Publishing Case Study: York

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Creative nerds everywhere want to be entrepreneurs. Thanks to Kickstarter, the Internet, and money growing on trees, it’s now relatively possible for these nerds to become entrepreneurs.

I am not a publisher, but I want to be. Badly. Yes, I self-published Farmageddon and yes I’m self-publishing Battle for York. The distinction I wish to make is that I did these as a creative exercise. I did these for myself. I believe a publisher creates games for the purpose of revenues and profits. A publisher does it to be a business. I did it for funsies. Now, that doesn’t mean a publisher doesn’t have fun and doesn’t love games, but to be successful, my games need to make money and I’m not quite there yet.

This article is intended as a case study to stir discussion and aid those interested in game publishing. I receive quite a few emails with questions about publishing and I do my best to answer them with what (little) I know. I’ve been taking notes for years and watching. This article will discuss the development I did to publish Battle for York, what I would have done differently if this were a real, profit-focused print run, and the marketing ideas I have for the game. In summary, you’re going to read about what I did, what I would have done, and some of my goofs.

Development: The Actual

Overall I’m quite pleased with the development of Battle for York. Some of my friends have told me that they tested their game a few times, a publisher signed it, then they were hands off for the next year’s worth of development. Well, I did that development. York was thoroughly tested over the course of a year with friends and co-workers, non-gamers, gamer gamers, random folks at GenCon 2012, folks at Protospiel Milwaukee, and a few folks in the Prototype Penpal Program.

Testing overall went through 3 main phases: mechanical, balance, and usability. The first phase focused primarily on making the game work. Getting it to an Alpha state. The second phase focused on making sure the game was fun and fair. Also, to ensure it’s fun to play 1, 5, 10, and 20 times (it is!). This phase is about getting it to a Beta state. The final phase was about making sure the game was as easy as possible to learn and play. It was about ensuring the reference boards and cards presented the information as well as possible. I haven’t done this for a game before and I found it insanely useful.

All told, the game has over 70 tests with dozens of people. It was tested extensively with 4 peers for the sake of deep, long-term balance testing. The rules have also been read, tweaked, and massaged for the entirety of this year. I write my rules at the beginning of the project for precisely this reason. I am reasonably confident my rules are good.

Development: The Potential

If this game had more of a development budget I would have done a few things differently. As it stands now, I had one local long-term test group and one blind long-term test group. I would have sent out copies to at least 2 more groups for long-term blind testing. This would have been invaluable for balance and accessibility. Plus, more word of mouth marketing.

I also would have tried to work out a testing moment with a prominent reviewer. Now, this might not have occurred — reviewers are busy and reluctant to do these things. I would have been willing to pay them for their services, services being 2-5 tests. I would do this in the hopes of getting a private, mock review. I would want to make sure it would go over well in the review circuit. Now, I cannot guarantee every reviewer would agree with the mock review, but testing with 1 or 2 is a good sample size. Hint: We do this all the time in the digital game space. It’s very useful.

Another change is that I would have begun stalking local FLGS to attempt to get some local word of mouth built. There are a few good stores near me: Gamescape in SF, End Game in Oakland, and Black Diamond Games in Concord. However, doing this takes time, gas money, and the stores need to be cool with me testing/shilling my game on their premises. This isn’t just a show up and rock it affair, so it would need some effort.

Finally, I would have hired a dedicated editor to examine my rules. I would not change the number of peers who examined them. Their service has been amazing and again, the rules are good. But, paying someone who is on the line to make it awesome is a good thing to do. This maxim is so true: you get what you pay for.

If you’re curious about the design side of Battle for York, ask questions, or check out this lengthy post I wrote on its origins and development.

Art: The Actual

I’m very pleased with the final art for Battle for York. The cards were illustrated by one of my favorite artists, John Ariosa. The work he created was amazing, working with him was fantastic, and overall I’m just thrilled. Here are some of his pieces:

I wrote about working with artists earlier, but I’ll rehash some of the info. I spent a year thinking about the art for York and built not one, but two Pinterest boards for it: Theme 1 and Theme 2. I had a clear vision and that really helped things.

I also greatly scoped down the required assets to fit within my tiny budget and John’s time frame. Ultimately, I hired him to create 5 images, each done in 4 colors. I asked for characters with simple backgrounds, which also kept things within scope.

I also hired Robert Altbauer from the Cartographer’s Guild to illustrate a map for me. I discussed the project with 3 artists, but ultimately settled on Robert because of his style and experience, his demeanor, and his very reasonable quote. I had him create 2 maps: 3 player and a 2-4 player. These were based on drawings I created for the prototype — the layout was refined and complete. He made it pretty and created icons for it, including the Cities, Seaports, Forts, and Headquarters. You can see one of his maps with the board elements here:

I handled the graphic design duties for the project, which included icon sourcing and layout. For icons, I used Game-Icons.net and modified them as needed, usually just by simplifying the icon or modifying it to fit the aesthetics of the rest of the game. These icons are consistently created and provided free within the creative commons license, so I used them.

Because I was obtaining the icons and because my graphic skills are limited, the overall look and feel of the game is simple, clean, and modern. Here’s a card to demonstrate this point:

You can see one of every card on Facebook here. This style was shared throughout the game’s assets, including the game board, the rules booklet, the stickers, and the player boards.

All designers do some form of graphic design for their prototypes. This project has been very instructive to me both in how to do layouts and execute tricks in Photoshop. Experienced graphics folks will giggle at what I produced, but I did my best and I learned a great deal. I created dozens of iterations for the player boards, refined the rules dozens of times, and even experimented with the relatively simple board.

Never undervalue the importance of properly communicating elements to your players.

Art: The Goofs

I did two stupid things. One is something most publishers do, for better or worse, the other is just a goof of mine. Firstly, my game isn’t the most colorblind friendly. In testing I used colors that did not share a colorblindness spectrum, but for the final game I opted for color. The four player colors are yellow, blue (oops) and green, red (double oops). Were this a fully published game, I would probably do something more along the lines of green, yellow, black, and white. Maybe. I’m not sure and right now it’s not something I’ll change.

Fortunately, the cards and game boards are very color blind friendly in regards to the information presented. But, the game pieces are less so if you’re colorblind.

The second goof also has to do with color. I’ve always used red to indicate “offensive tactics” and blue to indicate “defensive tactics.” These items also have symbols, but the colors really drive it home. My prototype did not feature red. The final game does. Now, there are red and blue player colors AND I use these colors for offensive and defensive tactics. Doh! It’s not the end of the world, but it is lame and it’s something I’d address in a real version.

Art: The Potential

The game’s assets are ultimately not very consistent. I knew this going in, so this is less a learning for me and mostly something to do differently if this were a real publication effort. The key differences is that I would have added additional process and layers to it as well as hired a graphic designer.

I also would have hired the illustrator to craft more art. Instead of 5 cards with 4 colors each, I would have made the cards color agnostic and created a unique set of 5 cards for every faction. This would have quadrupled my costs, but also made the game more varied and exciting visually.

When creating the art, I hired the illustrator (John) and map artist (Robert) simultaneously. The cards have a very painterly style and the map looks like, well, a map. In a full printing, I would have hired the illustrator first. After he (or she) created a handful of assets, I would have then sought a map artist who could work within that style and remain consistent. Another option would be to have a graphic designer create a wireframe then simply have the artist do an aesthetic pass to make it look gorgeous and consistent.

I would have also hired a graphic designer to create icons, improve my layouts, and do an aesthetic pass on all UI. When I say improve my layouts, I say that because I would still create everything. I would mail the graphic designer a copy of the game with all my assets, have him (or her) learn to play it, then with his expertise, improve upon it. From there, he would make it beautiful. As the designer, I expect myself to know what my player’s need best. I expect the designer to know slightly more than me. Ish.

The mapmaker wouldn’t begin the map until he received an improved wireframe from the graphic designer. I sent the mapmaker a layout, but it wasn’t the final one. Granted, not much changed, but still, these things matter.

