By Adam Smith on October 21st, 2011 at 9:37 am.
Here’s the first part of a documentary following the making of Mojang’s new game Scrolls. It’s a shame that, as with most of the discussion elsewhere, so much of this concerns the name rather than the game, but it’s still worth a watch if only to see the legal issue being discussed by the lead designer. Especially because he’s looking rather dapper while discussing it, with a bottle of Staropramen his only prop, suggesting that this is a man who has better things to do and better places to be than a courtroom. Do we actually learn anything about the game? Not really, beyond the fact that there will be ‘dust puff’ animations, among others. You can see the puffing of dust for yourself, below.
Watching this makes me realise that the ‘white noise’ of the issues around the title has distracted me quite severely from the fact that there is a game at the bottom of it all. And it’s the kind of game I’m usually interested in, with turn-based tactical battles and decks of cards. Hopefully, future videos will talk about that rather than being semi-composed of the soft fuzz of static.
21/10/2011 at 09:52 BurningPet says:
I find the game itself much less exciting than all that drama. iam looking forward for that court rule, i dont give a rats ass about the release of the title.
And how dare anyone accuse mojang of stealing names?! mineCraft is such an original title that set fourth a genre of titles all by itself!
21/10/2011 at 13:32 voidburn says:
/signed
Yo burning bro’
21/10/2011 at 18:41 dontnormally says:
There was so little in this video about the game itself.
Card Hunter has an excellent dev diary.
Jus’ sayin’.
21/10/2011 at 09:53 Brumisator says:
‘”there’s so much that can fit in a computer game…so we are making a card game on computers”
21/10/2011 at 09:55 Chandos says:
Funny thing is, I never think of the actual name “Elder Scrolls” when I think of the games in the series. I mean, they are always like Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion to me.
21/10/2011 at 11:36 MadMatty says:
Me neither. Some corporate types are definetly on crack.
21/10/2011 at 12:33 Unaco says:
I call them The Elder Scrolls all the time, when referring to the series, rather than individual games.
21/10/2011 at 14:45 Chickenfeed says:
I refer to the games the same as you: Oblivion, Morrowind, etc. etc.
However, if I’m talking about the whole series, say: Have you seen the new Elder Scrolls game? I actually call it Scrolls, although theres no confusion, because I’m not a simpleton.
21/10/2011 at 15:48 TheGameSquid says:
I also call it ‘The Elder Scrolls’ constantly.
Now can we stop bringing this up in every Bethesda/Mojang thread?
21/10/2011 at 10:03 skinlo says:
I don’t actually care about the game itself.
I personally predict Minecraft to be a one hit wonder.
21/10/2011 at 10:14 Hanban says:
I don’t know. After seeing the combat on the grid map I’m a bit more excited about it.
21/10/2011 at 10:40 Sheng-ji says:
Whether you like the game or not, there are a lot of Magic the Gathering players who have no proper interpretation of the game on PC yet and if this hit’s the spot could really appeal to that market
21/10/2011 at 11:05 KikiJiki says:
@Sheng-ji
Magic: The Gathering Online not ring any bells?
It’s only been around for 9 years, so understandable that you missed it.
21/10/2011 at 11:29 MadMatty says:
Theres a ton of online card games, im partial to Richard Garfields own magic clone, Spectromancer, which does away with the card buying (thank lord!) but also does away with the deck construction.
Im so very tired of clones- its typical that these vell-versed technical types have about 0 originality unfortunately.
Had one look at the screenshot, and it was, meh, magic the gathering once more.
21/10/2011 at 11:34 Chris D says:
@MadMatty
You seem to be using Magic The Gathering clone in the sense of “Any game with cards in it.”
Mechanically they’re entirely different games.
Edit: Bollocks, misread your post. Thought you were saying Spectromancer was a magic clone, sorry about that. Not entirely sure I’m going to let you off with Summoner Wars downthread though.
21/10/2011 at 14:50 Sheng-ji says:
@kikijiki Yup, been playing it since invasion. No Player Run Events = Not A good interpretation of the Card game – just my opinion, but valid for me.
21/10/2011 at 10:04 felisc says:
Notch sure chose a nice setting for his wedding
21/10/2011 at 10:48 ChainsawCharlie says:
Sure thing, but what’s the deal with the hat? Who get’s married wearing a hat?
21/10/2011 at 12:34 LTK says:
Notch. Evidently.
21/10/2011 at 10:14 kael13 says:
That man is wearing a red gingham shirt. I want to eat a picnic off it.
21/10/2011 at 10:16 delusionsofnoir says:
This game sounds an awful lot like the board/card game Summoner Wars to me.
