Retheming a Game – Part II: Why Retheme?

Retheming a Game

Why would a designer retheme an already published board game? For the purposes of this discussion, I will be ignoring fan-made, PNP rethemes of board games. Here are some possibilities:

The Game is in the Public Domain

The game already exists in the public domain, so a designer decides to retheme it and make a new game out of rules and mechanics that already exist. After all, these older games are up for grabs for anyone willing to put in the effort. The card game Rummy (which may have originated in Mexico or China in the nineteenth century) is just a copyright free set of rules that can be applied to a standard deck of playing cards. There is nothing to really monetize there unless you can add a spin to it and make it fresh and more engaging. One example is Mike Fitzgerald’s Mystery Rummy series. These customized decks combine the traditional Rummy with elements of mystery solving, allowing players to play Victims, Suspects, Scenes, and Evidence-melds. Another game using the Rummy mechanic is Rummikub, which uses tiles instead of cards. Though not exactly a retheming, it does take an existing public domain game and repackages it in a way that is more engaging then a regular deck of cards. Another example is 15th Century Chess, which has been redone as Chinese Chess, Laser Chess and 4-Player Chess.

The Game’s original IP is no longer available

In 1979 Eon released Dune, a game based on Frank Herbert’s space opera. In Dune players play one of the factions wrestling for control of the spice planet. Each organization has special powers that bends a rule of the game. On their turn players move on the map of the world, picking up spice while avoiding giant sandworms, sandstorms and the other players’ armies. After the first print run it was never rereleased due to legal issues concerning licensing of Herbert’s IP. Fantasy Flight Games bought the rights to reuse the mechanics, but could no longer set it on the sand world of Dune. Instead they transported it to the Twilight Imperium universe, republishing it in 2012 as Rex: Final Days of an Empire. Instead of avoiding sandstorms, players must seek shelter from the massive Sol warships executing a deadly bombardment of the continent-sized Mecatol City. It may be difficult for people to obtain the 40-year out-of-print Dune game, but they can still buy Rex for new on Amazon.

Retheme to Legally Bypass the Game’s original IP 

Some game publishers may bypass (some would say unethically) a game’s original IP by retheming their version to such an extent that they can successfully defend their product in court. In 2002 Emiliano Sciarra published the Spaghetti Western themed card game Bang! In the game each player randomly receives a Character card that gives them special abilities, and a secret role card that determines their goal: the Sheriff, the Deputy, the Outlaw or the Renegade. On their turn players can play action cards to harm another character (Bang!, Dynamite) or protect their character (Missed!, Beer). Then in 2007 the Chinese game designer KayaK (Huang Kai) published the card game Legends of the Three Kingdoms, based off the Chinese classical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In this game each player randomly receives a Hero card that gives them special abilities, and a secret role card that determines their goal: the Monarch, the Minister, the Rebel or the Turncoat. On their turn players can play action cards to harm another character (Strike) or protect their character (Dodge!, Peach). In 2014 the creators of Bang!—DaVinci—sued Ziko Games for these similarities. DaVinci included with its brief in support of its preliminary injunction application a chart identifying 64 similarities between the two games. But ultimately the court ruled in favour of Ziko Games and dismissed the case in 2016. In the end board game mechanics are not protected by copyright laws.

Retheme to appeal to other Demographics or lead players to other versions of the same Game

In 2012 game designer Seiji Kanai released the minimalist card game—only 16 cards!—Love Letter. The premise of the original game was to deliver a love letter to the Princess with the assistance of relatives and acquaintances. There are 8 card types, each having a different effect when played. Players start with 1 card held secret, and on their turn they draw a second card from the deck. The player must choose which card to play, and process the effect of that card. The game is played over multiple rounds, with the round ending with either the deck running out, so that the player holding the highest-value card wins, or all players are eliminated except one, who then wins. In 2014 AEG published a second version of the game named Love Letter: Legend of the Five Rings. This new theme employs the fictional setting evoking East Asian cultures and was used in collectable card games and role playing games. So this rethemed version could appeal to gamers who enjoyed the Legend of the Five Rings games—who otherwise would not buy a game called Love Letter—plus people who already owned the original game might buy this copy as well. This version was quickly followed by Love Letter: Wedding Edition (made specifically for wedding receptions), Munchkin Loot Letter, Letters to Santa and Love Letter: Batman. As of this writing there have been 25 versions of Love Letter published, in addition to translations of the original game.

The Original Theme is out of date, or is in some way is no longer suited for the current time period

Sometimes when a game has gone out of print and you want to republish it, you find that the original theme is no longer relevant or may be unappealing for the times. In 2013 Victory Point Games published my first board game: a solitaire game called Infection: Humanity’s Last Gasp. In the game, you are the director of the Department of Plague Control (DPC) field office in New York City. You make the decisions about what parts of the virus to study, which personnel to hire and what equipment to purchase. The game used simple mechanics in a multitude of combinations to create engaging gameplay as you try to eliminate a mutating virus. Components included event, lab personnel and equipment cards; molecules and protein tokens; and one much hated, tiny 6-side die. The game went out of print about 3 years ago, and while I tried to come up with a 2-player version of the virus game, it was difficult to capture the drama and energy of the solitaire game.

And then the pandemic hit.

At this point it seemed there was no way a publisher would want to try to republish a board game about a desperate group of scientists struggling to find a cure for a deadly virus while the death toll climbed into the tens of millions. Then Worthington Publishing reached out to me in September of last year asking if I would be interested in updating and deluxifying my solitaire game. We had a conference call regarding the idea, and in the end we all agreed that we would have to change the theme, since we felt the current one would be a hard sell for the current time period. So it was decided we should retheme the game. 

Check out my next blog post regarding all the different themes I thought of that could use the existing rules and mechanics of Infection. 

Retheming a Game – Part I: Components, Rules and Mechanics

 Retheming a Game

 What are board games but a collection of components, rules and mechanics wrapped up in a theme. And if such a collect works for one theme, then why not for another?  There have been many board games that were initially released with one theme, only to be republished with another to reach a wider audience, or perhaps for other reasons. Werewolf is a retheming of the game Mafia, Rex: Final Days of an Empire is Dune but set in the Twilight Imperium universe, and there are currently 25 versions of Seiji Kanai's Love Letter. Controversially, Bang! from dV Giochi was re-themed as Aiko Games’ Legend of the Three Kingdoms. The components, rules and mechanics may be tweaked in the process of retheming, but generally the core of the game remains the same.

A number of years ago I designed a solitaire board game. Can you guess the theme of the game from the components, rules and mechanics below?

• Components
• 16 resource tokens with 5 different icons: A set of 6, a set of 4, a set of 3, a set of 2 and a set of 1
• 28 target tokens:
• 6 sets of 3 copies each, composed of 3 assorted resource icons
• 4 sets of 2 copies each, composed of 4 assorted resource icons
• 5 sets of unique tokens, composed of 5 assorted resource icons
• 19 power cards that the player can acquire throughout the game, which grants them special abilities
• 31 event cards that alter game variables every turn
• 2 markers for tracking action points and game countdown tracks
• A 6-sided die
• A game board had the following features:
• A 5 x 5 x 5 hex map where randomly drawn target tokens are placed
• An action point track: 0-20
• A game countdown track: 1-10
• A 4-space resource collection area where randomly drawn resource tokens are placed
• A target area displaying each of the 15 targets, showing their composition of resource icons, where resource tokens can be placed in order to eliminate target tokens on the hex map
• Rules and Mechanics
• Draw an event card, which may add randomly drawn target tokens to the hex map
• Draw 4 resource tokens and place them on the resource collection area
• The player may:
• Spend action points to obtain a power card
• Use a power card to gain a special ability that turn
• Spend action points to obtain resource tokens and place them on targets in the target area with matching icons
• When a target has all icon spots populated with resource tokens, the matching target tokens on the hex map are removed, and the player gains action points determined by the value on hex the target token occupied.
• Player actions may be affect by the event card.
• When the player completes their turn, they roll the 6-sided die to determine if they must advance the game countdown track, then receive bonus action points if applicable. The roll can be affected by the event card.
• The game ends when:
• The player eliminates all target tokens from the hex map before the countdown track reaches the 10 spot on the countdown track, and the player wins.
• The countdown track reaches the 10 spot before the player eliminates all the target tokens from the hex map, and the player loses.

