From Pisa to Jerusalem – A Game Designer’s Crusade

By Michele Mura
March 11, 2010

[Editor’s note: As I mentioned in a March 2010 news item, Jerusalem will make its public debut this coming weekend at the PLAY game festival in Modena, Italy, with copies on sale in April 2010 from Red Glove and later from ElfinWerks. (2-4 players, ages 12+, 90 minutes, $55/€40) Here, Mura talks about the origins of the game. —WEM]

The first basic idea of Jerusalem came up some years ago, specifically during 2003. I started the project with a friend of mine, Filippo, because we decided to make a game with four hands and two brains. The first background of the game was about our city: Pisa during the 12th century, when families struggled to build the highest house tower, a symbol of power and wealth.

Since the start of our development the two main mechanisms for interaction in the game were placement and majority. We chose to divide the city into five sectors with different revenues: money, men, and tower points. This last resource was the only way to build new floors for the tower and thus win the game.

We playtested the game quite a lot – at least one hundred times but maybe many more – and when we thought it was ready, we sent the prototype to two very important German publishers. They liked the game but told us that it needed more improvement; in other words, it was not yet ready to be published.

It took some years for me to take the project into my hands once again, but this time I was alone in the development process and with some experience from my two previously published games, Easy School and Lungarno. I collected a lot of suggestions and advice from many playtesters, who I wish to thank a lot. (Also, Andreas Seyfarth shared with me some very good ideas to get a better game.) The main problems involved balancing the different roles, the length of the game, and some other things about the building of the towers.

Together with my publisher, Federico Dumas, a.k.a. Mr. Red Glove, we chose to change the background and found that Jerusalem during the First Crusade fit very well with the game system and also with other key features. Players now take on the roles of European families who conquered Jerusalem. I also interviewed two experts to get a lot of information about Jerusalem and its medieval history.

The goal I wanted to reach was to obtain a game with a very simple rule set without any exceptions – but at the same time give players a lot of freedom with many opportunities to get control and win the game.

I worked a lot on this new version of the game – another sixty or seventy times played – and I added a lot of new features and fine tuned the main core to balance everything. I removed a lot of glitches that slowed the flow, I changed significantly the event system, added special powers to the roles, introduced a completely new building system for tower floors, and focused on the general gaming experience. Jerusalem is not another majority game in which you have to collect the most victory points, but a more original mix between worker placement and majority. What I like best about it is that you have to reduce your power to win…

Only one technical note: In the very first version of the game, you built a new floor for each four tower points but you lost any excess points. Now, building costs are progressive, and you have to pay extra when you are the first builder of the highest floor.

Another key aspect of this product is the graphics. We worked hard with two clever Italian artists, Guido and Eva, to create a dramatic game board with realistic graphics and colors but with a very distinctive profile. They drew many sketches to evaluate a lot of different scenes and combinations, and we consulted books and pictures to take inspiration. For the cover we chose to focus on the knight as the important subject, and I like a lot the final logo of the game.

What I have to say last is that I’m very eager to discover what gamers will think about it. Jerusalem is quite a lot deeper than Lungarno; it’s nastier than that previous game, and players have to think about their moves with attention. After seven years to get the final product, I hope your games with Jerusalem will be as adventurous as my journey though its publishing!

Comments: