Brumble Quest is a peculiar inclusion in Plaid Hat’s catalog. Unlike their other touchstones, whether expandable duelers like Ashes and Summoner Wars or comedy adventures in the vein of Forgotten Waters, it’s a diminutive thing with minimal components, a ten-minute playtime, and — oh yeah — it only sells in sync with big conventions. Fortunately, that means during conventions, not at them; online ordering is still a possibility for those of us unable or unwilling to make the annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis.
For such an odd duck, though, it’s… kinda great? Designed by J. Arthur Ellis, Brumble Quest is a prisoner’s dilemma game for pretty much any number of players. Minimum three. But as many as fifty out of the box. With a projector and laser pointers, theoretically it could go even higher.
It’s all location location location.
Down at its roots, Brumble Quest is familiar enough. Every round seeds three new locations onto the table. At the count of “One, Two, Three, Brumble” — I know, it’s cheesy — everyone points at the location they intend to visit. Depending on the outcome, players then take home some quantity of loot and/or suffer an injury.
There are two things that set it apart. First, the production. Rather than gussying itself up with a whole to-do, Brumble Quest is as minimal as they come. In lieu of tokens for loot and wounds, each player receives a peel-off hero from a pad, then folds its corners to track their current wealth and health. The rules are compressed onto a single card, front and back, and takes so little time to internalize that it’s closer to hopping into a childhood classic than learning something new. As for the locations, there are only fourteen. That’s a slender deck indeed, all but guaranteeing you’ll see repeats within a session.
But the second point is that the locations are nicely diversified, even if there aren’t many to play with, and really it’s the way they combine and conflict and, even at times, pre-solve their own conundrums, that make the game so special.
I’ll give an example. Let’s say the current trio is the Lonesome Peak, the Shadow Wastes, and the Cursed Prison. That first location provides four gems, but you’ll take damage if you visit it unless it’s the least visited destination. The Shadow Wastes are even more tempting: five gems, and you avoid damage if everyone is pointing there but one player. But then there’s the Cursed Prison, a locale very unlike the others. It subtracts a gem, but everyone at the table will suffer a wound unless at least one adventurer goes there.
No time to think. One. Two. Three. Brumble. (Ugh.)
Measuring health and loot is done by folding a paper tracker. Cheaper than tokens!
The beauty of these social conundrums lies in their clarity. The stakes are always perfectly clear, barring an unfortunate misunderstanding. But this clarity is sharply contrasted with the slow departure of objectives at the table, not to mention the sheer uncertainty of human behavior.
For instance, how does the previous scenario alter if you’re the player with the least remaining health? How about the most? What if your score is meager so you’re trying to drive everyone else into an early grave? Sure, all things being equal, everyone should do the optimal thing, right? But get together a half-dozen players and it becomes clear pretty quickly that “the optimal thing” may be a matter of interpretation.
And, sure, sometimes the game coughs up a problem that really does feel solved. More than once, I’ve looked down at a trio and thought, wow, why would anybody ever go to that one spot? But, again, people are unpredictable. Almost as often as Brumble Quest seems to proffer a solved dilemma, someone at the table has appeared hell-bent to un-solve it.
The result is a pleasantly crisp little thing. There are no character abilities, no sudden reversals. Some locations might bump your health up a notch, but that’s a rare outlier. For the most part, it’s you, your friends, and pockets that grow heavier while your blood supply gets lighter. That’s it. Honestly, anything else would clutter the experience.
These fellas had better’ve washed.
Barring the addition of extra junk, this is nigh-perfect in its restraint. Maybe Plaid Hat won’t be able to help themselves. Last I checked, the second edition of Summoner Wars was up to thirty factions. (Yes, I have all of them.) (Yes, they are amazing.) (No, I probably won’t have time to write about them.)