Obviously you could just look up my name and see my only currently published board game, but I think the descriptions above can be pretty generic.

Thank you for your time.

John "That Cowboy Guy" Gibson

A developer's preview of the Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp App!

Here is a developer's preview of HexWar's Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp App, which is the digital conversion of my solitaire boardgame. w00t!

http://youtu.be/SlwAPzsp-yA

A gamer translated Infection into French so their 83 year old father could play it

So as many of you know I designed a solitaire boardgame called Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp published by Victory Point Games.

So it came to my attention that one of the people who owned my game who lives in France shared the following story:


I know the game since it was published. It plays fast, it's puzzly, it's thematic, it's challenging. So many qualities... I like that game a lot. 

What I didn't notice before last month was that there is a story in it.... and it's funny.

Personal back-up story

Last Christmas, my father - who will be 83 in a week and has never played a boardgame in his life - asked me to find a solo boardgame he could play.

First idea that came to my mind while talking with him was Infection. However, he doesn't understand English: I had to translate the rules and the cards in French.

I assumed, it would not be an easy task.

Before initiating translation, I asked for advice in the 1st Player Guild Forum on BoardGameGeek. I received a lot of very interesting suggestions (I'm still working on two of them) but as I "sold" Infection to my father in the first place, he was really interested in playing that particular game.

It took me more time than I expected.

It is especially challenging to translate cards. Very often, it takes several words in French whereas English use one or two to express the same idea.

Anyway, I did finish the translation just in time to send the game to my father for his birthday (it was the initial goal).

My revelation regarding infection story

When I play, I focus on the effects (place a molecule here or there, subtract 1 or add 2 to your die roll...) and not on the ambiance text.

The translation forced me to read every single word on the cards.

That's was a mistake to ignore the ambiance text. It's really worth it.

There is a true life in this Laboratory!

Adam, who is the youngest team's member, is really a nice "kid". He fells asleep regularly which pisses of Amanda whereas Sylvia is more forgiving. He disguises Marvin - the Lab Rat - when he's got some free time and watches TV a lot! The relationship are tensed between the Lab guys and the story develops in few-well-chosen words.

On the other hand, there is also a life outside the Lab. The death section tells that story like a never-ending-scrolling information at the bottom of the TV screen while watching the TV-news.

Just don't know how I could have missed the excellent job they did with the story in this game.

It cannot be called a "story-telling" game, though, but there is a story. I will play it with new eyes now.

Meeplesburg notes from play testers at FallCon 2014. Photos included!

Meeplesburg notes from play testers at FallCon 2014

 

So I had a great time at FallCon this year in Calgary. I had 6 play testing sessions with Meeplesburg. I got in a couple of 2 player games, a couple of 5 player games and a couple of 4 player games. I received plenty of valuable feedback from the play testers. Mainly they found it to be fun, challenging, compelling game and it only takes an hour to play!

 

Here a few pictures from the event:

 

Here is the setup for a 2-player game

Here we are near the end of 5-player game

Hugh Polley is considering his options

A couple of turns into a 2-player game--and there's a copy of INFECTION on the table

Here is the signage I whipped up in Photoshop for the table

This is the FallCon scheduled Playtesting area

Almost at the end of a game by the looks of it

John Montague is weighing his options as he contemplates his next turn

 

Here is the useful feedback I got:

·         Put Construction, Purchase, Upgrade labels on both sides of the board

·         Move Apprentice area up and label it.

