Using the Sorcerer’s App

Here is a guide to using the Sorcerer’s Apprentice app.

The three main functional areas of the app are

1. Collecting Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom (SotMK) cards
2. Trading SotMK cards with other players or collectors
3. Playing the SotMK game in the Magic Kingdom park

Collecting

All features related to collecting cards are accessed by tapping the Collect icon in the tab bar that is always visible across the bottom of the screen.

From the main Collect screen, you can access 4 features & functions

1. The Card Checklist
2. The Deck Manager
3. A screen to add cards to your decks (can also be done via Card Checklist)
4. A screen to move cards between your decks

The Card Checklist

As a card collector, this is your everything-at-a-glance checklist.   All of the cards available for the game are in the checklist, and you can see immediately which ones you own, which ones you still need, and which ones you have extras of to trade.

The Card Detail screen

When you tap on any card in the Card Checklist, it takes you to the Card Detail screen.   The information here in grouped together in several sections.

The top section repeats the information from the Card Checklist — the card number, card name, and rarity.

The next section (Decks) shows you information about instances of this card that you own.   If you don’t own the card the Decks section will be omitted.   There will be one line in the decks section for each deck you have that contains the card, and a count showing how many of the card are in that deck.    (Decks used for playing will typically hold at most one copy of a card, while decks used for trading could hold many).

The next section (Levels) shows you the strength of the card.  Using cards correctly in the game causes them to gain strength; stronger cards defeat the villains faster at harder difficulty levels.   Card levels are tied to the keycard you use to play the game; if you have played the game with more than one keycard then you may see multiple lines here indicating the card strength associated with each keycard.

The fourth section shows card attributes.   This is everything that you can find printed on the card — the Spell type, Attack type, Attack, Boost, and Shield values, and the rhyming couplet from the bottom of the card.

The final section gives a description of the 3 different animations that might be seen for the card, corresponding to the 3 different strength levels the card can attain.

The Deck Manager

The deck manager screen shows one entry for each Deck.    (A deck can be thought of as any collection of cards, whether they are physically organized in a deck, binder or something else).   The deck description info includes the name of the deck, its usage (Play, Trade, or both), the type of cards contained in the deck (Free, Booster, Beta, or mixed), and the number of cards in the deck.

If you want to change information about the decks (other than their content), tap the Edit button on the Deck Manager screen.   You will then see controls to add a new deck, delete an existing deck, or reorder the decks on the screen.    When the deck manager is in editing mode, you can tap the blue Detail Disclosure button on a deck to edit the name, usage, and card type for the deck.

When the deck manager is not in editing mode, tapping any row will take you to the content of that deck.  Deck content gives you a view of the Card Checklist that is filtered to contain only the cards that are members of the selected deck.    (When you drill down into the Card Detail view you will not see the decks section since we are viewing from the perspective of a single deck).    Cards can be removed from the deck, if they were entered incorrectly, by using a swipe-to-delete gesture on the unwanted row, or by tapping the Edit control to put the deck card list into editing mode and then tapping the delete control next to the card you wish to delete.    When in editing mode, tapping the detail disclosure button on a row takes you to a picker control where you can change the Card Type (Beta, Booster, Free, or Unknown)

The Add Cards function

The Add Cards function on the main Collect screen is an alternate way to add cards to your decks (the Card Checklist being the other way).   The Add Cards button takes you to a picker control where you can ‘dial in’ the digits from the Card Number.   Set the picker wheels to the desired value and confirm that the card name shown below matches the card you are entering.    When you tap the name, you are taken to a secondary screen where you can specify the card type and the deck to which the card should be added.    (The app will try to find the most logical place to add the card — if you don’t have the card in your Play deck, it will add it there; if you already have one, then it will add it to your trading deck.   If you have more than two decks, it will check them in the order they are shown in on the Deck Manager screen until it finds a fitting place.   But you can of course always override the app’s selected location by tapping the deck name and picking a different destination).