Then again, maybe not. As I understand it, Brumble Quest may soon have peers, other teensy-tiny boxes that provide their own miniature siblings. For this game in particular, I’m hard-pressed to imagine it getting any better. This is a true pocket game, slender enough it could have been compressed into one of those plastic Button Shy wallets. I expect it’ll make for a good candidate at our family dinner this weekend.
A complimentary copy of Brumble Quest was provided by the publisher.
(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read the next installment in my series Talking About Games, this time tackling the topic of what makes a good list! Naturally, the piece includes a list.)
Ever play a game that you want to love, that you think you should love, but when you play it, you don’t, and you keep playing anyway, hoping you’ll fall in love with it? For me, that game is Smash Up by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). On paper, the concept is fantastic. The “shufflebuilding” premise […]
Am I actually the person acting like a jerk right now?
I participate in a wide variety of discussions on the internet (mostly in relation to tabletop games), and on occasion I will find myself responding to some aggravating comments. It’s in those moments when I’m pounding away at the keyboard that I try to step back and ask myself, “Wait, am I being a jerk?”
Sometimes the answer is no. But sometimes, sure enough, my response isn’t kind (or at least neutral), and that is directly counter to my goal of building community. Regardless of how the other person is acting, I have control over my own behavior.
There are various versions of this question; here are some others that I ask myself (and often wish others would ask themselves):
Would I speak differently if the other person was a friend or if I was face to face with them?
Is the phrasing of my question, request, or post aligned with the outcome I’m hoping to achieve? (i.e., if I start a conversation by calling a game “a total joke”, I shouldn’t be surprised when the ensuing conversation ignores my more salient points)
Is this an opportunity to ask a question instead of assuming or declaring? (i.e., it’s really important to get the facts straight before forming conclusions. See also this open letter to the internet.)
Am I addressing the right person for this criticism or question? (i.e., if I have a question about a game in a specific language or digital format, am I asking the correct publisher/developer?)
What if everyone requested this or asked this privately? (i.e., if 1,000 people asked this same question, would that be fair to the person I’m asking? See also the value of public questions.)
I truly believe that the internet would be a better place if we more consistently asked ourselves a self-awareness question. So I asked Stonemaier ambassadors to see if any of them had a question along these lines, and they had some great responses beyond those listed above. Here are a few of the 100+ questions they shared:
art from Origin Story
Am I participating in this discussion to be helpful or I just have something to prove?
Does this affect my daily life? If so, is there anything I can do about it?
Is this helping or hurting?
Will this comment help anything/anyone?
What am I trying to achieve?
Am I treating this person like a person, or like a symbol of something I dislike?
Am I responding to what they actually said or to the worst interpretation of it?
Am I expecting others to think the way I do?
Deep breath, how would I want someone to respond to me on this?
Does my comment add value to the conversation?
Would I be happy with what I wrote if I come back to the thread and reread it in the future?
If I did not know me and my intentions, what would be my first reaction to reading what I wrote?
Is my response furthering a meaningful discussion or just adding fuel to the fire?
Is my comment on topic?
Is this really worth letting someone who has no real impact on my life get me upset?
What am I actually upset about that is provoking this reaction from me?
What am I missing?
What implicit bias do I have that is making me react this way?
What is driving my need to respond right now?
What is the right thing to do/say?
What would my mom/spouse think if they saw me acting this way?
Would I do/say this in a professional setting?
Do you have a go-to self-awareness question that helps you be the best version of yourself on the internet? Let me know in the comments.
A review copy of Vantage was kindly provided by Stonemaier Games. Thoughts & opinions are my own. Vantage landed last year with a lot of hype behind it. Jamey Stegmaier’s baby, years in incubation, landed on tables with a heavy thump as grateful storks departed. The premise is huge. Vast even. Remarkably, Vantage manages to deliver on many of its lofty goals, but I think there’s a lot of…
Excelsior, heroes, and welcome to a Meeple Mountain article for Marvel: Crisis Protocol! Today, we’re here to talk about the newest wave of releases for MCP, as your favorite evil robots join the battle. But that’s not all—we have not only fresh models to enjoy, but a whole new set of missions that aim to shake up the meta game! As we say goodbye to the previous 1.5 years of missions, these new ones promise to change the game entirely.