·         Put an arrow to move cards from Construction area to Purchase area

·         Use an arrow or some other kind of symbol in the Mason area for moving masons to the other 3 areas

·         Could use the phrase Legacy Points instead of Victory Points; less militaristic

·         Use a block or heavy boarder between the Worker area and the Purchase area

·         Use part of the Action board for Player action instructions

·         You can spend $35 to copy write your rules in the USA

·         On the building cards, move up the construction area so it is at the top and lines up with the double meeple symbol. Use the same background as the board

·         Change the row/column layout so that opposite meeples are different colours. Yellow-Blue

·         Check out Alien frontiers for the iconography they use. Keep this in mind for the “Or” symbol on the card and the Wall or Income on the action board

·         Tap card for money right away? NO!

·         Get rid of the building icon on the building tile. Put the Meeple inside a house of the same colour.

·         Put spots on tile for placing the house, tenant and monument

·         Move the money symbol to a different location on the card. I think it should overlap the construction section and the meeple section. The $3 coin will be a different color. Make it clearer. Don’t need the money symbol on the tile either.

·         Use 3 platforms instead of 5 for all number of players. Different platforms have different number of tenant spaces on them: 1, 2, 3. There will only be one space for a mason per round for getting a platform

Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp - First screenshots of the Video Game

Hunted Cow Studios have now issued a press release that they are developing my game into a video game and have shared 8 screenshots of the game; 4 from the PC version and 4 from the iOS version.

Here is some verbiage from the press release: 

We're pleased to release the first alpha screenshots of John Gibson’s Infection: Humanity’s Last Gasp by developer Criss Cross Games. Scheduled for release in December for PC, Mac, iOS and Android; this is the first release from the announcement of the partnership between Hunted Cow Studios and Victory Point Games.

About the Game

Infection: Humanity’s Last Gasp was named one of the Top 30 Solitaire Board Games by Box of Delights and one of the 2013 Best Thematic Solitaire Games for the Spare Time Challenged on BoardGameGeek!

In Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp, by designer John Gibson, you are the director of the Department of Plague Control (DPC) field office in New York City. You make the decisions about what parts of the virus to study, which personnel to hire, and what equipment to purchase. You’ll soon discover you are working with an eccentric group of scientists who don’t always work well together—and one very resourceful lab rat named Marvin. As the casualties increase, so does the stress and mistakes made, as you try to complete your vaccine before time runs out for all of mankind!

This strategy game uses simple mechanics in a multitude of combinations to create engaging, deep gameplay as you try to eliminate an evolving virus that could spell the end of the human race. While random events from the Status Report cards might throw a wrench in your plans (or occasionally help you out), you’ll use the Lab Personnel and Equipment cards you’ve hired to piece together randomly generated proteins into the different parts of a vaccine, all while managing dwindling funding resources as the Death Toll Track climbs. Each time that your Containment roll fails you come one step closer to losing this battle, so make sure that you push everyone to their limits before the infection reaches critical levels.

http://forums.huntedcow.com/topic/68375-infection-humanitys-last-gasp-first-screenshots/

Here is the default view for the PC version of the video game

Here is the default view of the iOS version of the video game

I walked a Mile in high heels in Calgary last week

Hi All,

So That Cowboy Guy walked a mile in high heels last Thursday in Calgary to raise money for the YWCA WALK A MILE IN HER SHOES®  fundraising event. The event raises funds to help women and their children take steps to walk away from family violence.

The YWCA of Calgary is helping women escape the cycle of abuse, helping children receive the safety, support and nurturing they deserve and helping men learn healthy ways of interacting with their families.

You can still donate by visiting my personal page:

http://support.ywcaofcalgary.com/site/TR/Events/WalkaMile?px=1022137&pg=personal&fr_id=1060

Thank goodness I managed not to twist an ankle, but boy did my feet hurt by the time it was over! Oh, and I might have flashed the judges.

Meeplesburg design changes

So here are some of the changes to Meeplesburg I play tested last Monday

• Play testers liked incremental cost of getting a Mason disc ($3, $4, $5 and $6)
• Limited spaces for Masons for the Action spots made players add Tenants early in the game. (2 spots for Bridges per round, 3 spots for Monuments per round, 3 spots for Tenants per round)

Potential Issue:
The following units now generate income: Building tiles, wall segments, Monuments (no more cubes now), Bridges and Tenants. So this means there is more money in the game. A player with 4 building tiles, 2 walls and a Monument could make $7 with a single Income Generation action. A new player--Jerome?--ended the game with $25 which got him 5 victory points. So my concern is perhaps there is now too much money in the game, at least at the end. I might cut Tenants and Bridges from list.

