The Ever Expanding

This week I'm taking a short break from the Cardboard Olympus to talk about something else: expansions. Let’s face it, there is a list of games that are simply not as fun without one or two additional boxes. Arkham Horror needs The Dunwich Horror to get off the ground. Core Worlds is leaps and bounds better if we add the Galactic Orders to the basic box. Dominion is great, but only with Intrigue, Seaside, Prosperity, Alchemy, Cornucopia, Dark Ages and Alchemy your essential deckbuilding experience will truly be complete.

Box cover of Dominion
(source: wikipedia/Dominion_(card_game)) 

Box cover of Arkham Horror
(source: wikipedia/Arkham_Horror)

Okay, I will admit that Dominion is actually a lot of fun with just one of its basic boxes, and I should probably disclose that I had played its primary set so many times that I needed to replace the completely worn treasure cards before I actually got bored with the game. That, however, does not change the fact that the game needed only a few months to see its first big expansion, as if trying to quickly cash in on the craze that it had started.

We all probably know that there are two ways of looking at game expansions. Either we are happy that they exist to make your favourite game bigger, better and more replayable, or we just think of them as ways for the publishers to crack the safe that is your gaming budget (sometimes including money for food, rent and clothes, especially if you're an avid fan of competitive CCGs). In a way, you would be right to believe that it’s a bit of both.

It is true that publishers make money off expansions. It is true that if all of the expansion material was included in the basic box (for the same price), it would probably be better for the person purchasing the game. It is also true, that this could work only in a perfect world, because the reality of designing and publishing games simply makes it impossible.

In my neck of the woods I heard a lot of complaints that Stronghold Games was holding out on them right after Core Worlds hit the store shelves. Admittedly, the publisher made itself an easy mark by printing the base set cards already with the symbols needed for and used only by the game’s first expansion (but, in truth, Race for the Galaxy did a pretty similar thing back in the day and not many people seemed to mind). Some said at that point that elements of the game were purposely removed to be sold separately later, for the sheer and disgusting goal of making more profit.

Box cover of Core Worlds
(source: Boardgamegeek)

Well, it all might be true. It’s entirely possible that Andrew Parks had every single element of what we got in the Galactic Orders box completely functional and running before even submitting the prototype to the publisher. I for one think he did not. And here is why.

Box cover of Core Worlds: Galactic Orders
(source: Boardgamegeek)

The process of designing a moderately complicated game usually leaves you with some bits and bobs that were originally a part of the design but just did not fit in with its final structure. Sometimes it’s because they would just make the game too complicated or convoluted, and sometimes they get trimmed in the process of developing a game, because they add nothing but an extra layer of “fiddliness” without much of a payoff.

If you factor in time, which rarely is an infinite resource when you’re getting around to publishing a game, it is also entirely possible to be forced to remove this or that from the design, because (while being a good idea) it just doesn’t want to work exactly the way it should, and nobody – neither the designer, nor the developer – knows how to make it behave. That is, until the game goes to the printers and serendipity finally decides to return the long overdue call.

In the end, it all boils down to a notion similar to those seen in any form of creative art (and yes, I believe designing games is art) that is prone to being “expanded”: a single book can only be so long, a single canvas can only be so big and a single photo can only fit so many objects before all becomes too small or too blurry to actually make out, making the whole endeavour defeat its purpose.

So, in conclusion: yes, some expansions may be a money grabs (and we’ve witnessed how blatant these practices may become with some video game DLC), but most certainly not all of them are. And the good ones certainly serve one very important purpose: they make what we love last longer. And that is an idea I do not think anyone would find extremely difficult to get behind.

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How to chose your holiday destination

Long time no hear! After two years of working like crazy I felt that the line has been crossed. The winter in Poland was absolutely out of the ordinary this year. The first three months were OK. Winter, you know, cold, snowy, rainy and so freakishly dark outside most of the day. Anyway, this would be still acceptable if only after all this winter sadness ... less winter came. However mother nature had a different plan and it brought us more winter sadness! It was the end of March when the temperature dropped to -10°C with heavy snowfall and wind outside our windows, letting us know that winter was not going to leave us neither easily nor soon. And you could feel that your heaters are on the limit! They may be able to get you to April... but then what? 