I would also retain the artist to do an aesthetic pass on the icons created/sourced by the graphic designer. If you look at what York actually has, it’s painterly and somewhat fuzzy illustrations (intentional) with clean, sharp icons. These would be merged and made consistent.

Stylistically, I would also direct my team to create something that fit the fiction better. Currently, the game is set in the 19th century with some decidedly 21st century styled lines. Clean clean clean. I’d like to see a parchment vibe, something that makes me think of the time period. Island Siege by Ape Games and graphic design by Daniel Solis did this well. Here is their player mat:

In my mind, these are fairly obvious decisions based largely on time and money. Could York look better? Sure! But, the cost to do so isn’t worth the money I will make for it. To summarize my notes here:

Hire a graphic designer
Leapfrog between artists in order to maintain consistency
Create a more appropriate aesthetic to match the theme

Marketing: The Actual

I didn’t do a very good job marketing Battle for York. Much of this have to do with me thinking to myself, “it doesn’t matter much.” I like to develop my games openly and as a result folks may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information I share. At work, PR always guides us to have 2 or 3 points and stick to them. Market those 2-3 things precisely and repeatedly. With York, I posted about development (balance, UI, testing, mechanics, etc.) and shared everything as it became available. I should have shared things more sparingly.

If you notice with Blockade, I’m mostly teasing it via Twitter. I’ll write fewer posts and they’ll matter more. Of course, if you EVER want to know anything about my projects, email me. I’m an open book.

Another example is that when John was sending me assets one at a time, I simply shared them on Twitter. I believe there is a more effective and potent way to wield these beautiful surprises. In a proper campaign, I would have merged my Faction Previews with the art reveals. I also would have crafted a more elaborate fiction and story for each. There would have also been a video format. Just imagine how fun this would be!

The intent, would be to build hype and excitement for the theme and mechanics of York bolstered by gorgeous visuals and a well-crafted fiction.

I asked people, somewhat, for thumbs on BGG, but I don’t like spamming folks for what is ultimately an exercise in pageantry, and as a result I don’t have many thumbs. You have to ask for things!

Once I receive my copy of York, I’ll do a video unboxing to show the components and create a video tutorial to explain the game. I’ll also be sending a copy to a few reviewers. Finally, I’ll have it with me at GenCon to share and demo.

Marketing and Kickstarter: The Potential

I actually detailed some of the things I’d do differently above. So much for that format! The truth is, York is too big of a game for me to self-finance and I would have to run a Kickstarter campaign for it. Let’s discuss the Kickstarter I would have run. Before we get into Kickstarter…please don’t freak out. These are just my opinions. There is no right way. There is no single way. This is simply what I think would be my way based on my own experience with Farmageddon and a lot of observation.

Obviously, before the game launched, a handful of reviewers would have a nice prototype of the game in order to review and share. It blows my mind that some people still launch a game on Kickstarter without critical reviews to vouch for the game. This is a no no.

Before I launched on Kickstarter, all art assets would be final, all graphic design finished, and all rules final. I personally don’t like the “NOT FINAL” caveat. I’d self-finance this and say “boom, here’s the game. THIS is what you’ll receive.” It’s a personal choice and ultimately, everyone should do what they feel is best. This also helps you stick to your manufacturing schedule. Many KS projects still have to finish the game after KS.

I would share a PNP and also share a small number of copies with common BGG users to comment and discuss. This was very powerful for Farmageddon’s campaign and I feel sharing a PNP shows confidence. I would also take a note from Stonemaier Games and provide a money back guarantee. Now, before I did this, as mentioned at the very top, the game would be tested even more to fully relax me when giving this guarantee.

Stretch Goals are probably the thing I like least about the current Kickstarter ecosystem and it would definitely be a problem for me with York. I don’t like many of the extras for a few reasons:

The extras packed in can really increase the MSRP, which can hurt long-term sales.
I want to present and create the game as it’s meant to be. No more, no less.
They make publishing, an already difficult thing, a bit more wild and unpredictable.

Nevertheless, here are the stretch goals I had in mind for a Battle for York campaign:

Additional factions: York features four asymmetric factions. Manufacturing more is really just a matter of a player board and 25 cards, plus the art. I would design and test 2 more before the campaign so that adding them wouldn’t be a big deal.
Stories: I hired a writer to create two short stories for the current game. In hindsight, these would be awesome stretch goals. Craft stories for every faction that go beyond the “short story” limit.
Promo Cards: I created some of these for the current version (Tactician, Saboteur) and really like how they change up and in some ways, break the game. I think good promos are fun and I’d probably do a few of them for a KS campaign.
Custom Tokens: The game would largely use punchboard tokens to keep the game at a lower MSRP. However, for scoring and turn order tokens, I could have neat custom meeples created. Note: The current game uses all wooden components, so in that sense, it’s arguably nicer than the “real” version. This is probably the least likely goal I’d pursue.
Bag: To cut down on MSRP I’d remove the bag from the base set. But, as a stretch goal for backers, I could include the bag. Note: There’s a bag with the current version.
New Maps: The current maps are balanced and designed for straightforward gameplay and symmetry. I’d love to create weirder maps that shift the gameplay, add new mechanics, and really vary things. Adding new maps is simply a matter of adding more boards. Oh, wait…those are super expensive! Still, something I could “add” much like Days of Wonder did with the Memoir ’44 Winter/Desert board.

All of these would be estimated and quoted before the launch of the campaign. If my goals were hit, I’d simply reveal the next stretch goals. They would fit within my budget and I would not lose money. As a side note, I really like how Mercury Games Kickstarted The Guns of Gettysburg. They had a very upfront, honest policy regarding Stretch Goals.

My funding goal would probably be around the $10k-20k mark. I know that’s a big gap. The minimum number of copies is typically 1000 and 1500 (depending on the manufacturer), but I’d prefer to print at least 2000 as that’s where you begin to see price breaks. Margins improve here, but your investment greatly increases.

Ultimately, the number I decided would be based on the amount of money I’d be willing to put towards it.This was one of the reasons I didn’t KS York — It’s more of a niche game and I’m not sure it’s the one to put $10,000+ of my savings towards. I hope to design and publish that game (or sign someone else who does), but I’m not sure York is it.

I prefer Kickstarter projects with a few, simple backer levels. Typically:

Get the game for the US
Get the game for Canada/Europe
Get the game for somewhere else

Foreign backers would probably need to buy multiple copies to make it cost effective, but I haven’t gone deep enough into that to say for sure. My Kickstarter page would be simple with the following information:

KS video would largely be a 2 minute pitch. “This is why you should back.”
Page would detail components at a high level, link to reviews, share some of the art (cards, game board).
Page would give a quick glimpse into the world’s fiction.
Page would have a gameplay video. “This is how you play.”

The campaign would last for 30 or fewer days. I would be highly responsive and transparent for any questions ask (see the Farmageddon campaign for proof!). I sent several RFQs and settled on a manufacturer who would create a high quality game, was nice and reliable (from personal referrals), and could help me make the game at a $40 MSRP. I just didn’t pull the trigger.

Fulfillment and Post-KS Sales: The Potential

Fulfillment is a tricky subject. There are so many options and ways to do it. I know a few that I would NOT use. As for what I would use, I’m currently leaning towards doing it myself (if sales were low) or using Amazon fulfillment. Amazon could also help with shipping to European backers, again, if sales warranted such a thing.

In the short run I would rely heavily on Amazon’s storefront. Doing so gives me a place to store the games, a nice, safe, outstanding web store, and lets existing Amazon customers use their logins, their credit card info, and Prime status to get free shipping. Basically, I wouldn’t invest in my own Hyperbole Games storefront until sales warranted such a thing.