Quick refresher if you've never picked up MCP: this is a skirmish game where you build a squad of Marvel characters - usually four or five, pulled from a larger roster you build ahead of time—depending on how much "threat" (basically their power level and cost) you can afford, and throw them at each other across a comic-book cityscape. You win by controlling objectives called secures and extracts, not by wiping out your opponent, though plenty of games end with someone getting tabled anyway (losing every model on the table). Power is the currency that fuels your abilities, and you earn it mostly by dealing and taking damage, which is why a change to how power works can ripple through the entire game. Got it? Good, because that's exactly what just happened. And that ripple effect is exactly why this…
Welcome to this week’s batch of crowdfunding campaigns. We have a variety of offerings here, so we hope you will find something that catches your eye. Also, if you want to chat with the BGQ team, join our Discord Server where we talk about games, movies, sports, and other fun stuff. Check it out and […]
We met Akar Bharadvaj while attending SDHistCon in 2023 and played his award winning design Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947 and very much enjoyed the experience and talking with him about game design. Since that time, he has been working on another designer called Chalice of Poison: The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 from GMT Games, which was announced in March on their P500. Chalice of Poison is the first volume in a new series that models complex conflicts not only as clashes between adversaries in the air, land, and sea, but also as political struggles within the regimes and military forces fighting it. We reached out to Akar and he was more than willing to share.
*Keep in mind that the design is still undergoing playtesting and development and that any details or component pictures shared in this interview are for prototype purposes and will definitely change prior to final publication as they enter the art department.
Grant: Akar welcome to our blog. First off please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
Akar: Thanks, Alex and Grant! It’s great to be here. I live in sunny Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from our nation’s capital. Besides board games, I enjoy travel, museums, graphic design, bad movies, comedy shows, and nice meals. As for my day job, I work as professional wargame designer. I work on teams that make analytic games and tabletop exercises to help policymakers think through challenging issues related to international relations. That said, Chalice of Poison is solely a personal project, and does not reflect my day job or the views of my employer.
Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
Akar: I’ve always enjoyed board games since I was a kid, and have gotten into historical games in the last 15 years or so. I flirted with the idea of designing my own for years, but then I actually decided to design one in 2020 when I heard about the Zenobia Award, which is a competition and mentorship program for historical games on underrepresented topics. I was looking for a good project to distract me from the ongoing pandemic, so I entered the contest on a lark, not expecting it to go anywhere. But Zenobia did a great job of helping me walk gradually through the game design process, and before I knew it, I was hooked. When the award project finished, I learned that I had won first place. But more importantly, I had discovered a new passion.
My two favorite things about game design are the creative process and the people. I find the creative process immensely satisfying. I get to analyze systems, experiment, and iteratively solve problems and improve a process, and there’s few consequences to failing! If I find that a design doesn’t work, I can just move on to another one, and hopefully return at some point in the future. It’s a beautiful process, and one that actually feels a lot like playing a game.
I also love the people I’ve met through game design. I’ve made lots of designer friends through various cons, and it’s always a delight playing games with them, talking about game design, and just chatting. I always leave cons full of inspiration and ideas, and it’s largely due to all the great people in this field.
Grant: What was it like winning the 2021 Zenobia Award for Tyranny of Blood? Where does this game stand at the present time?
Akar: Winning the award was one of the greatest moments of my life. As I mentioned earlier, I started designing the game just to see what it was like, and I didn’t expect it to go anywhere. (If I knew there would eventually be interest, I would’ve designed a simpler game as my first one!) So, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that I won, and was excited at how much interest it received.
