Ignacy Trzewiczek: Game Designer’s Journal #10 – Cleaning the Castle

[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 and #9.]

The concept of heroes running alongside walls, solving ongoing problems, started to wobble. It was troublesome, inconvenient, and most importantly the experimental alternative solution – placing central locations in the stronghold – worked elegantly and ably. Clearly, this was a point where I had to give up my initial vision and apply a more practical, elegant and simple solution. I started cleaning the castle.

In the hospital building I drew spaces for three wounded soldiers. If more soldiers than that are wounded in a round, the hospital will not manage to treat them all, and these soldiers will die. Plotwise it was interesting, heavy; rulewise, simple, perfect – only three spots. You may put three markers there and not one more. When the Priest ran along the walls earlier, there was no possibility to introduce such a rule. Thanks to the concept change, it became possible.

It looked good on the Sorcerer’s side, too. Previously he could only strengthen a section of the wall, but since I had a few square centimetres of the board, not only did I draw a beautiful tower, but also a few spells from which to choose. The Sorcerer would sit in the tower and could cast this spell, or that one or… The player had a choice. As you know, I’m obsessed with choices. I liked the choice.

I followed this trail and added more options to the workshop, too. Previously the Engineer could rebuild the wall; now it turned out he could also build an oil cauldron, put a ballista in the tower… The player would choose which action to take and… it happened.

I knew there was no going back to the heroes concept, that the original idea was going right into the archive. Making a few buildings inside the castle available for the player, where he can take various interesting actions, is a far better solution than my romantic ideas involving Gandalf running alongside the walls. Moreover, the further it went, the better it looked. Next to every action I drew spaces for the Hourglasses which the player would get from the Invader. Building a ballista took four Hourglasses, an oil cauldron took three. One spell cost two Hourglasses, another took four. The player had a range of possibilities, a small town full of buildings and possibilities to explore. There were choices, decisions; there was room for a castle defense plan.

During one of the first test games an event happened which buried the initial idea and made the castle locations win the battle to stay in Stronghold for good. At some point Salou generated five Hourglasses for me. I spent three building an oil cauldron, and the remaining two went to the Sorcerer’s tower, where he started preparing a spell. I didn’t have enough Hourglasses to finish it, so I just left those two there.

“Can you do that?” Salou asked.

“Of course, the guy is preparing a spell,” I answered. “As you can see, he hasn’t finished yet, but he will. You can be certain of that.”

I beamed. Plotwise it was wonderful – epic, colourful, vivid. During the game the Hourglasses went to different buildings and represented the crews working like ants on building and creating whatever they could. The player had under his nose whatever was happening in the castle. You could see builders constructing a ballista here, a Sorcerer working on a spell there. Here I put another Hourglass and phew, he’s finished, I have a ballista; there I still need to wait, I need two more Hourglasses, to have the Sorcerer finish…

I knew there was still a lot ahead of me, many weeks of creating actions that could be taken by the castle crew. I knew there would be the whole fun with balancing it all, and tens of details that will come out of this fun. Nevertheless I could proudly say: “This is ready. This will be in Stronghold. It works. Now we only need to polish it.”

These rules meant breaking with the original vision. They were an initially painful, but an inevitable step into the unknown. They were created because the original assumptions didn’t work, and forcing them into the game would break it. I could pass up, I could throw an idea over board and go look for another one. I could be wrong, but I think it’s important not to be bound to one thing, to have an open mind and always look for better solutions.

In any case, I won’t fool you. Although I introduced the buildings, actions and Hourglasses to the castle, I left a trace of the original vision, a romantic touch from the very first picture of Stronghold. Aragorn and Boromir would still fight on the walls. There was their place, on the walls. Not in the buildings inside the castle…

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