I have to be honest with you, I am completely weather dependent. When it's sunny outside, birds are singing and there is a rainbow on the sky - oh yeah! I feel the power! (and yes, I do sing "I got the power!", when I wake up with this picture outside of my window).

So I went to discover the sunny side of the earth, with the sneaky thought in my head: "When I come back it should get better in here. Maybe", and here comes the bold thought, "there will be Spring already in Poland."

(Just as a spoiler I will tell you now that when I landed back in Poland I sang "I got the power" again.) 

However, choosing holidays destinations was not easy. The winter was long, so you can imagine that I've played quite many board games and you know how they work - they move one's imagination! 


?? Should I go to Mexico and see Chichen Itza, Palenque, Uxmal, Tikal, Yaxchilan, as while playing Tzolkin I hanged on all those new places to discover?  This game, Tzolkin, put so much curiosity in my head! 

?? Maybe some place with nice beaches, white sand and palm trees? - Thank you Merchants & Marauders! Thank you Hawaii!

?? Or, or... I know ... something more exotic! Like in Ming Dynasty... Asia?? Asia!!

?? For adventure in dungeons with torches and magical blue potion in one pocket and a silver dagger in another I was not ready yet! Who knows, maybe in the summer... Winter and dungeons sounded too extreme in my head. Thou Descent: Journeys in the Dark filled the gap perfectly!

?? For Cosmic Encounter and Race for the Galaxy I was totally not prepared. What do I know about cosmos? What if Exodus will come and hey! what will you actually do if you discover a new form of life? Space definitely seemed too much to handle.

So Asia it was, without my gaming preferences I needed sun and I needed it immediately. Long story short - the trip was wonderful. It was long enough to detached from all the responsibilities, clear my mind and see things from a new perspective. I am now loaded with new ideas, my mind is nearly exploding! This year will bring a Perfect Storm and Praetor and W: The Board Game at least. We're planning to fit in all this also re-dressing of Exodus: Proxima Centauri this year. So, as I said, long story short - let me get back to work... I wanted to share with you that there are wonderful board games coming up this year from NSKN. And yes, I am genuinely smiling while writing this... ha! Wait till you play them!

Now, all our thoughts are focused on the preparation for the UK Games Expo 2013 on the 24th - 26th of May in Birmingham. We are printing, cutting and gluing prototypes so you can enjoy playing freshly made prototypes with Andrei and I there. Many more thing are going on at the same time.. World is never asleep and especially board gamers! So I hope to see you there!

As a conclusion of my adventure I want to share with you this picture. Some of you maybe have seen it already, as I shared it a few seconds after taking it ;-). However it is so mind blowing... imagine seeing this in reality!

Enjoy! And let your mind wonder!

Captured while wondering on the streets of Yogyakarta

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The BOX!

We’ve jumped in our old red automobile and rushed with 20 miles per hour speed to the closest village. It was a sunny morning but then, as always in Belgium (always for the past year), the rain has come and the small wheels of the red old cranky automobile started to make slow slippery movements in the mud. We knew we got stuck. Did I say we were in the wildest mountains and the forest around was even wilder now when the rain got heavier? And did I say that this wilder and wilder with every minute forest and mountains were famous for their hungry bears and poisons snakes? Yes, and we were lost, stuck and …

Good that this is not a real story. Some times I’ve noticed, it’s easier to tell the story straight from your imagination than to actually be honest and write about the truth. I will try really hard this time to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

So… it was like this.