For those who do not know, Tyranny of Blood is about changes to the Indian social structure under British colonialism, through the lens of the caste system. I designed a fully playable game during the Zenobia Award process, but like so many first designs, it had a bit of a “kitchen sink” approach, and had far too many layers placed on top of each other.
I realized that the game had lots of great elements, but it had some flaws at its core, and so I needed to redesign lots of it. The topic is a difficult one, both ethically and in terms of complexity, so I needed to get the game right to do justice to the subject matter and avoid creating something offensive. On top of all that, the rapid prototyping during the Zenobia process left me exhausted (in a good way). So, I decided to take a break from it, and work on other games in the meantime to improve my game design skills before I can return to Tyranny. Now that Chalice is in development, I can return to that project. That said, it’s been a while, so I need to read through my notes and remember all the nuances of the topic.
While attending SDHistCon in November 2023, we played Tyranny of Blood with Akar and had a great time. We shot the following video interview at the time and you can watch that at the following link:
Grant: What is your upcoming game Chalice of Poison about?
Akar: Chalice of Poison is about the Iran-Iraq War, which took place in the 1980’s. The game focuses on the interplay between external conflict and internal regime stability. You play as one of the two countries, and you are trying to improve your military effectiveness so that you can win the war, without making your military so effective that it becomes a threat to your own regime. Players can win the game if they capture certain objectives in the war, or they can lose if their regime collapses due to political challenges.
The actual combat resolution and prosecution of the war is only one part of the game; the other part is managing your regime and ensuring it does not fall to internal threats, whether that be generals who instigate a coup d’etat or dissident groups fighting against your government.
Grant: What should the name convey to players about the history of the Iran-Iraq War?
Akar: The phrase “chalice of poison” comes from a quote from Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. When he signed the ceasefire agreement in 1988 that ended the war, without any major concessions despite all the bloodshed, he described it as “more deadly than drinking from a chalice of poison.”
Additionally, I found the evocative phrase to be an appropriate name for a game about accepting risk and making sacrifices to achieve objectives. The game is full of hard decisions that seem enticing at first, but end up doing internal damage.
On a lighter note, ever since Tyranny of Blood, I’ve been trying to give each of my designs a name that sounds like a heavy metal album.
“Taking this decision is more deadly than drinking from a chalice of poison.” ~ Ayatollah Khomeini, on accepting the ceasefire that ended the Iran-Iraq War
Grant: What is the new series called? What type of games might be included?
Akar: I haven’t been able to find that perfect name yet, despite coming up with a long list of ideas. So, the series doesn’t yet have a name. If anyone has an idea, I would love to hear them! Please sound off in the comments.
The system best models historical conflicts where major dynamic changes occurred within the halls of state power and the military command structure, rather than with territorial exchanges on the battlefield. So, future games in the series could model other conflicts where weak states fought each other while dealing with significant internal tensions. There are no shortage of those throughout history, from the modern Middle East to 1960’s Vietnam to Ancient Rome.
Grant: What games have you used as inspiration for your design?
Akar: I tend to prefer historical games that include strong political dynamics over straightforward wargames. So, a major point of inspiration has been the Great Statesmen Series, to include Congress of Vienna, Versailles 1919, and Churchill. Those games do an excellent job of demonstrating the interplay between peace negotiations and warfare, and it inspired a lot of the ideas I had about war being played in two phases, and how the two interact with each other. Instead of the connection between fighting war and negotiating peace, I focused on the connection between fighting war and improving military effectiveness. From a purely user experience perspective, I enjoy the tactile feel of placing cubes on cards that was in Versailles 1919, and the mechanic seemed to work well in this game.
Additionally, the war mechanics are loosely based on the States of Siege Series, though with a lot of complexity added. That system offers a simple push-pull model for combat, which I employed for a 2-player tug-of-war. I needed a fairly simple mechanism at the core, so that I could layer many other mechanics on top of it without overwhelming players.
