View source for Make use of piggybacking

This lesson is a continuation of the previous. In a few words, take advantage of knowledge that already exists about a theme. The example here is the game "Plans vs. Zombies". George Fan, who made the game, explains that plants and zombies were chosen for a particular reason. The towers in a game of this type don't move, plants convey this idea of fixed towers perfectly. The zombies were chosen because the convey the idea of hordes that walk slowly and attack in large numbers. In the end, plants and zombies were chosen for their pedagogic value. Everyone understands that zombies attack in hordes, walk slow and that plants cannot walk.

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How did that happen in Magic? The example is the card ''"Akroan Horse"''. It's an artifact creature that enters the game under an opponent's control. In each of the opponent's turn it creates soldiers against him. In other words, the player that cast the horse gains soldiers for free. That card is part of a greek mytology inspired set, "Theros". Most people should know the myth of the trojan horse. The card is well made. The theme, type, ability, all resonates with the myth. In the middle of the card creation process somebody had the idea of changing it from a horse to a lion. What happened during playtest? The players lost the reference to the myth and couldn't grasp the idea of a lion creating soldiers. This proves that cultural references cannot be ignored, specially very strong ones.


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The following example is controversial. In the universe of Star Wars there are the famous AT-ST. They are war machines with legs. A lot of people criticize their design because in a world where it's possible to build starships with the size of cities and even planets, why build a war machine with legs? Why not wheels or just fly like other things in that universe do? Even real life tanks have wheels.

For a moment think about it in the opposite direction. Think about something that resonates with Star Wars. If a game brings a war machine with legs and powerful cannons, most people are going to remember the AT-ST from Star Wars. It may sound bizarre but the Star Wars universe was able to create new cultural references that, from a realistic engineering standpoint, would have been disastrous in the real world otherwise.


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This scene from Alan Wake for instance. It references to the movie "The shinning", from 1980, Stanley Kubric, one of the most famous terror movies in the world.

= References =
* https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/resonate-spinning-2019-03-18