I would immediately begin the slow, challenging process of getting into the traditional distribution channels. There are a lot of great distributors and it would take time to build a great relationship with them. I would need to attend trade shows like GAMA and GenCon with some presence in order to do so. It is so key to be in FLGS to reach a mass audience. Once in an FLGS, my hope is that superior art and a very reasonable price would warrant a look from potential customers. Those two elements are so very key.

I would send the game to additional reviewers, especially ones with a large presence like The Dice Tower and some of the popular war game reviewers, like Marco Arnaudo. I would absolutely save some of these for after the KS campaign.

I would also begin creating expansions. I’m a huge proponent of the expansion driven business model. I love it as a consumer, a designer, and a publisher. As a consumer, it gives me more of a thing I love, but also, it’s my choice to do so. As a designer, I get to create content atop a foundation. Content is so much easier than mechanics! You also get to dream up and create less typical elements. With the base game, you want to cover your bases and hit as many people as possible. With an expansion? Go nuts. Finally, as a publisher you are able to drive additional revenue off the same IP. You can leverage existing art assets and branding. It’s also less risky to create a smaller expansion than yet another full game. Many of the most successful publishers utilize the stuffing out of this business model, including:

Days of Wonder: Ticket to Ride, Memoir ’44, Smallworld
Steve Jackson Games: Munchkin
Plaid Hat Games: Summoner Wars and hopefully Mice and Mystics
Mayfair: The Settles of Catan
Fantasy Flight Games: Almost everything they make. Lately, Netrunner, X-Wing, and older titles like Arkham Horror.

Over time, the hope would be to build a small, core audience who continues to support the game’s expansions. In turn, I would support them with scenarios, PNP components, and the obvious rules support. Byron Collins of Collins Epic Wargames does a great job of supporting his community. So does Plaid Hat Games. I would like to emulate this. This core of consumers would hopefully grow via word of mouth and eventually I’d be a millionaire. Or, I’d simply reprint and improve the game.

Ha.

Conclusion

This post is absurdly long! I apologize. This post covered:

Development: Actual versus Potential
Art Development: Actual versus Potential
Marketing: Actual
Marketing and Kickstarter: Potential
Post KS Sales: Very hypothetical potential

This post was fun for me to write and share, but most importantly, I want it to be useful and interesting for you. Were you looking for specific information not covered? Did I gloss over something? Please feel free to comment below. Or, email me your question at grant[at]hyperbolegames[dot]com.

Thanks for reading. I sent Battle for York to the printer last night and I am so very excited to hold it in my hands.

Inspirations of Late

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

I’ve been inspired by a few standout games lately. It’s a bit shocking to me when I read interviews with super famous designers who note they are too busy testing their own games to play games from others. I love playing other games to learn about new mechanics, see clever component tricks, and even just find ways to diversify my personal designs.

I find my tastes are changing quite a bit. In the past I was far more mechanically focused. Lately, I find myself far more focused on some fuzzy aspects and holistic product design. Things like the experience, the components, and the vibe I want to convey.

There are a few constants I have always sought in all of my designs:

Hour or less play time.
Low complexity. I fail here often, but I try. It’s something I pursue constantly.
Interesting card play. So far, this has meant dual-use cards for me.

Here are the things I’m challenging myself to think about more and more as my tastes shift.

Story! By this, I mean compelling characters, a fiction and developed universe/world, and persistence. For example, can my choices in one scenario affect another? Note: I want to be careful to say I’m trying to make games more thematic. I feel that adjective is tossed around a bit erroneously. I’d like to tell stories.
Dice! I’ve dabbled with dice in a few designs (Frontier Scoundrels, Poor Abby Farnsworth), but they’ve never been front and center. I want to grow creatively and change that. Dice allow for uncertainty and calculated risk. They allow for EPIC moments. They are also a great way to make your game more accessible, something I’ve learned from Dawn Sector, where the majority of the outcomes in the game are certain (and therefore nerve-wracking for new players). That being said, LOTS of randomness doesn’t necessarily excite me. I like to find ways to use it in a compelling fashion.
Miniatures! Or, perhaps more accurately (and vaguely), neat components. In my personal play habits I find I’m way more inclined to get a game with neat pieces instead of, say, cube fest. More and more I’m a “eurotrash” guy — I want elegance and strategy in the design with fun presentation. Many scoff at miniatures for being that component that nets millions on Kickstarter. But for me, personally, and for many of my friends, they make things more exciting.

Krosmaster Arena: Visually stimulating!

Bora Bora: Not visually stimulating!

Toy-like! This is somewhat related to the miniatures property above, but is more abstract and difficult to precisely describe. Sometimes a great game shares more in common with a favorite child hood toy in that it ignites your imagination. You find yourself making sound effects and “moving” the pieces like a total kid. Toy-like also means it’s delightful to hold and feel. It’s something a video game can’t do.

A few games have really stood out to me lately to inform these new design desires.

X-Wing Miniatures Game: A poster child for awesome components and quality design. Super toy-like as well! The game is filled with constant, simple choices and is visceral. You move pieces, roll clunky dice. It looks and feels great.

Risk Legacy: A story you and your friends write every game. The stickers are also incredibly fun. The take on this has been 50/50 from my friends, but it really hit home for me.

Mice and Mystics: Story, persistence, presentation, and dice, oh my. Honestly, Plaid Hat Games is a poster child for beautiful games that have crazy pieces and relatively smooth gameplay. Mice and Mystics is just a goofy toy chest.

Rory’s Story Cubes and The Extraordinaires Design Studio: These creations from Rory O’Connor and Anita Murphy are just awesome. The simply look delightful, are fun to hold, and immediately broaden the imagination.

My hope is to demonstrate these qualities with my latest game, which I’m tentatively calling Blockade. You can read about my early thoughts and brainstorms here and here. The physicality of Blockade will hopefully stand out immediately. Big blocks stacked next to and on top of each other. A pile of colorful dice. And cards with awesome, colorful, highly stylized characters. Maybe like these?

Can’t you imagine a stuffy admiral with a big mustache and this glorious noggin’? I can.

Speaking of the admirals (and others), they’ll have names. Stories. Their abilities will be extensions of their personalities and they will live and die gloriously as you play through their stories. You’ll have moments of fanfare and seconds of terror. Well, mild, completely manageable amounts of board game terror.

So really, little terror.

Perhaps it’s due to my job, which is overly stressful lately, or the fact I find it so difficult to get my friends interested in more serious fare. Maybe it’s a byproduct of my frustrations in developing Dawn Sector? There’s something about the need to create something playful, even at the expense of being a serious game, that is moving me forward.

It’s an evolution and an interesting one at that. It seems I’m returning more to my roots (Farmageddon), at least for now.

How do you evolve as a designer? How have you changed? What excites you lately? Anything I should be playing to reference?

Empire 2.0

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Last week I received my first publisher rejection for Empire. The game wasn’t a thematic fit and I should have known better. But, if you’ve done anything in the board game design space you know that rejection is common and frequent.

After a few hours of intense sadness, I bucked up and realized that once again I could develop, test, and improve this game that I love. I made the choice to not work on it while submitted in order to avoid the publisher developing it in a different direction. After a few painful months off, she’s mine again.

I haven’t been sitting idle entirely and I was able to hit the ground running. For starters, I have 2 copies of the game circulating in the PPP game testing program. A week or so ago peers and friends Paul Imboden and Randy Field of Split Second Games tested the game and sent me their thoughts. Working with them, I implemented a pacing change that fundamentally corrects the thing I liked least about the game: slow turns. Now, instead of players taking their reinforcement with 2 actions all at once, players do one thing at a time sequentially. This greatly improves the pacing of the game, greatly reduces downtime to almost nothing, and preserves the core strategy and mechanics in a way I like.

Fresh from a graphic design-fest with Molly’s Last Hope, I spent a Sunday revising the player boards for Empire. The focus was to implement the new turn order structure, simplify and remove excess “noise,” and improve readability. Larger fonts, simpler organization.

