This gave me a bit to think about with our designs, and how you could see the approaches of the different designers come through. Just as much as I can usually work out which artist made a certain piece of art, I can usually guess from a game element which designer did the work. As well as a few dedicated game designers, many of our programmers and artists also do game design, so we have a lot of different voices coming through the content.

The upcoming mini-expansion has a lot of elements, and it’s interesting seeing how much flavour, richness and depth comes from having these different opinions coming together.

We also have some designers working on elements they haven’t had as much to do with.

Rory is doing most of the passive tree changes. It has turned into a big update. It is interesting to see Rory’s take on things. He also has to respond to feedback from Eric and myself, who did more of the previous passive tree work. The passive tree changes are interesting, and I like what has developed with having someone else adding their own voice to the work.

Nick has been working on unique items for the last few months, and has been specifically working on the uniques for the new challenge leagues. The six uniques are all interesting and fit the theme of the challenge leagues very well. It is a good mix of mechanics and flavour, and I look forward to seeing reactions to them.

The new mini-expansion has a lot of design work, and lot of design voices working together to make a rich and varied experience which I think will appeal to lots of different kinds of players.

Insider Info

This week I have some more concept art from the vaults:

http://i.imgur.com/xjt3DTG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WYGPxcy.jpg