Lastly, one of the solitaire modes is inspired by Mark Herman’s Peloponnesian War, a genius solitaire game where players face off against a bot, but if they begin to defeat the bot by too much, they then switch sides and have to fight against everything they set up in previous turns.
Grant: How have you used and followed the academic research of Dr. Caitlin Talmadge?
Akar: Dr. Talmadge’s 2015 book The Dictator’s Army explores the question of why some authoritarian regimes, especially so-called “strongman regimes,” are ironically so bad at fighting war. Her research delves deeply into 2 case studies: Iran versus Iraq, and North versus South Vietnam.
Her argument is that the factors that reduce the threat of coups also reduce military effectiveness at fighting adversaries. The ideal military promotes based on merit, trains troops robustly, incentivizes open and honest communication, and empowers junior officers to improvise within reason. Conversely, strongman regimes tend to do the opposite: promoting based on sycophancy, avoiding training, incentivizing lies and secrecy, and making all decisions through an inefficient centralized command structure. These traits help dictators feel more secure, but they make militaries less flexible to deal with changing circumstances.
This argument underpins the core argument of Chalice of Poison. The main thrust of the game is reforming your military to improve each of those four factors, but at a cost to your own political power.
Grant: What is important to model or include in a game about the Iran-Iraq War?
Akar; A game on the Iran-Iraq War needs to provide a very specific incentive structure, by which players feel the hubris of thinking a quick victory is possible, but also a deep sense of desperation when things go poorly. It also requires mechanics for dealing with internal stability within each country, and being able to affect stability in the adversary’s country. Lastly, such a game must afford players the latitude to take a wide variety of actions; the story of the Iran-Iraq War is two countries quickly falling into a stalemate, and then experimenting with a large number of strategies and unsavory steps to break the stalemate and achieve victory.
Grant: What challenges did you encounter in the design? How have you overcome them?
Akar: I had to design the game carefully to reflect some misperceptions that the actual historical figures had. We know now that the Iran-Iraq War was an enormous catastrophe for both countries, but the game had to give players some false hope that the game could end at any turn. As such, I had to implement a variable game length, with victory conditions that contract as the game progresses. I had to pace the game well so that players always feel like they’re on the verge of victory (or collapse), and I think the game is nearly there.
The early iterations for the game were very mathy, with a lot of dice roll modifiers and additions to provide bonuses for military reform. It wound up not being fun; either players would have their eyes glaze over due to the excessive math, or they would try to calculate every little decision and descend into analysis paralysis. Instead, I replaced all the bonuses with card play mechanisms, which thematically worked, because it gave players more flexibility to deal with bad situations. I replaced most of the math with a simple card color-matching system.
The game has a unique action costing system that requires players to push their luck, carefully budgeting their political power or else risk losing it all (and the game). I learned that most players instinctually spend their full action allotment, so if I give them 10 points, they want to spend 10 points! So, I had to add in some “brakes” to stop new players from losing the game immediately.
I had 2 additional in-game challenges that I needed to solve. One was how to depict the more unsavory aspects of the conflict, such as chemical weapons and human wave attacks, which were historical atrocities, but necessary to tell the story of this conflict. Typically, a game would have a penalty or cost for doing such things, but in the actual historical case, neither country actually suffered a penalty for these actions until well after the war. Additionally, I needed to balance the game a bit more, to give the losing side a chance. I quickly realized that both of these challenges could actually solve each other. I created a “Desperate Measures” mechanic that allows the losing side to catch up a bit, but at a moral cost.
Grant: What is the scale of the game? Force structure of units?
Akar: The game plays at the political and strategic level, so it is pretty abstract. It models the conflict along up to six fronts: the air, three or four different ground fronts, and the naval front. Each one has an abstracted military strength represented by zero to six wooden chevrons. Each side has one air force, one navy, and three different ground forces: the elite guard, the regular army, and the paramilitary. Each of these five forces has a commander in charge of it. That is as complex as the game’s force structure gets; it does not model more specific units or officer ranks.