Another benefit of the 3 1/2 month break is that we were able to return to the game and its text with fresh eyes. Things we glossed over back in September now came off as unclear, imprecise, and in need of improvement. I also did this on Sunday and it’s reflected in the rules.

I’m also completely revising the theme and presentation of the game. Up until now, the game was based in a fictional 19th century world largely inspired by European warfare of that century. Unfortunately, the fact that it ISN’T historical, more faux historical, really doesn’t please anyone. History nerds want it to be historical. Non-history nerds don’t care about guys on horses.

In order to give myself a little more flexibility with the fiction, factions, and more, I’m shifting to a science fiction theme. This is a premise I personally enjoy and frankly, it’s great for thousands of gamers. Napoleonic (err, faux Napoleonic) is just too niche.

I’m hoping to pull off a “low tech sci fi” style. What I mean is less Star Trek, more Firefly, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Dune, and things like that. In this universe ships don’t warp, there’s no teleportation, folks use projectile weapons, and soldiers still get dirty. I’ve already written a high level synopsis of the universe and have found great new homes for the 4 existing factions.

You can scan through some of my early reference art finds here. The key will be simple colors, stylized shapes, and diverse characters from all genders and ethnicity. The picture at the top of this article is my favorite so far. If you’re curious, it’s Dead Space 3 concept art.

I’m very happy with the current state of the game’s mechanics and overall flow. Balance and accessibility are now my primary concerns. I don’t foresee any significant changes to the mechanics (though who can foresee things accurate?). Balance seems to be relatively solid so far with 2, 3, and 4 players. With the game in this state, I’ve begun designing a 5th faction and will ultimately design a 6th. I don’t think the game needs more than 4 as a base set (the learning curve for 4 can already be significant), but I want to have 6 balanced and unique factions for a few reasons:

As a proof of concept that the game can be expanded.
As a way to more fully realize the fictional universe and the powers within it.
As a way to pick my favorite 4 for the base set and fully test all factions.
As a potential stretch goal if a Kickstarter campaign is used.

The key is to be prepared and I’m working now to do so. The new faction’s powers will focus on Fortresses. The current staff orders, tactics, and abilities I envision are things like:

The ability to move their fortress to a new Territory.
The ability to nullify a fortress’s defensive bonus.
The ability to attack soldiers using the fortress.

I’m a little worried in that adding the fortress to the game is a player option, and every player only gets one. However, I’m confident I can balance them out. Fictionally I envision these guys as a high-tech conglomerate, folks with a mining angle, or something engineering related.

Essentially, there is a great deal of testing, design, and iteration occurring. Looking to the future, I still haven’t fully decided what I’ll ultimately do with Empire, aside from find it a better name. There are a few clear options available:

Submit to a traditional publisher. This path is fraught with disappointment and peril! Plus, it doesn’t make sense for me to email someone and just submit. I spent GenCon 2012 focusing on one publisher who has now passed. So, I could select a new publisher, meet them, and hopefully submit in August at GenCon 2013.
Submit to a smaller publisher. This path is fraught with peril as well, but I’ve built relationships with many of these folks and I feel I could at least get a swift rejection.
Do. It. My. Self. Guess what? Fraught with peril and disappointment. And unlike the other two, personal risk. I wrote last year that my employer gave me permission to form an LLC to publish games. I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur, even a teeny tiny one, and board games allow me to combine that with my desire to make things and work with great artists. I’ve been watching others, taking notes, and asking questions.

I’m actually investigating the third option. I’m trying to get quotes, get estimates from folks, and build a business plan. I’m trying to see if all the math works out. If it doesn’t and I can’t get my finances aligned, I’ll need to take options 1 or 2. We’ll see how it goes. If #3 does pan out, it won’t be any time soon. The game isn’t finished as I noted above, art takes time to create, and I would need to do a million small tasks beforehand.

The only guarantee I can make at this point is that I’ll have a great game at GenCon to test and share with others.

You can read the latest rules here. Note the theme still hasn’t been updated here. As always, I look forward to and appreciate any input you have (on any of this).

Design with Purpose

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Every idea sounds great in your head, but as soon as pen hits paper and a prototype is formed, the game is just missing something. It’s not what you wanted or it isn’t what you promised your testers. Where do you get off the track?

The reality is, the game as it existed in your head was less about the nuts and bolts of the mechanics, but more about the experience, the setting, and the feeling. Granted, I can’t speak on behalf of your mind, but this is often how mine works. I think about the feelings of my players, the tension, the laughter, and the epic moments. I think about the vibe the game provides and from this I derive purpose.

Many folks constantly debate the theme versus mechanics method of design origination, but I often pick a premise or a feeling and I try to create mechanics and a theme that support that. I created Farmageddon to be light, relatively easy to learn, and something that caused people to laugh. Laughter was more important than strategy. Laughter was the purpose. With Empire I wanted a light to medium weight strategy game with an interesting battle mechanic. Whenever I received feedback regarding its supporting mechanics, I always weighed them against the battle. How does this modify the battle? The battle was my purpose.

Designing with purpose is something you must do. Focus is one of the key elements of great designers, and focusing towards a greater goal is essential for success. I review a lot of rules and designers for my peers and quite often you see a conflict between what the designer hopes to accomplish and what their game is actually doing.

The designer will tell me that he is trying to create a deep, strategic game, yet his game is a real-time dice drafting festival. Deeply strategic and real time greatly conflict. If his goal is deep and strategic, if that’s his purpose, then the mechanics must be adjusted. The phrase “know thyself” somewhat comes into play as you need to be honest with yourself about your true goals and hopes for the project.

To progress in the right direction, you can ask yourself some basic, generic questions, as well as ones more catered to your project.

Who do I want to play this game? Age, gender, and gamer skill should all be considered. Cost is also a factor. Don’t expect parents to pay $60 for a children’s game!
Why will people play this game? What hole does it fill in someone’s collection? What niche can you fill?
When will people play this game? Is this a lunch game? An all day game fest? Something to play after dinner at a Christmas party?

The above questions are rather basic. They’ll let you get a feel for things like number of players, complexity of components, length of gameplay, difficulty of setup, and other things that might be listed on your box.

Your game will also need questions specifically for it.

How will people react to events in your game? Will they laugh? Will it cause them to think, analyze, and ponder? Will there be a great tension?
How interactive is your experience? Is the game purely social with accusations and bluffing? Can people steal from each other or declare attacks? Or is it a game of friendly trading? Perhaps it’s one of sly resource manipulation or completely a multiplayer solitaire affair? You need to know how you want your players interacting with each other as this should guide almost every decision you make!
How much luck will your game feature? Should luck determine the victor or just influence his decisions? Should there be no luck? If so, is everything public, or is the game’s variance driven by player behavior (i.e. dynamic markets, auctions, accusations)?

If you take the time to answer these questions, you should also diligently adhere to the answers unless your answers change. If you want a low luck experience, don’t add dice. Or, don’t add dice that can’t be mitigated at the very least. If you want low interactivity, don’t make trading a core element of your game.

Measure twice, cut once! Sit back and think about what you hope to accomplish with your game. Create an experience with the right components, elements, and vibe such that everything supports this premise. Design purposefully and you may find your games arrive at a solid state more quickly with less fluff and more fun.

What questions do you ask yourself at the outset of a project? What helps you focus? What are some of your common distractions or hold ups?

Within Your Reach

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

If your mother was anything like mine, you may have heard the phrase: “Don’t worry about what they are doing. Worry about what you’re doing!” We tend to over think and overreach towards the things outside our control instead of focusing on what we CAN control.

That’s the silly side of human nature — chasing what we can’t manipulate instead of firmly gripping what we can. In discussing this with a friend, we realized there was a simple blog post to be had. After all, so much of our time as designers is spent fretting over publisher feedback, play tester feedback, reviews, BGG comments/ratings, and more. It’ll kill you if you let it.