The Move Cards function

The Move Cards function allows you to transfer cards between decks.  You begin by selecting the ‘from’ and ‘to’ decks from picker controllers, and then select one or more cards you wish to move.   When you tap ‘Move Selected Cards’  (which is disabled until a selection has been made), the cards will be removed from the ‘From’ deck and added to the ‘To’ deck.

Trading Cards with Other Players

In Version 1.0 of the app, there is a Trading Manager that handles “Face to Face” trading. This is trading that only requires one person to have a copy of the app. A networked version of the trading manager that allows each user to use their own copy of the app to negotiate trades is under development for a future release.

To do Face-to-Face trading, you specify the deck you are trying to complete (typically a Playing deck) and the deck that you will trade cards from (typically a Trading deck). The trading manager. After selecting decks, you tap on ‘Cards to Offer’ to show the other person the cards which you have duplicates of — one of you can then tap the cards that the other player would like from your trading deck. When you are done making selections, you can use the back arrow to return to the trading manager screen. Then, tap on ‘Cards to Accept’. This will show a list of all the cards that are missing from your target (Playing) deck. See which ones the other player has to offer, and select the ones you wish to trade for.

After each player has made selections, you will be able to see all the offered and to-be-accepted cards. Chances are you did not have exactly equal numbers and rarities of cards to trade, so the trade may be unequal. You can delete cards from either the offer or accept list to bring things into balance. Once both players feel the trade is fair, tap Trade Selected cards.

After you tap the Trade button, all the cards you offered will immediately be removed from your trading deck; you should hand these cards over to the other trader. The cards you accepted will be shown on a list where you can adjust their destination or card type before accepting them into your deck[s]. The trading manager is then reset and ready for your next trade.

Playing the Game

When you have your cards entered, you can then use the Sorcerer’s Apprentice app to guide you throughout the game.   Select the ‘Play’ tab from the tab bar at the bottom of the screen to begin playing a game.

The app is designed such that you can join an in-progress game.   If you forget to update some steps, you can always set your current location, story, and chapter in the app to sync it back up with your current playing location.    While the app tries to guide you from step to step, you are always in control and can reset your the app to match your current game location at any time.

When you first enter the Play function, you’ll be on the Keycard screen.   Chances are you’ll never need to track more than one keycard — in that case, you simply tap the ‘My Keycard’ row and continue to the next screen.

But you might have multiple games in progress on multiple keycards — for example, you might be playing a solo game, but also have a game that you started with a friend that is on a different keycard.     If you have more than one active keycard, you can add additional keycards from the keycard screen, give them unique names, and then toggle between your in-progress games by coming back to the keycard screen and selecting a different keycard.

Once you’ve selected the keycard to play with, you will be at the Game Setup screen.   On this screen you set the initial state of your game.   The keycard you selected previously will be shown; select the deck you wish to play with and the game difficulty set by the cast member at Sorcerer Training.   The cast member will tell you what portal your game will begin at — so set the Land and Portal to that location.    Once you’ve entered all of these values, tap the “To the Portal” button to begin the game.

The ‘Keycard’ and ‘Game Setup’ screens are typically used only at the start of the game; but from this point forward, the screens you see will be visited repeatedly as you progress through each step of the game.

The Game Step screen describes exactly where you are in the game, which is described by the 4 attributes Land, Portal, Story, and Chapter.    The Land and Portal values will be initially set based on the Game Setup choices you made — but as you revisit this screen throughout the game you’ll be updating it to show your current location.

Story and Chapter describe the encounter you are currently playing against either a villain or one of the villain’s henchmen.   The villains are distributed throughout the various lands — so when you set the Land, that controls what selection of Villains will be available.

When you set the Story, the app will set the Chapter to the first chapter within that story (which varies depending on game difficulty).    If you’re joining a game in progress or find the app has set your chapter incorrectly, you can reset it.   There are also some chapters than do not appear every time … so when you find the game has skipped a chapter, you can adjust the app to reflect your current location.

The app will try as much as possible to anticipate the story and chapter you’re likely to see (and as you complete more of the game, the prediction accuracy will improve since there are fewer villains left that you might face).    But you can’t be sure of the choice until you’re at the portal and the video begins to play — so you may find you need to adjust the app at that point.    Once you are confident you’ve seen enough video to confirm the choices, tap “Cast your Spell” to proceed to the next screen.

