Game Preview: Kraków 1325 AD
By W. Eric Martin
September 17, 2008
Publisher: Geode Games
Designer: Peter Struijf
Players: 4
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 45 minutes
Release Date: September 2008
Language: Dutch and English
Links: 
If you want to introduce a game to new players, you can go to a café or place an ad on craiglist – or you can become a humanitarian aid worker and live in places like Indonesia, Tanzania and Kosovo for ten years. Peter Struijf took the latter route, playtesting the design for Kraków 1325 AD, his first attempt at boardgame design, on the Indonesians, Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos who were working alongside him in Calang, Indonesia during reconstruction efforts following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
“None of the playtesters had ever played a boardgame before, but [they] got hooked on it immediately,” says Struijf. “We used to play almost every weekend – we must have played between 100 and 200 games altogether. Each time I went home to Holland, I would quickly make a new version to continue testing.”
Two Against Two
Kraków 1325 AD is unusual for board games in that it’s designed for precisely four players, who split into teams of two. The teams try to gain influence over the city by manipulating the strength of four opposing groups – Secret Societies, Underworld, etc. – through the play of Intrigue cards. Pushing one of these groups into part of the city scores points for your team, but each player also has a secret identity card, so your teammate might be looking out for himself as much as the team when he supports a certain group. “The concept that each player has a permanent teammate – but one you cannot fully trust – was deeply appealing to me,” says Struijf. “I guess that says a few things about me psychologically…”
Even with only four identities, Struijf says that players learn how to adeptly disguise their identity – or perhaps he’s just a poor detective. “During all the games I played with my friends in Indonesia, I always found it very difficult to guess their secret identities, while a few other players seemed to always know what identity I had, as they got used to my style of play. Beginners are sometimes too obvious, which makes it easy to play against them. Once you learn that you must focus first on the team effort and include only subtle ways to help along your secret score (unless your Enemy is winning, which could cost you Victory Points), it gets quite difficult.”
While the setting is Poland during the Middle Ages – and artist Melchior van Rijn traveled to Krakow in 2007 for research – Struijf said that players will find modern parallels with the factions and events in the game, such as the “Military Rule” card that can be blocked by “Ox Cart Bombers” and the Angels of Hell Horse Riding Club. “The real ‘story’ of the game is not about Kraków or Polish history: it is a parody on medieval society, for which Kraków is the ‘stage,’” says Struijf. “The stories carry a universal message about human nature, about the impossibility to distinguish ‘good’ from ‘evil’ if you look beneath the surface, about struggles for power, where everybody lies and cheats – but in a very light-hearted way.”
Asked about the possibility of the number of players being restrictive, Struijf says, “Through the design process, I started to see this as a unique and novel feature, not a restriction. The four-player dynamics with secret identities make it unique. And while many games state proudly that they are for 2-6 players, the gamer soon finds out the game dynamics do not work equally well for different numbers. In Kraków 1325 AD, you do not need to worry: if you are four players, this will fit you like a glove!”
That said, Struijf has developed rules for three players in which players act on their own instead of in teams. To keep costs low on his initial design, he decided to hold off on the components needed for a three-player game, mentioning that an expansion might be published in the future depending on the success of the basic Kraków game.
Time to Design
Interestingly, while Struijf played games like Risk, Diplomacy, El Grande and Civilization in his youth, he says, “Since 2000 I’ve focused my own game time and energy almost exclusively on Advanced Squad Leader.” In fact, the inspiration for Kraków 1325 AD came during an August 2005 bus ride in Sweden while returning from an ASL tournament.
The next two years were spent playtesting and developing different versions of the game, including making the game less complex and balancing card values and special effects. “I tried to sell the game concept to two German boardgame publishers, but did not get positive reactions,” says Struijf. “One company said it was too complex for their product range (but gave some positive feedback). The other company was simply rude and refused to reply to emails or answer the phone for six months, so I gave up on it. After seeing the artwork of Melchior and his interest in the project, I realised it might be possible to produce the entire game ourselves, exactly the way we wanted it.” Thus followed untold hours on Corel Draw, website design, accounting, and promotion.
“It has been an amazing ride so far,” says Struijf, “and my stress levels are very high right now since the files are all at the printers, out of my hands!”
Editor’s note: Geode Games has arranged for Kraków 1325 AD to be sold at the Reiver Games booth (4-415) at Spiel 08.
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Sep 17, 2008 at 02:00 AM in Game Previews / 3362
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Definitely sounds interesting and fills a role that no other game in my collection does. I saw on BGG that you could preorder from Boards & Bits, so I did. Posted by John Carlton on Sep 17, 2008 at 05:48 PM | #
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