Thoughts?

What I have left was a challenge from Paul Saxberg to make the game playable with 2 players, and I figure I might as well make sure it is playable with 5 players, since the 2-5 Players is the sweet spot for Euros.

To make it a 2 player game I would have to make the game boards double-sided. In a 2 player version the players would remove all the yellow meeples from the game. 

• So the City Map board would have no yellow worker row or column, making the board grid 4x4 instead of 5x5. 
• There would be 12 squares for placing buildings and 4 river spaces. 
• The players would also remove all the building cards/tiles with yellow meeples on them: 10. This would leave 15 buildings/tiles for a 2 player game. 
• 3 Building cards would be available each round instead of 5.
• 8 Meeples would be drawn from the bag each round, so each player would have 4 workers to use.
• One less Mason spot for each action space: 1 spot for Bridges per round, 2 spots for Monuments per round, 2 spots for Tenants per round
• One less Mason added per round (Round 1: 3, Round 2: 6, Round 3: 9)

I feel I am getting close to a finalized designed game.

The question is about having too much money in the game. At the end of the game every $5 is worth 1 VP, and the new player ended up with $25 at the end of the game, which made him 5 VP. Money used for the following in the game:

• To place a building on the city map board costs $1, but if it is adjacent to one of your own properties then it cost $1 for every building in the group, including the new one.
• To purchase a building it requires 1 worker and $1
• To use a Mason it starts at $3, then $4 for the next one, then $5 and finally $6
I was worried money would be tight in the game, but for some players it wasn't

I myself tried to construct a building I needed and put it on the board, but then I discovered I had no money to place it. So I spent that turn generating income, at which point the next player bought the building I wanted.

So how do you find the right balance of money in a game? Is it based on how much is left at the end of the game? Or players complaining about not having enough money, or complaining that they don't have enough actions to spend their money on?

Another successful play test session at the Sentry Box

Another great play testing session last night with the GAC gang at the Sentry Box. I feel very comfortable with all the changes I have made and I feel I am just about ready to commit those changes to my rules document. 

What I have left was a challenge from Paul Saxberg to make the game playable with 2 players, and I figure I might as well make sure it is playable with 5 players, since the 2-5 Players is the sweet spot for Euros.

Yet more changes for Meeplesburg

A new design suggestion which I want to implement before the next play test:

Each wall section will have two spaces next to it: 1 for Income Generation and 1 for Wall Construction.

So instead of having only 1 spot for activating Income for a row, you would now have 2. This change would make these actions more intuitive, more elegant and work better thematically.

Here are some more suggestions that will not be implemented, but are sitting in the hopper and may be used depending on how the changes above affect game play:

Instead of the Monuments being worth Victory Points at the end of the game, the player gets a  card from a bonus deck

Every time a player builds a new Monument and places it on one of their buildings, they get to draw 2  cards from a bonus deck, keep one and place the other at the bottom of the deck.

Bonus Cards:

• 1 VP for every black meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every orange meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every blue meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every red meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every yellow meeple building you own
• 1 VP for every Construction building you own
• 1 VP for every $3 building you own
• 1 VP for every Income Generation building you own
• 1 VP for every Wall Construction building you own
• 1 VP for every Mason/Worker building you own

So at the end of the game, players would announce the bonus Victory Points they received because of the building tiles they owned that matched the Bonus card. The player who bought the last Monument would not have choice of bonus cards. So another incentive to buy Monuments early because they could buy building tiles that matched their bonus cards.

To make the Purchase Area make more sense thematically, the player needs to supply a worker and $1 to get a building from this area.

This means it will cost a player a minimum of $2 to place a purchased building tile on the city map board: $1 for the purchase, and a minimum of $1 for the Land Levy to place it on the board.