In the morning, the weather was really great. It was almost sunny and you could even see a little bit of the blue sky!! “What a day!” I said to myself. But after we've jumped to our not-so-old and not-so-new black automobile it really started to rain. We rushed to L., a town which is real and where our friend who we’ve never met face-to-face lives. Did I say why we were rushing to the mysterious L. town? Oooh, I see - I did not. Let me explain to you what was the reason to rush through the rain on the great highways of Belgium! We went to see the BOX, but not any box; this was an actual handmade wooden and beautifully self-designed BOX. One day after buying a wild Warriors & Traders game box, our friend Tassos got so angry with the magically flying components of the game that he decided to do something. He did not want to lose any of the Barbarian units, Army units or - God forbid! - Princesses! He is a wise man, he is an engineer and he has an artistic soul, so he sat down and thought for a few days. And then he made the BOX.

And here is the BOX, handmade, wooden, with burnt out names and logo of Warriors & Traders

Ok, I do not know how he actually got the idea and if what I wrote is in any way related to the truth – but I like this story, so just follow my words for few more sentences and then enjoy the pictures.

Just keep reading… good! : )

We met Tassos in L. and then he showed us the BOX. I’ve seen the pictures a few days back, but it was something totally different to see the real thing. It was just an amazing piece of work. Tassos even took the time to get Warriors & Traders logo printed on the top of the wooden box. He made it himself! And as I was looking at the handmade beauty, I’ve noticed that it can rotate, so the players can get all the resources and other tokens much easier and that all the compartments are the perfect size for every single token in Warriors & Traders. And I could not believe that we’ve found him so easily. It is a big day, a great day and the day to remember and cherish when things are going bad, as we have just meet a soul mate. Whatever was the reason for Tassos to do the BOX, for me it meant - here he seats, a Facebook friend, mailing friend, a Twitter friend – a FRIEND who understands our craziness and passion.

Thank you Tassos – you made our day. And the BOX – it’s just precious!

And thank you all for getting through!

#1 - The beginnig

I know I started this topic on this blog a while ago, now I am coming with a different approach. So, enjoy :)

Warriors & Traders is a pure strategy historical game, which combines several mechanics, including area control, taking actions

My first game, Warriors & Traders was released in Essen 2011 and I want to share the story behind the development and the things to come.

The kick start

In my group of gamer friends, I was usually suggesting changes to make games either more strategic or less dependent on dice or in some way different from what the original idea was. 

The idea to design my own board game was laying dormant inside me for a while, but a friend gave me that final push that made me start working. He gave me an actual challenge, telling me that within one year I have to come up with a board game that all of the people in our group will enjoy playing without complaining. So, a few weeks later, I started putting my idea on paper. The one that seemed to be one step ahead of all the other ones was of a historical game independent of luck. Once I chose my winner, I also came up with the name and the gaming paradigms I was going to abide to no matter what. And so the story began...

Design principles

I had to write down what I wanted to make out of this game, which I decided from day 1 to call Warriors & Traders. I had decided not to make any compromises and laid down all the important things that I care about and I believed make a game with potential:

- Euro game mechanics

- deeply strategical

- a war component

- lots of player interactions

- layered long-term decision making

- historically accurate

Drawing the line, I realized that it will be hard to combine all these in a game playable in less than an afternoon, so I chose my priorities.

First, I decided to put the play-ability before the historical accuracy, but without making severe compromises. This is why I chose the setup in the Dark Ages of Europe, when empires were forming, putting the bases of nowadays European countries. At some point in time, every country was covering roughly the area which is drawn on the game board. And I make here, now this promise, to come back with the details behind placing each single country on the board!

Another key point in game design was the decision to leave every single aspect of the game untouched by any element of luck. That means no dice, no event cards, no random whatsoever. At this point, the major decision was whether to go towards an economical game or a war game, keeping the "NO luck" paradigm. At first I was tempted to go towards the Euro side, it would have been much easier to balance economic decisions in a random-less environment, but I did not gave up and decided to search for a way to put together armies, war and solving battles without rolling the dice.

The place where I compromised a little was the player interactions. Having a fixed (non-modular) map, it was obvious that gamers would find more ways of interaction in a 6 players game rather than in a 2 players game. This seemed like the least amount of distance from the original idea.

