Ignacy Trzewiczek: Game Designer’s Journal #12 – Replayability

[Editor’s note: Portal Publishing’s Ignacy Trzewiczek, co-designer of the 2008 title Witchcraft, has been penning a weekly “game designer’s journal” for Games Fanatic.pl, detailing the origin and development of Stronghold, Portal’s 2009 Spiel release. This article series, now in English, will appear each Saturday on BGN until Trzewiczek runs out of material or Spiel is at our doors. Links to segments #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10 and #11.]

March 2009, Gliwice, a boardgame convention: I sit with Nataniel and Widlak from the Rebel.pl store, and we play Stronghold. They’re testing. They’re assessing. They’ll tell me what they think. They’ll say whether there’s potential in here. They’ll say whether it’s worth putting a lot of cash into this game. After all, they work for the biggest games store in Poland, they have a good perspective. Nataniel is complaining about the catapults hitting with six, Widlak is commenting, the game runs in a cheerful atmosphere.

“The catapults definitely need to change. I’m worried about replayability, the invader has this board with actions: catapult construction, ritual, dispatch, after a number of matches it’s going to be a pain. Otherwise it’s okay, this may become a hit,” says Nataniel after the match.

Phew… I wasn’t worried about replayability. I’ve been fascinated for years with the idea of the “plots” used in FFG’s Game of Thrones. Players use one special card from the plot deck, and this card changes a piece of the rules for that turn. Everyone receives more gold, for instance, or duels become more lethal, or no duels are allowed, etc. I had similar plans regarding Stronghold, so a few days later I brought two sets of cards to the office, one for the Invader, one for the Defender. Each of them would draw three cards before the game, and they could use them anytime during the game, each time changing the game itself. “Poisoned water” in the castle caused the hospital to stop working. “Riots in the barracks” meant all the goblins in the Invader’s camp were killed. I feel – I’ve always felt – that I’m strong plot-wise. These cards showed the life inside both players’ camps, events which were unexpected and demolished strategies and plans.

Exactly.

The cards introduced chaos. They changed a serious, static strategy game into mutual incident swapping right out of a card game. A game about siege planning, a game about planning a castle defence, a serious game and then bang, a card from the sky and your hospital is out. Bang, and a bleak fear falls on the men on the walls, and a few soldiers have to be sent back to the barracks… A discord. A dissonance. Wrong fairytale. This screwing each other up with cards didn’t fit the game at all. Plot-wise it was interesting, plot-wise it gave the game a kick because it told about events in the castle and the enemy camp in a colourful manner, but in terms of game mechanisms it was artificial, awkward. If that was supposed to be a means to ensure replayability, well… It was bad. I took the cards home.

A new day, a new idea. The same set of cards. The same rule of each player drawing three of them – but with one change. You don’t keep the cards in hand; instead they lay face-up on the table. The opponent sees what’s up your sleeve. He can prepare, he can expect that at some point you may play one of them and slap him. Plot-wise? Much weaker, for how do you explain that the castle Defender knows a “Fire in the chapel” is about to come? Mechanism-wise it was a bit better, with no sudden bangs, but instead something you can prepare for. And Stronghold-wise? In the case of this particular board game? Another failure. The players would paralyze each other with cards. Instead of thinking Stronghold-like, as in previous games – building cauldrons and catapults, preparing for the fight – they would wheel and deal to defend themselves from the cards. Stronghold slipped into the background. The main course was trying to screw up the opponent with an event card. We’re not going to play this way. I took the cards home.

A new day, a new idea. A new set of cards, specifically one set of cards instead of two. Instead of cards designed to screw up the other player, I now had a set of Events with a capital E. “Mighty downpour”: the archers in the castle can’t shoot; what’s more, the roads have softened up and troop movement towards the castle cost an Hourglass more. These plot events affected both players, and plot-wise it was splendid. The world around the castle has come alive: black clouds would gather above and the sun would shine through, armies of mercenaries would wander around, and a sound of distant earthquakes could be heard. Rule-wise it was good enough in the way that it didn’t boil down to hitting the other player like in a card game. The events were huge, epic!, thwarting both players’ plans. And how did it affect Stronghold? Better than all previous solutions. Good enough for us to grind the game with these rules for over two weeks.

Eventually, tired of the whole card mess, we gave it up. Big events turned the game upside-down and made the whole work on game balancing worthless. Three months of balancing the speed of troop movement together with the archers’ firing effectiveness on the walls went down in the mud as soon as we drew the “downpour” card. When we weakened the events so that they were interesting plot-wise but without too big of an effect on the rules, we questioned why we bothered with them in the first place; they didn’t ensure replayability at all because their effect on the game was minor. It was bad either way. Days and weeks passed, with tens of versions and types of event cards created – they’ll make a mighty interesting showcase one day – and we in the office felt that the cards were malfunctioning, that they were artificial. These cards were beside the game, beside its basic engine.

I threw the cards away. Brain restart. I’m looking for a new idea. It’s a day to day routine when working on a board game. Restart and again from scratch… Restart and again from scratch…

---

Comments:

You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free, but if you appreciate the news, previews, reviews and other material posted on Boardgame News, please consider becoming a member to keep the info flowing to your screen!

This continues to be a fantastic series; thank you so much for writing it, Ignacy.  But for me, it just corroborates how tough game design really is.  It makes me glad I’ve never really tried my hand at more elaborate games (most of the stuff I’ve created can be played with ordinary playing cards); I’m certain that I lack the committment and tenaciousness that Ignacy is showing with his design.  More power to all of you who run this gauntlet regularly, so that we have these great games to play! Posted by Larry Levy on Sep 26, 2009 at 01:56 PM | #

On the Island of Misfit Toys, there is an entire city populated with discarded game ideas and mechanics. Posted by Jeff Allers on Sep 28, 2009 at 03:33 AM | #

< Back Home