As a designer, your first and only task is to focus on the things over which you have direct control. Not everyone will like your game, as people have opinions, tastes, and preferences. But, reasonable players, who are the only ones with whom we shall concern ourselves, will appreciate a basic average of quality and craftsmanship. Your goal should be that the worst review you get says “It’s a good game, just not for me.”

The question then is “What can I as a designer control?” For a moment, let’s pretend the publisher won’t change every little detail. And for some designers, who use Print-On-Demand and Kickstarter self-publishing methods, this is an accurate assumption as YOU are the publisher.

Things firmly under your control include:

Game Length: One of the first decisions you should make is about the length of game you’re targeting. This is a front of box detail that will greatly dictate who buys your game and when it’s played. Aside from absurd analysis paralysis folks, this is under your control with the game’s end condition, length and complexity of player turns, overall complexity of decision making, and more.

Quality of Rules: The rules are a publisher’s, player’s, and reviewer’s first exposure to your game. It is the foundation of their entire experience. If your rules are poorly written, poorly laid out, and of insufficient quality for explanation, you are unlikely to have happy players. Take the time to proofread, test, and iterate. You control this. If you have confusing elements, fiddly exceptions, or pockets of “whaaa?” step back, refine the mechanic, and try again.

Theme: The quality of your theme is very much within your power as a designer in a few ways. Firstly, the quality of its integration. Does it fit, or did you just tack-on steam punk to make it more marketable? Do the art, text, and components reinforce the premise of your game? Also, is the theme appropriate for your audience? If you’re targeting a broad gender neutral market or a younger audience, half-naked females (I hate this cliche) aren’t appropriate.

Theme is most assuredly a preference. Some prefer elves to space marines. BUT. How appropriate and well-suited it is executed is in your court.

Number of Supported Players: One of the first questions a designer must answer is “how many people will play this game?” Although it is tempting to expand what you say the number of players is, you need to do what’s right for the product and your customers. 2-6 players looks way more marketable on a box label, but if 3-5 is correct, you need to say 3-5.

In addition to your honesty, it’s also within your power to do the design work to make your intentions a well-executed reality. Modifying the rules and content to support that extreme player number is a pain, but you never want a review to ding you for bad player numbers.

Art and Layout: As noted above, art is purely suspect. However, there is a quality bar that you can avoid, namely, does it resemble a piece of work made by a child using MS Paint? The layout of your board, cards, and rules is also very controllable. You can prove that it works through testing and iteration. Furthermore, there are best practices like using clean, easy to read typefaces, using a sufficient font size (6 point font is a no), avoiding distracting or aggravating colors, and putting things together in a way that lends itself to how people read and process information.

If all else fails, blatantly lean on the best layout work of some of the well-established publishers. If you know a game has a great card layout, use it. Start from there.

Mental Accounting Required: One of the things most designers overlook, especially on initial prototypes, is that players can only account for so many things. If they are holding 5 cards, each with 6 pieces of information, and must examine a board, and a reference board, and dice, and 6 opponents, their heads will explode. Focus your design such that the key elements towards making decisions are the ones in play. Strip away the rest.

Things firmly outside your control include:

One’s appreciation or fondness for your mechanic: Some players hate deckbuilding games. Or dice, or randomness at all for that matter. Take-that can be hugely controversial and some people absolutely despise direct interaction between players. But, for all those examples I listed, there are more people who love them. Hell, there are people who love Monopoly and the original Risk. Do your best to focus on those who might love your game, not those who absolutely won’t.

Empire has random turn order. This will probably be noted in every review of the game. But, those who play it find it’s not a problem and that it works for the game. So it goes.

Bad Players: You simply cannot count on player skill. If you create a game that has strategy, depth, and at times complex decisions, some people will simply play your game badly. For example, Trajan hurt my skull and I’m not really inclined to play it again. Between the mancala bowl puzzle and the broad range of choices, I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of things. The game isn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me. I was bad at the game.

One of the things that was most difficult to balance for Empire is that some factions are less obvious and straightforward. Skilled players had a fair and balanced experience. Poor players would be trounced by the more straightforward factions. You can deliberately choose to widen or narrow the skill requirement, but at the end of the day, some will simply play poorly…and many will curse you for their mistakes.

A Group of Random Players: If you’ve attended a board game convention and played with a random assortment of people, you may notice the game experience varies wildly than when you play with close friends. For better or worse, this will affect everyone’s opinion of your game and you can’t quite control that.

For example, I played a very interactive, take-that game at KublaCon. It was a 6 player game with me and one other solo player, then a boyfriend/girlfriend couple and a father/son duo. The game quickly became tedious and not fun because the two couples played as a team, so I was a solo player versus two combined factions. It wasn’t fun or fair and I don’t look on the game experience fondly.

On the opposite side, I notice when playing Farmageddon at GenCon that some children ALWAYS pick on their sibling or their parents. They aren’t playing “to win” per se, but they are playing for schadenfreude and the poking often accompanied with families. This didn’t ruin a parent’s experience — they are used to it! But some siblings grew VERY angry. When asked if they want to play my game again, I would wager many would shout “No!”

Your game simply might falter in a convention demo or at a random game night. It happens.

Did I pick all the right elements? Did I miss something? Do you disagree with me? Let’s chat in the comments.

Convergent Design

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Grant Rodiek

Guest Column by: Jay Treat

A friend of mine has been thinking about a game for years that lets your group play as the crew of a starship bridge. Each player would play his own mini-game that determines his station’s performance and the group’s individual successes would add up to determine how successful the mission is for the whole team. And then Stronghold Games printed Space Cadets. It’s not just the same theme and execution, there are even specific mini-games in common. He was understandably disappointed and I knew exactly how he felt because I’ve been there. A lot.

I was able to console him with the reassurance that this happens all the time. I’d be surprised if every one of you hasn’t experienced something like this yourself. Which is why I want to reassure you that’s it not just you. I call this phenomenon Convergent Design, after Convergent Evolution, the idea that animals with little-to-no evolutionary relationship have developed distinctly similar features through unrelated paths, largely because those features are fairly optimal and their development inevitable.

Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison independently invented the lightbulb within five years of each other. Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and Pixel Lincoln were all released within a year of each other. The same year I finally got publisher traction for Assault on Khyber Station, I found Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space on a dealer’s table and a week later I heard people raving about Escape, which turned out to be The Curse of the Temple. While that last one is more coincidence than a duplicated idea, you can still see a clear trend. Even Space Cadets isn’t alone: Artemis is the same idea for the PC and Spaceteam for iOS.

I attribute it all to the global zeitgeist. While every human is as unique as a snowflake, we all consume the same media and participate in the same culture. Modern communication has reduced the latency of this effect from years to mere minutes and even mitigates the previously large cultural differences between nations and continents. With several billion people laughing at Seinfeld and holding their breath for Harry Potter, it’s no wonder that a few of us are going to wonder “Hey, what if you could set reminders by location instead of time?” all at once.

In the Unpub zone at GenCon this year I watched a Rick Collins game, Scrapbots, in which players build robots from junk and battle them against each other. Each robot’s abilities and well-being are defined by card slots in their hit locations (head, chest, arms, legs). In one fell swoop, I saw two of my designs preempted. I might have been crushed, but I’ve been in this position often enough to know not to take it personally. Instead, I laughed that I never did get around to developing either of those games, so if my goal was to see those ideas realized, I just got a present. I save hours of headache and hard work while someone else does it all for me, and I’ll get to just buy his game and enjoy it already completed. Thanks!

Now, I am being optimistic here. If the game does get published and is as awesome as it can be, then all is well. If, on the other hand, the game fails to be published, not only am I back to square one, but I basically have no chance selling the game to the publishers that turned down the original. And if Scrapbots does get published but turns out to be bad, then I’m really screwed: I won’t have a sweet game to play, I won’t have my desire sated to see those ideas well-realized, and making the game myself to do it right would be a fool’s errand because no publisher will want to touch a game seemingly derivative of a well-known flop.

