[Dev Talk] Once Upon A Galaxy with Andrew Parnell

Sean and Alon are joined by Andrew Parnell from Million Dreams to talk about Once Upon A Galaxy, a new mobile card battler. Together, they zoom into space to discuss the game's design philosophies, lessons learned from earlier card games, and the path from accessible information to strategic depth.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Cold open

00:00:31 - Intro

00:06:37 - Talk start

00:06:53 - How would Andrew describe Once Upon A Galaxy?

00:09:18 - How much of the game's audience comes from a card background as opposed to a video game background?

00:12:24 - How does the team prioritize accessibility in the game?

00:18:45 - What's an autobattler and how did the team decide to make an autobattler?

00:21:10 - How does the team think about the player processing information during the battle phase?

00:29:32 - What is Andrew's role on the game?

00:30:45 - Game flow during the game (continued)

00:31:43 - Learning from players: "there isn't a visceral gut hit between the number 2 and the number 3”

00:33:57 - “Bad” cards

00:36:02 - The Deck / booster packs aren't lootboxes

00:40:57 - How does the team think about the importance of aesthetics in the game?

00:46:20 - Talking about asynchronous play

00:50:29 - Andrew’s path into games

00:54:18 - How does the team think about making a game watchable?

00:57:25 - "Can we be the best 'play again' game on your phone?" + talking mobile games

01:02:16 - What is the creative collaboration process at Million Dreams?

01:04:21 - “Is it fun?

01:07:14 - What's Smee? Who is Smee? (public domain characters)

01:10:53 - Wrapping up

Show notes:

• Download and play Once Upon a Galaxy for free: http://www.galaxy.fun/download
• Once Upon a Galaxy Discord: https://discord.gg/p7cuZQrmdX
• Andrew’s Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/parn3y
• Andrew’s Twitter: https://x.com/Parney_
• Mark Rosewater’s Drive To Work podcast – “Bad Cards”: https://youtu.be/gBvOcir_-kw