More design changes for Meeplesburg

So I had another great play testing session last night for my game Meeplesburg. We played a 3 player game that lasted 68 minutes, which included a quick rehash of the rules--so it looks like this came can come in under an hour for experienced players. w00t!

Here are some the key changes from the last version:

1. Get rid of the remaining 60 white and instead make the Monuments worth victory points at the end of the game.

So in the last version of the game I got rid of 120 coloured wooden cubes and replaced them with money tokens (40 $1 tokens and 12 $5 tokens). And that was a great change. It reduced the component count of the game and gave players more action choices during their turn. It was easier to figure out what you needed to perform a given action.

Well now I was given a suggestion that would eliminate the 60 white cubes, which were generated by the Monuments during the Income Generation action, and instead make the Monuments themselves worth victory points at the end of the game. So here  the changes:

·         Instead of generating cubes, each Monument would generate an additional $1 during the Income Generation

·         Monuments at the end of the game would worth the following incremental victory points (the more Monuments you have, the greater the victory points!):

o   1 Monument = 1 VP

o   2 Monuments = 3 VP

o   3 Monuments = 5 VP

o   4 Monuments = 8 VP

o   5 Monuments = 13 VP

o   6 Monuments = 21 VP

A player with more than 6 Monuments would not make any more points after that.

2. Limit the number of Masons that can be placed on Action spaces during a round.

In order to tighten up the game and build more tension, it was suggestion that I limit the number of Masons that can be placed an action space during a round:

·         Construct a Bridge: There will be only 2 spots available per round to use a Mason to build a bridge. There are 5 bridges in the game.

·         Add a Tenant: There will be only 3 spots available per round to use a Mason to add a tenant to another player's building tile. Each player has 3 tenants in their colour.

·         Erect a Monument: There will be only 4 spots available per round to use a Mason to erect a Monument. There are 10 Monuments in the game.

In previous play sessions, players would leave adding tenants and constructing bridges till near the end of the last round since there was no sense of urgency to build them earlier. Now that there are limited spots available per round, players will have to consider building these in rounds 1 and 2 to avoid not being able to build them at all.

3. Add an incremental cost to available Masons

In the play test last night, all Masons cost $4 in order to use them on an action space. It didn't matter if the player used the first available Mason or the last one. So the change will be this:

·         In Round 1:

o   1st Mason: $3

o   2nd Mason: $4

o   3rd Mason: $5

o   4th Mason: $6

·         In Round 2:

o   1st and 2nd Masons: $3

o   3rd and 4th Masons: $4

o   5th and 6th Masons: $5

o   7th and 8th Masons: $6

·         In Round 3:

o   1st, 2nd and 3rd Masons: $3

o   4th, 5th and 6th Masons: $4

o   7th, 8th and 9th Masons: $5

o   10th, 11th and 12th Masons: $6

So the longer you wait to hire a Mason, the more expensive they become.

4. Having 2 walls in a row or column gets you $2 instead of a white cube

Since I am removing the white cubes from the game, owning 2 walls in either a row or a column will give you $2 during the Income Generation action.

Trying to find a theme for a new mechanism for my game Meeplesburg

Looking for some advice on theming a new mechanism in my game, Meeplesburg.

The game board is a map of a city laid out in a 5x5 grid. Players build buildings by placing a building tile on a square, then place a wooden house of their color on it to indicate its theirs. At the end of the game players will receive 1 victory point for each building by itself, and 3 VPs for each building in their largest contiguous group.

The new rule is that when you are putting down a new building tile, if it is adjacent to another one you own, then you gotta pay for it! When I put a building tile down on the map board, and it is not adjacent to own I already own, then I can put it down for free. But if it is next to one I do own (orthogonal), the it will cost me $1 to do so. If I put one down and it creates a clump of 3 adjacent buildings I own, then this will cost me $2, and so on and so on.

I love this mechanic, but now I need to create a theme for its existence in the game.

Here some ideas. Let me know which one is best or if you can come up with one that is better.