When I was 15, Wizards of the Coast was accepting external Magic set submissions. I put together something I’d be too embarrassed to show anyone today, but with a few solid ideas in it just the same. The same year I mailed that off, they announced the big policy change and stopped accepting anything. I never got a response whether they even read my stuff. But that Summer, they released a bunch of new cards and mechanics that they obviously stole from me.

Except they didn’t steal them. I know this because it takes considerably longer to develop, template and print a card than the time they had to steal my idea.

Last year, I led a team that designed a Magic set that I am quite proud of. Not only were there a half-dozen nearly identical cards printed in Wizards’ version of the “same” set, there were cards released while we were still working that matched brand new designs and forced us to remove or drastically change them.

And that wasn’t surprising, because not only were we working in the same medium (this ubiquitous magepunk TCG) with the same frame of reference (the preceding 18 years of Magic sets), but we were even working within the same parameters (to design a flavorful core set that’s easy for new players to learn but interesting for established players to draft) toward the same goal (to lead into a multicolor-themed fall set named Return to Ravnica). In fact, one of the reasons I consider the project successful is the number of solutions our team shared in common with the Wizards’ team. If we hadn’t hit some of the same touchstones, it would have been a sign that we were off in our understanding of where Magic is and where it’s going.

When I go back and apply the same logic two decades ago, my old anger at having my ideas “stolen” is replaced by pride that even as bad a designer I was at the time, I was still on track enough to come up with the same things the professionals did. When Jason Tagmire learned about concurrent Lincoln movies, he used that as fuel to help market Pixel Lincoln. When Edison learned about Swan’s work, he sent goons to eliminate his competition. Wait, bad example…

The point is, it’s up to you how to respond when someone beats you to the punch with your own idea. You can throw a fit and let it eat you up inside. You can take it as validation. You can thank them for saving you the effort. And you can even team up with them and use it to your advantage.

You might even reevaluate what it means to ‘own’ an idea. But that’s another article.

Form Versus Function

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Grant Rodiek

Guest Column by: Jay Treat

I learned several valuable lessons at Metatopia a few weekends ago.

Firstly, there is no such thing as bed-time. You will be up late. Every night. And you will love it.

Secondly, making connections—the kind that lead to dream jobs—isn’t as hard as I thought. Basically, you just need to show up, be friendly, and be generous. There are tricks and nuances, of course, that’s true of everything. And, as with any attempt, you can’t succeed if you don’t try.

Thirdly is a theme that came up three times across three different games over the weekend. I tweeted about, but it’s worth discussing in-depth.

The Last Planet

I’ve hinted several times on Twitter that I’ve been working on a StarCraft deck-building game. I played Fantasy Flight’s StarCraft board game with some friends earlier this year and was reminded quite viscerally how painfully slow the game is. So I set out to make a StarCraft game that better captured the video game’s feel, primarily by playing faster. I somehow latched onto the idea of a DBG being an interesting expression of base development and built an intentionally very literal interpretation of the game. As expected, it worked but not particularly well. I intended to recreate it, but got distracted with other projects.

Last month, my friend Josh pushed me to pick it back up. I had one new idea to try before completely rebuilding it so I brought that to Metatopia. The fix helped, but was like a drop-in-the-bucket. It took easily 100 minutes before one player successfully attacked another. The game is too complex and has too many steps to accomplish by a complete order of magnitude. And that’s really not surprising: It’s a complex video game with millions of moving parts all being handled seamlessly by the computer. Take out that super-fast helper and it’s up to the players to handle everything. Even simplified as it was, it’s still preposterous.

Despite that massive problem, there is fun in the game and I have not given up. I will rebuild from scratch, divorcing myself from StarCraft and creating a new SciFi theme, not because I know I’ll never win the game rights, but because I can’t let the conceits of the video game dictate the paper game’s path. I know if I keep this exact theme that I will be distracted from the better possible game by what StarCraft has done and how.

It’s entirely possible the end result won’t be a DBG, but a real-time puzzle or who knows what.

Escape

After that, I saw some of my designer friends playing with an early game prototype. Kevin’s game has an awesome theme: The players are experimental test subjects of a mad scientist trying to escape his dark labyrinth before he kills them. The game starts with an interesting mechanic where you play cards to form the edge of the dungeon and your character moves like a magnet to cards that match your player color. Once you reach the inner dungeon, you instead lay dungeon tiles that dictate the directions you can move from that space. Because the dungeon is dark, you don’t decide how to orient the tiles, you just place them however you flip them.

This leaves the end-game entirely up to chance. It does fit the theme and really puts you in your character’s shoes. On the other hand, you’re suddenly not playing the game you started and probably not enjoying feeling your character’s frustration so personally. The reason for placing the tiles with a random orientation was to fit the theme of a dark dungeon, but it removes the fun from the game. My suggestion was to let players choose the tile’s orientation to improve the play, and then modify the theme to justify the change. Maybe the dungeon isn’t pitch-black or maybe the doctor gave them infrared vision as part of his experimentation. The former doesn’t really hurt the core theme and the latter fits it pretty well.

I know Kevin is working on this game because I saw a very nice graphical tease for it, so I’m eager to see what the next version brings.

Terraform

The next day I joined what turned out to be a brainstorming session rather than a playtest. You might be pretty disappointed at such a thing elsewhere, but at Metatopia it was cool. Yeah, let’s bounce ideas off each other to help the designer—Jim—reach a good starting point. Honestly, that’s almost more fun for me than actually playing. The premise is that the players are corporations competing to alter a planet’s atmosphere so that it’s ready for colonization. Jim had the kernel of a pretty neat mechanic for this part of the game as well as a dice mechanism to determine player order and the amount of resources available each turn.

As we were proposing possible directions for the game, we occasionally hit a hard stop in the form of a pre-established theme. What if there’s a conflict with resident aliens? There are no aliens. How can we add variance to building placement? Wind. There’s no wind on Mars! There is on Venus. Are dice the best way to determine how much a player can do each turn? They represent the fickle budgets of your corporate overlords. (Note that one of those over-wrought preconceptions was mine, not the designer’s.)

Form vs Function

If you’ve read my earlier stuff, you know that I’m a huge advocate for theme in games. There are great games with no theme, but there are so many more great games with theme. Ultimately, a game can’t fire on all cylinders without an engaging theme. The flip-side is that you can make a game great through the theme alone, but it’s much more likely to be garbage without fun mechanics. And a thematic game can’t reach it’s greatest potential without awesome gameplay.

Some designers approach games from the bottom-up, completing the game by perfecting the gameplay and mechanics, and then finally pasting on whatever theme seems to fit best. Some approach design top-down, finding a neat theme and bringing it to life, going with whatever mechanics express that theme more fully. A lot of designers are versatile enough to use whichever technique feels right for a new game. I put it to you that none of these are ideal.

Integration through iteration is the holy grail. Start where you like, whether it’s bottom-up with a clever mechanic and some fun gameplay, or top-down with an engaging story and a gripping atmosphere. Just don’t go too far without switching hats. Even if you’re idea is still amorphous enough that you need a quick test to figure out where to go with it, you should already be imagining how to express your idea from the other side of the camp. After your first test, when you understand the basic game well enough to start the next step, shift your focus and ask how the theme could best serve the mechanics, and vice-versa. If something needs to change, change it. Kill your sacred cows or they will eat your game.

If you do this throughout the design process, the final result will be so tightly integrated that players won’t be able to imagine your mechanics with any other theme, nor will they wonder if the flavor could have been stronger with a few more/less dice.

A fantastic example to demonstrate this is Magic: The Gathering because the game has been remade so many times using every model we’ve discussed. A big part of what made the game take-off was the excellent fusion of flavor and mechanics in the original design. There were many years of bottom-up designs to follow where the designers were exploring mechanical possibilities and the theme suffered. Many years later, they let the creative team dictate the world and built the set around that, but the gameplay wasn’t satisfying. They rebooted the core set with Magic 2010 using a new strategy—the original one: Make cards that are fun to play and deeply resonant. It was a huge success and breathed new life into the game. They haven’t looked back since and they have done amazing things that just weren’t possible in the old model.

