Kris Hall: Chris Taylor and Nemo’s War

Victory Point Games earned a mention on Boardgame News this week, but wargamers who follow the threads on Comsimworld may already be familiar with the company.  I’ve watched the positive comments accrue to Caesar XL, the game of the Roman Civil War that was designed by Joe Miranda.

I also took notice when I heard about Nemo’s War, a solitaire game based on the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea that will be published by Victory Point Games.  Some of the first novels I ever read as a boy were the science fiction works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and so this subject has a nostalgic appeal to me. 

Chris Taylor, the designer of Nemo’s War, agreed to an interview.

Kris: Is Nemo’s War your first design?  What is your background as a designer?

Chris: Nemo’s War will be my second published boardgame. My first game was Fleets 2025: East China Sea. I’ve been a computer game designer for almost 20 years. My published computer games include Fallout, Stonekeep, Starfleet Command and a bunch of other titles. Designing games is one of my hobbies, and since I’m not a programmer or an artist, I tend to design mostly board and card games in my spare time.

My regular gaming group is all current or ex-computer game developers, and we tend to play a lot of prototypes. Many of the games never amount to anything, but we’ve put a few of the better ones up on the web at www.zeroradiusgames.com for people to download and try.

Kris: How did you get the idea of turning Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea into a game?

Chris: I like to read e-books and was looking for something new. I was surfing Project Gutenberg when I came across the Verne novels. It had been years since I had read Twenty Thousand Leagues or From the Earth to the Moon and decided to give them a try. Just a few pages into the book, I realized what a neat game it would make.

Jules Verne wrote this book in 1869. It was a hundred years old when I was born and yet it still holds up remarkably well. About the only parts of the book that I couldn’t see using in a game were the taxonomy references!

Ideas about game mechanics bounced around my head for a while and then I started to put together a prototype. It was really exciting to see everything start to come together. Alan Emrich at Victory Point Games had published my Fleets game and they were the obvious choice to pitch the project to. Fortunately, they really liked the prototype.

Kris: Can you give me an overview of the game mechanics?  What is the player trying to accomplish?

Chris: The player takes the role of Captain Nemo and is in control of the Nautilus. There are six ocean regions the player can patrol. There are hidden ships that the player can stalk or attack, treasures to be found and adventure cards that offer challenges and events that are right out of the story.

The player’s goal is to accumulate victory points, but how many victory points and where they come from depends on Nemo’s motivation.  Is he a scientist searching the ocean’s floor for secrets or is he a man driven by vengeance and looking to overthrow the Imperial powers?  The player can decide at the beginning of the game what the motivation is and there is an opportunity for the player to change paths during
the game.

The core game mechanic is a test, a 2d6 dice throw against a target number, using one or more of the player’s resources: the mental strength of Nemo, the crew of the Nautilus and the submersible itself. The player can exert those resources to give a bonus to the test, but
if the test is failed, they automatically lose some of the resources.  If any of the resources are exhausted, the game ends in failure.

Combat is a specific kind of test. The target numbers depend on the type of ship being fought; an ironclad is more difficult than a frigate or a mail ship.

Kris: How does the player commit to a course of action?  Are there cards available that specify how many victory points are available for different actions?  The battle-the-Imperial-Powers course of action seems to the one most suited for a solitaire game (enemy units appearing on the board is a familiar mechanism for solitaire and cooperative games); how does a player pursue a science goal?

Chris: There are many ways of acquiring VPs: sinking ships (which give points both for individual sinkings plus bonus points for sinking ships all over the world), searching for treasure, finding a special type of treasure called wonders, successfully completing certain adventure cards and inciting insurgency around the world. All of these will give
VPs but the different motivations weight each one according to what is important for that motivation. Having a scientific motivation scores more points with adventure cards and wonders, for example.

The most straightforward goal is battling the Imperial Powers, but if you’re in a game where the combats are going against you, it might better for you to switch to finding treasures and burning through the adventure deck.

The player keeps track of their progress via cards, counters and markers on the map. At the end of the game, they total up their points (based on the motivation) and then look up the results on a table that gives them a paragraph describing the outcome of their overall
adventure.

Kris: What is the relative complexity level of the game?

Chris: The game mechanics and turn order are pretty straightforward. It’s not a terribly difficult game. On the old Avalon Hill scale of 1 to 10, it’s probably a 3 or so.

Kris: What part do Ned Land and Professor Aronnax (characters from the novel) play in the design?

Chris: They represent special resources that Nemo can draw upon. Unlike Nemo and his Crew, Ned, the Professor and the manservant Conseil can be used after a die roll to modify the results. They are like a safety net, but they can only each be used once. If you don’t use them by the end of the game, you earn more victory points.

Professor Aronnax and Ned are also featured prominently on the adventure cards, which have selected quotes from the book.

Kris: What was the biggest difficulty you had designing the game?  What are you most proud of in the design?

Chris: Currently, it’s finding the right balance between victory and defeat.  I want the player to walk a fine line, and to always feel challenged but never completely overwhelmed. It’s important for the player to choose when to gamble their resources and to know when it’s okay to fail a test.

I really like how the game captures the spirit of the book. The adventure cards are fun, whether they have you battling sharks, searching for giant pearls or traveling to the South Pole. It’s a truly extraordinary voyage.

Kris: When is the earliest that gamers could expect to see the game published?

Chris: We’re in the middle of playtesting and producing the art (the new map has a nice period feel to it, but it’s still in development.) It’s really up to Victory Point Games, the publisher, but they handcraft all of their games and once a game is ready to publication they can get it out very quickly. I’d expect Nemo’s War to be ready before the end of the year.

Kris: Thanks for the interview.

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