Builders Guild Fee

We could say that each player belongs to the Builders Guild, and they have to pay a fee when they build a property next to a property they already own. Perhaps the Guild likes builders to spread out throughout the city when they build and charge you a fee to dissuade you bunching up.

King's Taxes

King Meep (king of the meeples, don't cha know) wants his new capital city of Meeplesburg to spread out and have lots of variety in the various districts. If a player is constructing buildings next to ones he already owns, then the King is charging property taxes.

These ideas for theme are very satisfying to me, but maybe I just need to improve the wording. I really like the mechanism, so I want to find a way to make it work with the game.

Thoughts?

Renaming/retheming The Fractured Lands as Meeplesburg

So I had an idea yesterday to change the game I have been designing for about 2 years from The Fractured Lands to Meeplesburg.

I would describe the game play as light Euro, so I was thinking a retheming was in order to match.

So as a description, I am going from this:

In The Fractured Lands, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents each play a commissioner belonging to one of five races. You will be rebuilding the great city of Unity and vie for control and influence. As a commissioner you will direct workers from five different races: Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Minotaurs and Trolls. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Can you reunite The Fractured Lands and rebuild the mighty city of Unity?

To this:

In Meeplesburg, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents are building the great medieval city of Meeplesburg, vying for control and influence. You will direct worker meeples of five different colors: black, orange, blue, red and yellow, plus the white mason meeples. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Will you be remembered as the greatest builder of Meeplesburg?

Here is the definition of a Euro according to BGG:
http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Eurogame 

Thoughts?

The Fractured Lands - Playtest

I was soooo excited with some of the changes in my game I just had to share it with you all!

Game: The Fractured Lands

Playtesters: John Gibson (designer), Paul Saxberg, Tom Sarsons and Marty  

Play Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

I had a great play testing session yesterday at the Sentry Box. It was what I would call a breakthrough, and I was told that will all the changes I had made to the game since the last iteration, there was no downside.

So just a quick recap about what Fractured Lands is about:

In The Fractured Lands, a game for 3-4 players, you and your opponents each play a commissioner belonging to one of five races. You will be rebuilding the great city of Unity and vie for control and influence. As a commissioner you will direct workers from five different races: Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Minotaurs and Trolls. You'll gain prestige by constructing buildings, building walls and bridges, and erecting monuments in this epic building project. Can you reunite The Fractured Lands and rebuild the mighty city of Unity?

Number of Players: 3-4

Playing time: 60 - 90 minutes

Age Range: 12 and up

The game board is a 5 x 5 city map that you can put building tiles on. 5 of those squares are river hexes running diagonally through the map. The map is also surrounded by 20 wall sections. Players use 5 different coloured meeples (representing the 5 races) to construct and place building tiles on the board, and to build wall sections. Each building card has 2 meeples pictured on it, and so these are the meeples you would need to construct that building. Each wall section has a meeple beside it as well, indicating which meeple you need to build that wall.

How do players get these meeples?

There are 25 meeples dumped into a bag; 5 of each colour. At the beginning of each round, the starting player reaches into the bag and draws out 12 meeples at random. Then in counterclockwise order, beginning with the player to the right of the starting player, each player drafts one of the meeples, continuing until all the meeples have been drafted. In a 4 player game each player should have 3 meeples; 3 player game: 4 meeples.

I don't want to bore you guys with the rest, so let's get down to the changes I made before last night's game, and that should clear up some stuff.

1. Replaced 120 wooden cubes (24 cubes for each of the 5 colours)  with 40 $1 tokens and 12 $5 tokens

I have been working on different versions of this game for about 2 years now, and up until yesterday one of the key components was the wooden coloured cubes for each race. Players would get cubes by generating income on the map board. Each building tile would generate 2 cubes, 1 for each of the 2 races that you needed to originally construct the building. So for example after generating income a player might receive 2 black, 2 red, a blue and a yellow cube from 3 building tiles.

So what are/were the cubes for?

Players would use the cubes to buy actions on the action board. There were 10 spots on the action board, 2 for each cube colour. In the first row of 5 action spots, you could perform that action for the cost of 3 cubes of a specific colour, and the 2nd row it would cost 4 cubes.

For example, if you wanted to build a bridge to place on one of the 5 river tiles, it would cost you 3 blue cubes. If a player couldn't manage to generate 3 blue cubes because of the buildings they constructed, then they would never be able to purchase a bridge. Also, once all 5 bridges were built, then blue cubes were not as useful anymore.

I also had to limit how many cubes of one colour players could have at any one time (6) in order to keep hoarders from hurting those who were trying to generate income.

So I scrapped all the cubes and replaced it with money. Each building tile produces $1 when generating income. I then reduced the 10 actions spots down to 3: Building Bridges, Monuments and Tenants. Each spot costs $4 to perform that action.

So if we look at the example I mentioned before, the player would receive $3 for generating income instead of 6 cubes of various colours.

2. Players share a pool of Masons instead of each player having their own set of 3 Masons each.

Remember the actions spots I was referring to in my earlier comment? Well in order to use them you can't just have $4; you also have to have a Mason (They were called foremen, but now I am calling them Masons).

In a previous version of the game each player had 3 mason discs which they could use to perform actions not requiring a worker meeple. When a player ran out of their colour of discs, then they could no longer perform any of those actions. The reason for this was that when a player performed the generate income action, they might also end up generating income for other players. This became a sort of death spiral of actions in a 4 player game where a player might run out of cubes in one turn, only to have the next player generate them a bunch, thus allowing them to do more. So I gave each player 3 masons discs so they could perform only 3 actions per turn (they could turn a meeple into a mason with a special power, but let's not get into that right now).

But after trying different combinations of rules and components I (or one of play testers?) came up with idea of a pool of masons that can be accessed by the players. In the first round there would 4 available, 8 in the second, and 12 in the third and final round. What this means is that some players could end up playing more than 3 actions in the final turn, which also means another player might end up with only 2--you snooze, you lose! As to the incrementing number of masons, in the first round players are still working on building their economic engine so they will not have as much money to spend on actions anyway. So if one player can manage to squeeze out 2 actions in a turn, the somebody else is gonna get screwed!

I felt this added an extra element of tension to the game we played last night as players kept an eye on the dwindling supply of mason discs and considering the opportunity cost of performing a mason action versus an action requiring a meeple worker.

3. Got complete rid of the Blight Attacks mechanism.

As this game was evolving from version to version, at one point I found that players were not building walls because they were just not that interesting or compelling an action. So I added a mechanism where one or more times a round the city would be attacked. Using either dice which were rolled after a certain number of turns or flipping over a special card, the players would have to deal with an attack by the Fractured Lands most horrid enemy: The Blight!!1!

So players would have to build walls to protect the city. If the players won, then maybe the player who contributed the most would get a reward, and if they lost, then a player might lose a cube or even a building tile.

But my players found this to not be a good addition to the game and what was lost was too much dependant on luck (a die roll). This game is almost a solid Euro, so the dice weren't jelling with that style. So I scrapped it and the game went smoother.

4. When you are putting a new building tile down on the map, if it is adjacent to another one you own, then you gotta pay for it.

I haven't decided how to theme this rule, but I sure love the mechanic! When I put a building tile down on the map board, and it is not adjacent to own I already own, then I can put it down for free. But if it is next to one I do own, the it will cost me $1 to do so. If I put one down and it creates a clump of 3 adjacent buildings I own, then this will cost me $2, and so on and so on.

This does a couple of things: a) Now there is another use of money that will be competing with a player using it to perform Mason actions. b) Players will be not so quick to clump their buildings together at the beginning of the game because it will be too expensive (players get extra victory points for their largest group of buildings). This gave other players the opportunity to stick one of their buildings between an opponent's squares to mess them up.

Finally all these changes made for the fastest, most satisfying game of The Fractured Lands ever! We played it in 75 minutes and I am sure after a few more plays with experienced players that the game will come in at under an hour.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading and I would be happy to respond to any questions, comments, suggestions, etc.

Cheers,

John Gibson