21/10/2011 at 11:29 MadMatty says:
Summoner Wars is a Magic the Gathering clone.
21/10/2011 at 10:23 Maldomel says:
That video was a bit boring cause you don’t learn much about Scrolls…but still it’s nice to see more stuff about Mojang itself rather than Minecraft or Notch.
21/10/2011 at 10:36 JackDandy says:
The games doesn’t sound interesting at all. I dislike TCG.
21/10/2011 at 10:38 Sheng-ji says:
I’m really looking forward to the game and hoping it’s not going to be too expensive to be able to put together some good decks (Assuming it’s going to be like Magic) but why on earth did they censor the face of one of the guys in that video…. surely it would have been much better not to have him included at all. Rather strange!
21/10/2011 at 10:40 Radiant says:
It would have ruined his japanese porn career.
21/10/2011 at 11:20 sneetch says:
They didn’t censor his face, he has Blurred Face Syndrome: it’s the blurry killer.
21/10/2011 at 11:24 Adam Smith says:
It’s a variant of a previously known condition.
21/10/2011 at 10:48 HexDSL says:
i like mojang as a company, i like how they do things, i wish them the best of luck and will buy scrolls (or whatever its will be called) but im not convinced that it will be any good
21/10/2011 at 11:02 JackDandy says:
Wait, why would you buy it then?
21/10/2011 at 11:13 Jumwa says:
Because the Notch-koolaid was just so tasty?
21/10/2011 at 10:55 Khann says:
“All trolls next to Abuser is healed by 1 at the beginning of owners turn”
Isn’t that grammatically incorrect? Shouldn’t that “is” be an “are”?
21/10/2011 at 11:25 sneetch says:
Is you sure?
21/10/2011 at 11:27 Dawngreeter says:
You also need an apostrophe on “owners”.
About that statement, though, I’m glad the game simulates reality well. The artwork got me confused about it being fantasy, but I’m delighted it’s really about Internet forums.
21/10/2011 at 11:14 aerozol says:
I dunno, Card Hunter looks way ahead of this, and I can’t imagine getting super involved in more than one CCG around one time.
Also I don’t give a shit about the court case, and it annoys me that Mojang thinks I should, and that I want to waste my time hearing about it, and that this would make me give the poor lil’ fellas money. Instead of actually showing me the game/ mechanics, no less!
21/10/2011 at 11:29 Dawngreeter says:
I have no idea why you think I need to know about all of this when you should be saying something else that I will enjoy more.
21/10/2011 at 23:05 aerozol says:
No offense, but that’s a stupid retort.
Comments are for giving opinions and responses, and that was mine on that video.
21/10/2011 at 11:38 Drake Sigar says:
I had zero interest in this game before glimpsing a few shots of it in the video.
21/10/2011 at 14:09 evenflowjimbo says:
I feel like the dress code there is “Hipster Dofus Only!”
21/10/2011 at 14:18 jnyms says:
2 Player Productions need to learn how to expose shots properly, that was brutal!
21/10/2011 at 14:21 Unaco says:
Meh.
Morrowind was a great game. But the last one was a real disappointment. I’m absolutely positive that this will be even worse… dumbed down, diluted, consolified, badly ported, pretty to look at with no real substance, and horrendously insulting to my mother. I bet I won’t even be able to talk to any Dragons, tell them about my niece, discuss the merits of Robert Fitzgerald’s translations of Homer, and why I don’t really mind bi-weekly refuse collections. I’m sure a game that allowed that was made… but it was, like, 40 years ago, and it was turn based, and all the numbers in it were hexadecimal or something.
21/10/2011 at 15:13 Khann says:
ISWYDT.
21/10/2011 at 22:50 Veracity says:
I’m sure I’ve played something that displayed stats in hex, presumably to save space. Now I’m going to be wondering what for at least several minutes, damn you. The first Front Mission, maybe?
21/10/2011 at 17:12 daraujo says:
If it wasn’t for the Dwarven Charger in the middle I would guess Mojang was aiming for the porn fantasy niche.
Jokes aside, the character names sure have a Jerry Holkins look.
22/10/2011 at 00:42 mmorpg games says:
Sorry but they trademarked “Scrolls” i wait for nothing. Whats next “Food” , “Beer”, “Paper”?
And they were talking about Bethesda. Maybe Notch should finish and polish Minecraft first, but hey 30mil euros who cares. Indie my ass
22/10/2011 at 00:47 LimeWarrior says:
I love watching what people do with minecraft, but never got into playing the game myself. However, as soon as I saw stuff about Scrolls, I got excited. This is the kind of thing I want to play.