Version 0.0

Once design paradigms fully covered, I started to mentally make order in the game components and mechanics. I had to always keep in mind that I was my own harshest judge and I would not go on easy on myself if not following my core design principles.

First I wrote down game components, most of which you'll still see in the actual box of Warriors & Traders:

- game board, with the countries in Europe, each country divided into provinces

- army units, player and neutral; all defined by power (deal damage) and toughness (absorb damage before dying)

- resources: weapons and gold to build armies, food to keep them alive and products as a generic "currency"

Then I wrote down the mechanics and the main aspects of a turn:

- tech development that applies to the entire 'country' a player controls; three 

- actions - each player takes action(s) each turn, developing a technology or building armies

- simultaneous army movement, followed by combat and clean-up

- strategic resource management, using resources before gathering; this required strategic planing for at least 1 turn ahead.

Version 0.1 - plain paper

And here it is - the very first print out of ..hmm.. 'two weeks old Warriors & Traders' 

The map - I got excited and a bit carried away, trying to put every important European country on the same map, from England to Russia. It turned out to be quite crowded and extremely large, with no less than 109 provinces player were "fighting over".

Every province had 1 to 3 resources drawn on it, 1/2 of these resources on the map being Products, 1/4 Food and 1/4 Weapons, with Gold only available through trade.

The resource "tokens" were small square pieces of brown (Products), red (Food) and yellow (Gold) paper and some poorly drawn swords (Weapons) - somewhere West of the map, outside of the picture.

Provinces were Capitals (3 resources and starting provinces for players) and common (1 or 2 resources). In all of them there were Barbarians, some random armies who would fight the invaders and nothing more. 

The development cards, nowadays replaced by the play-mats containing the technology tree, were divided into... countless categories. The most important ones were upgrading Trade Technology, allowing simply a better exchange rate with the bank for Gold, Production technology - multipliers for resources and Military technology.

This Military technology was the key to a random-less combat, so players were be able to to 5 type of army upgrades with 3 options each, so you could end up with any kind or army X/Y (x-power, y-toughness) with X and Y ranging from 1 to 10 !

After seeing the pictures above, you're allowed to lough (but not too loud )

The game round was composed of four steps:

- feeding armies (yes, before getting resources)

- getting resources

- action - upgrade some tech OR build army

- armies movement and battles

First tests

The first two tests, actually two and a half, were done with just me and my girlfriend (again, big thanks for putting up with all that).

There were no two of the same army after 5 rounds and there were no victory conditions. We were just playing to see how the game works and what are the things that need immediate response.

The top of the list was the giant amount of army types and the Barbarians who had random power and toughness, conflicting with one of the core principles - no luck.

The first two game tests were conclusive, the game had potential, it worked, but it was too all-over-the-place. It required a lot of work to bring structure and a bit more effort on the basic design to make it user friendly. The last test, well... I sneezed in turn three and all the "tokens" flew away, concluding a night that I will always remember, The beginning of an amazing story that changed my career options and maybe my life.

So, stick around, I will tell you the rest of the story behind Warriors & Traders and much, much more.

Essen: Day -1 The City We Built

Hi all,

Last time I left to go working for our concept for the Inventor's Booth in Essen. We did just that and now we have a game prototype that we shall call for now "The City We Built". It's a city building, bidding, cardgame for 3 to 10 players and we are quite proud of it.

Tonight we finished doing the mechanichs and it was time to print and cut the cards:

... then we procedded to add color graphics:

here's a close-up of the "Saloon":

With the deck ready, we went to Sorin's place to get the electrical screwdriver. Once there, we naturally played a test game. For bidding, we used Twix candies:

One specific bidding round started small...

... and then got bigger ...

.... and even bigger ...

... in the end Sorin almost won the game but we left because it was getting late.

Tomorrow morning (which is actually soon) we leave for Essen where we will prepare our exhibition stand.

Cheers!