by Peter Prinz

... or: How to Spend Almost Six Years Developing a Game When All You Wanted Was to Improve a Prototype

Hi, I'd like to give you a little glimpse into how Sixty Below came to life.
In the second half of the 2010s, Alex Pfister established a group of Vienna-based game designers that met weekly at Café Sperlhof, a traditional gaming café in Vienna's 2nd district. Ideas were born there, prototypes were tested, games were torn apart, and sometimes even improved.

Cafe Sperlhof in 2019

Then came March 15, 2020.

With Austria's first nationwide COVID lockdown, the café closed its doors. And, as it later turned out, forever. So we had to improvise.
Alex Pfister, Wolfgang Warsch, Tino Jokic, and I quickly decided to move our regular meetings to my basement. For about two years, week after week, we tested, debated, discarded, improved, and started over again.

During that time, we created or completed, among other things, Cloud Age (the first game published by Tino's new company nanox.games), Wolfgang's The Same Game and Quacks Dash, my own Comet, Alex's Boonlake, and numerous other projects. Some of them may eventually be published. Others will probably never see the light of day.

Wolfgang and Alex playtesting in my basement

Tino and me during a playtesting break playing something else
At some point during those basement sessions, I asked Alex whether he'd be interested in taking a space-themed prototype we'd already tested a few times, one that worked "well enough," and turning it into a good game.
A really good game.
An exceptionally good game.
What followed turned out to be a journey that lasted longer than originally planned.
Much longer.
Although, to be fair... we never really had a plan.

Early Prototype

Another Early Prototype

79 Versions Later
In autumn 2024, after four and a half years of development and a total of 79 versions, we were convinced:

Sixty Below was finished.
All that remained was the final balancing.
For those of you who don't know:
The phrase "all that remains is balancing" belongs in roughly the same category as "I'll only need five more minutes" when you're packing up an entire apartment for a move.
In other words: the finish line was close, but somehow never got any closer.
What did get closer was SPIEL 2025. And then, seemingly without warning, autumn 2025 arrived and we still weren't completely satisfied.
So we kept working.
And working.
And then a little more.
Sometime in February or March of 2026...

Done !!!!!

The final change.
At least for the time being.
SPIEL 2026, here we come.

From the Basement to a Hotel, and from Paper to a Computer

The first two years of development took place almost entirely in my basement. Every month brought two or three new versions. For each of them, new cards, new tiles, and new rulebooks had to be printed.

The same four testers.
Sometimes only three.
Sometimes only two.
But always the same discussions.
And pizza.
Lots and lots of pizza.

After the COVID years ended, we found a new home in the lobby of a Vienna hotel. At the same time, Alex revived the Vienna game designer gatherings, which finally allowed us to test the prototype with people outside our regular group. Suddenly publishers, fellow designers, heavy gamers, and many other wonderful people were sitting at the table. That brought countless new perspectives. And at least as many new problems to light.

By that point, my printer had probably produced well over 1,000 pages for this prototype alone.

Alex playtesting a later version at Hotel Bassena
Eventually, at Alex's suggestion, we switched development to Tabletop Simulator. We still created a few printed versions until we were certain the game worked properly on a real table, but from then on the development process became almost entirely digital. My printer was very grateful, and I suspect Alex's printer was too.

Alex and Tino playing the final printed version together with Markus Slawitscheck and Stefano di Silvio
A Thematic World Tour
The game's theme also went on a remarkable journey.
It started in space … then it moved to Earth … then into the future … then into the desert.
And finally into the past, or more precisely, Antarctica.
From the outside, that may sound somewhat chaotic.
From the inside, it looked exactly the same.
In fact, almost everything changed during development.

The Sole Survivor
Mechanically speaking, there is only one major element that survived the entire development process: The Expedition Track as it exists today.
In earlier versions it was called the Research Track, later the Technology Track, and probably a few other names we no longer remember. At its core, however, it always remained the same thing. Everything else was eventually replaced, improved, simplified, or reinvented entirely.

The Key Elements
If you asked me today which three elements define Sixty Below, I'd probably answer:
The simultaneous action system combines deckbuilding with tactical decisions about how many cards to play each round, while keeping luck to a minimum.
The fact that workers (which we call Explorers) remain on the spaces where they are placed until the end of the game, continuing to serve a function and permanently shaping the landscape of the board.

The fact that, despite having 240 cards, the game contains no hand of cards. New cards can only be purchased from a personal, open Project Display.
Although... there is also the connection between buying cards and discovering new terrain … and the fact that deckbuilding works in only six rounds because new cards are always purchased directly onto your draw pile … and the limitation of only five additional workers for the entire game, which prevents an "extra worker strategy" from dominating … and the fact that, despite being a central part of the experience, the game doesn't make building large numbers of stations particularly easy ...

Okay, that was definitely more than three. So what …

The Publisher
Shortly before Christmas 2023, we still had no idea where this prototype's journey would eventually lead. At exactly that moment, Tino offered to publish the game through nanox.games. The decision was made remarkably quickly.

On one hand, we've been friends for years. On the other hand, we knew that in this setup the three of us would be able to accompany the entire editorial and development process together until completion.

Looking back, it was probably one of the easiest decisions of the whole project.

The Artist
As the illustrator, Tino once again teamed up with Martin Mottet, with whom he created the outstanding Evenfall in 2023. The artwork for Sixty Below speaks for itself.

Some card design drafts

3D Rendering of final game

3D Rendering of final cards

3D Rendering of player board including rewood meeples

Today
Today, nearly six years separate the first space prototype in my basement from the finished version of Sixty Below.
Those years contained countless playtests, 79 versions, well over a thousand printed pages, probably hundreds of hours of discussion, and a very large number of phone calls between Alex and me.
And the result is a game.
Just a game.
A game.
Game, game, game...
And if these six years have proven one thing yet again, it's this:
A game is only truly finished when absolutely nobody can think of another improvement. Which is usually about two weeks after publication.
Coincidentally, in this particular case, that would fall almost exactly on my birthday