StarCraft is a video game because it can’t be done as a board game. It can’t be done as a board game because it’s a video game. The Zerg are what they are because they play differently from the Terrans and Protoss. And they play so differently because they are the Zerg. These sound like poser-wise tautologies, but the point is that both sides were developed toward this state together and couldn’t have done otherwise. I can make a game that plays like StarCraft, but with a different theme or I can make a game with StarCraft’s theme but plays differently, but the vast differences in the media prevent me from making the same game. And ultimately, what would be the value in that if I succeeded? Why play StarCraft the board game, when you can play the same game with better graphics on your computer? That was the impetus for adding the deck-building-game conceit but I didn’t go far enough. DBGs don’t have a tech tree or, if they do, it’s nowhere near as deep, specific or complex as StarCraft’s.

My work on Intrigue (Editor’s Note: This is another game of Jay’s) is another interesting example. In theory, all I had to do to convert the theme from Fantasy war to Renaissance spycraft was to change some art and names. But where quests are perfect for Middle Earth, they make no sense in Venice. Scoring points by killing your enemies is natural in war, but would attract a bit too much heat in a political race. And where’s the scheming? Spies scheme! So I changed some mechanics to fit the new theme. Playtesting proved that the mechanics could be better, so I fixed them and then adjusted the theme to fit the new mechanics. Having agendas is great, but being invested in particular factions is good too. It’s a give and take where everybody wins in the end.

You have examples of successes and failures along these lines. Let’s hear them.

Personality Disorders

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

If you mention cooperative game design, people come out of the woods to mention that they like co-op, but hate playing with bossy people. Fixing this is the El Dorado of games, apparently. How do you fix the dominant player problem in cooperative games?

Honestly, I think the answer is, “You can’t.” Actually, on second thought my answer is “Don’t play with jerks.” This goes for all games, not just cooperative games. But, that isn’t a very satisfying answer. It wasn’t my goal with my sci-fi cooperative game to fix the dominant player issue, but one of my initial ideas has turned into something that might act as a solution.

Basically, instead of hiding from the problem, I’m going to lean right into it. But, more on that in a second.

I wrote a little about my co-op game on this previous post. But, the quick refresher is that you’re going to be on a team of space explorers discovering new planets for human colonization. One of my first ideas for the game was to have Traits for your characters, as in personality/emotional traits.

I’ve been a developer of The Sims games for the majority of my 7 year career, so to say The Sims is an influence on my design efforts is an understatement. One of my favorite features from The Sims 3 was Traits. The Sims is much less about being a game and much more about being a platform with which to play stories. Marketing would kill me for saying this, but really it’s a massive digital dollhouse.

I try to be unique with my designs, at least in one or two ways. So many cooperative games have classes. It’s fairly standard by now. Classes more or less dictate what you will be doing. If you aren’t leveraging your class, you tend to fail. I thought Traits would be interesting more as a modifier on how you conduct or choose your actions. You’re thinking, “Snore, traits are in every RPG ever, Grant.” Yes, they are. You can also see them in recent games like the Kickstarter hit (and hopefully post-KS hit) Story Realms.

Then, my idea evolved. My friend Eric with Games and Grub asked me the inevitable “How are you fixing the dominant player problem.” I ignored it first, but then I began thinking about it. It began to stew.

Then, I started writing a list of Traits in my notebook for a brainstorm. The first one I wrote was Hot-Headed. Then it hit me. What if being a hot-head wasn’t just some token flavor with a thematic gameplay tie in? What if you had to be a hot-head? Or the geek? Or the overly logical guy? Or the loyal friend? What if that IS the game?

I then began to think about how simple, deep, and rich the gameplay of The Resistance is. Really, it’s all about players acting out their roles in this small, quick, easily understood story. So, I ask you to think about my Personalities less as a D&D modifier and more of a social construct for a new game. A tall order, I know.

Think about your favorite stories. Why do we still talk about Aliens, or Firefly? Why do we attend conventions to hear the actors speak? Yes, the action was cool, but most importantly, we loved the characters, how they overcame their worst habits, and how they are somehow at their best when they are most themselves. I want to try to abstract this into a game.

At the beginning of every game every player will be given a Personality. Perhaps randomly, perhaps pre-set based on the scenario. This information will be contained on a card that will succinctly explain who they are.

The game will be built around this so it isn’t just tacked on encouragement. This will be a core feature. Hopefully next post I can discuss the board design, equipment, and traits further. I plan for this to be my game’s killer feature, its special sauce, or as my marketing department says, “the X.”

Thoughts? Interesting? Snooze?

Disorderly Conduct

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

A fundamental question you must answer for your design is “what will a player do on his or her turn?” In most cases, players will have individual turns. Yes, there’s simultaneous play, like in 7 Wonders, or there’s real time play, like in Paper Route, but generally most games have player turns.

There are typically three options to give a player on his or her turn:

Give the player one Action. Ascending Empires does this beautifully.
Give the player several Actions. These are done in a strict order. Dominion is a great example of this (Action, Buy, Clean).
Give the player several Actions. These are done in any order. Alien Frontiers, Farmageddon, and Empire belong here.

Let’s go through every option. There are good things and bad things about each. Here’s a bit of foreshadowing: I prefer option 3.

Give the player one Action: This is the cleanest of the three options. Essentially, you give the player a variety of choices, but they can only choose one. Ascending Empires is one of my favorite games and it does this perfectly.

You can build, move ships, research, recruit men, or mine. For many of these, you must meet the conditions before you can choose the Action, which further simplifies your decision. You could also argue 7 Wonders does this as you select one card out of a fairly large hand.

One Action has a few VERY strong arguments in its favor. Firstly, the pacing of a game with this structure is typically fantastic. Taking only one Action means you can’t have any combinations (two is required), which greatly simplifies the decision and reduces analysis paralysis. Games with one Action are also simpler and more straightforward. They ask “what one thing do you want to do most this turn?”

Games that use this can also be presented very easily. You can use a tableau that shows the five options (Ascending Empires, Glory to Rome). Or, like 7 Wonders, you tell the player “Pick one card” and they can just look to the cards.

There are some downsides to this mechanic. If not properly tuned, a game where you take one action at a time can feel plodding and tedious. You need to make actions decisive and “big” enough that the player doesn’t feel like he’s trying to drain the Titanic with a bucket. The one action should feel like a step, not a baby’s crawl.

The other issue is that by having one Action, you remove the ability for combinations. Yes, this is a plus, but it’s also a minus (depending on your point of view). In my experience, combos, even simple combos, are one of the best ways to let a player feel clever. Combos give players that “ah ha!” moment and with one Action you’ll need to deliver that elsewhere.

Give the player several, strictly ordered Actions: This is arguably one of the most common ways to let a player take his or her turn, and for good reason. As a designer, you can present the player with several options and far more flexibility, yet still give the player a comfortable and rigid structure.

One of the first things I learned in design is that players want to be told what to do. They find it comforting. No, I’m not saying people are sheep. But, nothing is more overwhelming than being told “do all of these things however you want!” Gah! Instead, you’re saying “Do all of these things, but step by step.”

Dominion is an absurdly popular game. A big reason for this is how accessible the game is. Yes, learning 10 new cards every game isn’t easy. But, knowing that on every turn you’re going to play an Action, Buy a card, and clean up your hand eases things along. ABC. ABC. ABC.

Designers should be careful with the number of steps. Yes, you can (and should) have a reference card that walks you through the steps. However, I’ve played some very simple games that had 6 steps on every player turn and, even though the order was strict, it was overwhelming.

Multiple actions with a strict order give the player a broad turn, let the game move along quickly, and do so within order and with a reasonable pace. Analysis paralysis isn’t too bad because players know they must do step 1, step 2, and step 3. It’s a routine and people like a routine. But, the downside is that combos may be more rigid and you limit the option for player creativity.

If you have a complex game and you’re trying to figure out how to simplify it, try testing the prototype with a strictly ordered turn system.

Give the player several Actions with no order: Be warned! Use this only at your peril, for it is fraught with all sorts of nonsense you must resolve.

With this system, you give the player an array of options and tell them that they can not only do many of them (if not all), but they can do them in any order, and sometimes multiple times. This immediately sets you back:

Your game is now more prone to analysis paralysis players.
Your game is more overwhelming and less accessible.

You will need to understand and accept this. It also means that you’ll need to scale back your complexity elsewhere and reduce other opportunities for players to stall and over-analyze.

One of the hardest things for players to grasp with Farmageddon is that they can do things in any order. Every demo I have ever given is immediately broken up by a “how much can I plant?” or “When can I play Actions?” or “Can I plant again?” The game would be FAR simpler if I said this was the order:

You must harvest if able.
Plant (optional)
Play Action card 1 (optional)
Play Action card 2 (optional)
Fertilize at least 1 time.

However, the game would be far less fun. Farmageddon isn’t a terribly deep game. It’s not a brain burner. But, over and over again I’ve seen the joy in people’s faces when they see they can plant, insure, and destroy a crop, then plant again to take up the field. Or, they can plant, steal a card, Bumper another crop, harvest, then not fertilize because they burned all their cards.

I made the choice that flexibility would vastly improve the game even at the expense of accessibility. It was a compromise I made and had to work for, but one I’ve never regretted.

A very similar game to Farmageddon is Gamewright’s The Big Fat Tomato Game. This game does many things like Farmageddon, but you must do everything in order. The game comes with reference cards to walk you through the 6 steps. It’s not a difficult or complex game, but my friends and I had to use the reference cards for the entire game. If I brought it out again, I’d still have to use the cards. Sometimes the confusion is just shifted to another place!

Order of operations allows for exciting combos and player creativity. If you have a game with cards, you’ll see players coming up with new combos that you hadn’t conceived. This has been the best part of developing Farmageddon and Empire for me. I personally love playing Alien Frontiers because every dice roll is a “holy crap look at all this cool stuff I can do!” moment.

Really, it all comes down to the game you’re trying to deliver. It is greatly determined by your target audience. If pace and simplicity are your priorities? Use One Action. If you need a bit more flexibility but want to hold players’ hands? Multiple structured Actions. If you want to enter the wild west and you’re ready to scale back elsewhere to let it happen? Give multiple action unstructured a chance.

Contribute to the discussion! Do you have other examples? Other pros and cons I failed to mention? Use the comments below.

Poorly Boxed

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Grant Rodiek

Post by: Grant Rodiek

Before I begin, I want to clearly state that I chose the box art for The Settlers of Catan because it’s so well known. I am making no specific commentary on their box or this game.

I was thinking about Empire Reborn the other day and how I would potentially market it to others. Or, how I’d describe it for a playtest. My first thought is to call it a war game. It’s about war. War games were my initial inspiration. But, “war game” has very specific connotations for players. Things like history (my game’s fictional), complex simulation (mine’s greatly abstracted), long playing (my game is an hour), and more. If you examine the Top War Games list on BGG, you’ll see a simulation of the cold war, D-Day, Napoleonic things, and more.

The other issue is that war games are greatly polarizing. For some players, the words “war game” are worse than “take that” or “random.”

I also began to think about how board games in general do a poor job of giving players a clear idea of what the game is about from the box. I feel like this is a problem far more unique to the board game hobby than others, potentially due to its more niche audience.

If you see a movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger between the months of May and August, you can safely assume it’s an action movie. If you see an Xbox 360 game with a dude with a gun, anywhere, you know it’s a first-person shooter. At best, board games tell you the setting and that’s it. Sometimes, not even that! However, it’s very difficult to know what you’ll be doing without reading a review or the rules.

Board games have a severe barrier to entry compared to other mediums that is a hindrance regardless of the rich meaty goodness that awaits players if they only persevere. Board games have rule books and tons of new mechanics. How much more terrifying do you think a non-Hasbro game is to people passing through the store if they know nothing about it?

Then, there’s the other side of this equation (Editor’s Note: How many sides are we at now?)…can you tell customers too much? Plus, space on a box is a premium commodity. Do you waste it on potentially boring explanation? If I say that Empire Reborn is a “Card driven area control game with a 19th century war theme” you would probably call me a nerd and throw produce at me. If I said that Farmageddon is a “Light strategy game of risk taking in which you manage a hand of cards to earn the most points” you would keep walking.

Let’s simplify it further. Do normal people know what any of the following terms mean?

Set Collection
Push your luck
Area control
Worker placement
Dungeon crawler
Abstract

From my own experience working alongside nerds, the answer is “typically not.” Is there iconography we can use to clarify these elements? Alien Frontiers uses a lot of great iconography to tell you what’s possible for players — perhaps there’s a lesson there? How foolish am I in thinking we could show players, on the front of the box, through simple iconography: This is a game for 2-4 players, ages 10+, in 60 minutes, that uses an Area Control mechanic.

One of the things that fascinates and drives me in this hobby is how much more we can do to give customers a better experience from start to finish. There are so many things we can still improve: Cleaner and more accessible rules and designs, shorter play times, more convenient distribution methods, more broadly appealing and novel themes, having a fantastic web presence to reach customers and answer their questions more conveniently. Now, I feel that we can add more informative packaging to the list. Oh boy, more to do!

Here are some ideas I have for improving this:

Prominently feature the Age Requirement, Play Time, and Number of players on the front and sides of the box. Most games do this already and that’s good as it’s the first thing I check. I noticed Seasons did this very prominently on its front cover and I appreciated it.

Show the setup game on the back of the box and walk the customer through the experience and why it’s special. Risk: Legacy does this very well. Granted, people already know Risk. It’s a classic! Still, this box does a great job of telling you why Legacy is special.

Use the front cover to get players “in the door” with a compelling theme and art style…
…then use the text on the back to reinforce your explanatory image. Focus on mechanics and function, not more theme. Obviously, use a little. We’re not selling toilet paper, but toys! Perhaps note the type of person who would like this game. “This is a great game for players who like to work together and trade!” or “This is a game for players who love to lead great armies in battle.”
Prominently feature the active components. Try to reinforce visually what players will be doing every turn. If they are going to place tiles, make those clear. If they roll dice, show ‘em. I saw this on a box tonight at Barnes and Noble and thought it was interesting (bottom right next to the time):

Make sure language is playful, but not overly so. At some point, puns and alliteration are a distraction. Crisp, precise copy must be the focus. You’d be surprised at how witty you can be without slapping someone in the face with a Three-Stooges style honking device.

Update! I brought 1812: The Invasion of Canada into work today and noticed that they do a great job of highlighting important elements for the game on the back.

One thing I think we can steer away from is a Component list. I don’t think these are terribly useful on the back of the box and they take up quite a bit of space. If you’re being examined by an experienced gamer, they’ll know. If you’re being examined by a new gamer, they won’t care. Plus, your imagery should show them the BEST stuff already — miniatures, a gorgeous board, cards, etc. Look how big the components list is on the back of Catan.

I may be over thinking a problem that may not need to be solved. I just looked at my copy of King of Tokyo. Aside from telling me how many players, at what age, and how long the game takes, there is NO information other than the title. The back of the box is literally a blank image. King of Tokyo sold out of its first print run and is selling like crazy on round two. So, perhaps I’m creation solutions that are unnecessary?

What do you think?

Hyperbole Games

Card games, board games, and game design

Tag Archives: board games

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Inspirations of Late

Empire 2.0

Design with Purpose

Within Your Reach

Convergent Design

Form Versus Function

Disorderly Conduct

Poorly Boxed