When you tap “Cast your spell”, there are actually 4 different next screens you may see.

• If you are playing on Easy level and it is the initial chapter, you’ll see a screen indicating you just need to watch the video, and no action will be required.
• Certain chapters require you to show the Sorcerer’s Crest; if the current chapter is one of those, you’ll be prompted to do so.
• If you have finished the game, you’ll see a screen where you can indicate what level of medal you achieved in the game.
• But most of the time, you’ll see the Spell Casting screen, which is where you select the cards you will play against the villain or henchman.

Spell Casting

Each villain and henchman has a particular attack type against which they are particularly vulnerable.   The Cast spells screen will show you all the cards of that type in the deck you’re playing with.    Select the number of cards you want to cast, then scroll down and click the cast spells button.

There are a few other things on this screen worth noting.   You may choose to play cards of a different type than the app recommends — if so, click the ‘Let me pick other cards’ button and you will see the entire content of your deck, organized by attack type.   You can then pick cards from that screen and return to the Cast Spells screen to cast the selected cards.

There is also  switch you can turn on if you are wearing the Master Sorcerer T-Shirt.  This shirt is recognized by the portals and causes all your spells to be cast as if the cards were fully leveled up (Level 3).   Since this may affect card selection, it’s a good idea to turn this on if you’re wearing the shirt.   (Your selection will be remembered so you will only have to do this once).

Once you have cast a spell, you’ll be prompted for the outcome.   Sometimes the outcome is conclusive — you defeat the villain, or weaken the villain and are told to continue the battle at another portal.   But sometimes the battle goes several rounds, and you need to pick cards again for the next battle.   The Outcome screen allows you to indicate the path your battle has taken:

If you indicate there is another round of battle, you return to the Cast Spells screen to pick another set of cards to play.    If you indicate that you are continuing to the next portal, you’re asked whether the villain was defeated or weakened or unaffected.

Card Leveling

Because the battle may have caused your cards to become stronger (or weaker if they were a type the villain is strong against), we ask what animation was seen for each card — this allows us to note the current level of each card.    Especially when playing multiple cards and going multiple rounds of battle, it may be impossible to see and remember all of the animations accurately — don’t stress about it!   Over time as you play the cards repeatedly, you’ll have many opportunities to see and record the animations, and eventually you’ll get better at recognizing them, and the accuracy of the card leveling information in the app will improve.    Don’t let getting information into the app become more important than enjoying the game … make note of what you remember and skip the rest (using the bottom button, didn’t see / couldn’t tell / don’t remember.

After the card leveling questions have been asked for each card you played, you’ll see the Encounter summary.    Clicking ‘Begin New Chapter’ takes you back to the Game Step screen to set your new Portal location and begin the next encounter.

If you have defeated a villain, you’ll see buttons to allow you to share your accomplishment via Facebook or Twitter.

If the villain you defeated was the final chapter of a story, you’ll be told how many of the 9 story lines you have completed.

Continue with additional game steps until you’ve won the game.

The Portal Finder

The Portal Finder is a series of maps (actually one map that scrolls and resizes to four different locations) that shows the location of each of the Portals used to play SotMK.

To use the Portal Finder, tap the land you wish to visit in the segmented control at the bottom of the map. You should see pins representing the locations of the 5 portals in the selected land. If you have started a game, there may be a red pin indicating the portal you are going to play at next; all other portals will be indicated by a purple pin.

Portal finder showing Main Street USA

If you tap a pin, a callout will appear near the pin. The callout shows you the portal symbol, name, and a brief description of its location. If you are having trouble locating the portal, tapping the blue detail disclosure button on the callout will show you a photo of the portal. (In some cases, there are multiple photos that will be shown in sequence.) Portal photos were added in Version 2.0 so if you are still using 1.1 you won’t see the disclosure button or photos.

Portals screen showing Frontierland and callout

The current user location will be shown as a pulsing blue dot; this will show your location relative to the portal. You can use pinch, expand, and swipe gestures to resize and scroll the map as needed.