Grant: What is each player’s overall goal in the game? What does this mean?
Akar: Each player is trying to win the war while preserving their regime.
Winning the war means capturing a certain amount of territory. Most spaces on the map contain stars representing the relative importance of that space. A player advances on the War Progress Track one space for each star captured. Additionally, the War Progress Track includes an Objective counter that starts at 10, but decreases as the game goes on, representing war-weariness and a reduction in expectations for what players define as “victory.” If a player’s War Progress meets or exceeds the current Objective, that player wins the war (and the game). Of note, a player can potentially win even with zero points, which reflects what happened in real life.
Preserving the regime means holding onto political power cubes within the Regime pool on the board. If the Regime pool has zero cubes in it, the player’s regime falls and that player loses. Cubes move out of the Regime pool when players reform their military, improve their commanders, face problems with dissidents, or fight against a coup d’etat. The fewer cubes in the Regime pool, the higher the risk of internal problems erupting.
Grant: How do players go about developing a professional army that values competence and skill?
Akar: Players start with a “coup-proof” military that is pretty ineffective at fighting, but they can expend political power, and thereby accepting risk to their regimes, to make reforms.
Grant: What actions are available to players to reform their military?
Akar: Players have four major actions they can take. They can coordinate to allow commanders to communicate openly with each other and their underlings, empower their forces in the field to make decisions for themselves, promote commanders based on competence instead of personal loyalty or family ties, and train existing commanders to be better at fighting. Each of these actions has four different levels; players can upgrade the actions to improve their effectiveness, but at a cost of political power.
Grant: What are the costs of this process? How do players manage these threats?
Akar: The costs of each action comes in political power cubes. Each action starts at level zero, which does not cost anything, but is not very useful. Players can make reforms, which essentially upgrades each of these actions one step at a time, up to level four. Upgrading to a higher level requires placing that number of cubes on that card. Actually taking actions usually has an additional cost in power cubes.
Players need to “push their luck” to best achieve reforms gradually. Doing too much too fast is a recipe for disaster. Players can spend a large number of cubes each turn, but they will not necessarily get them all back at the end of the turn. Reforming too quickly can threaten regime stability. To protect against these threats, players will need to go slow, keeping enough political power behind to stabilize their regimes, but inaction can also be risky if it means losing the war.
Grant: What is the Turn Sequence?
Akar: The game has up to 9 turns, each representing a year from 1980 to 1988. Each turn has 4 phases:
In the Planning Phase, players issue hidden orders for six fronts to carry out this turn.
In the Action Phase, players reform their militaries so that they can improve the likelihood that these orders are successful.
In the Battle Phase, players resolve orders, change territorial control, fight dissident groups, and learn lessons for future battles.
Finally, in the Unrest Phase, players face internal threats, to include popular outcry, dissident groups, and coup attempts.
Grant: How are hidden orders issued?
Akar: Each front has a space for an order tile, which players place face-down during the Planning Phase, so that they are secret from the other player. Each order tile has four options, which are chosen by how players rotate their tile:
Attack allows players to start a battle against the adversary, and to advance into their territory if they have a stronger force after the battle.
Defend allows players to fight against an attacker at an advantage, and to bring in a small amount of reinforcements, but does not permit advancement.
Subjugate (Air and Ground only) allows players to fight a battle against dissidents.
Attack Tankers (Navy only) allows players to threaten the adversary’s political power.
Regroup allows players to bring in a large amount of reinforcements, but not to fight in any battle that occurs.
Air and Naval forces have one order tiles each, but Ground forces have three different order tiles, representing the three different ground forces in the game: the Guard, Regular Army, and Paramilitary. The more elite the ground force, the earlier it gets to execute its order and deal damage, which gives it a slight advantage in combat.
Grant: How is combat handled?
Akar: Combat strength is a function of 3 different factors:
The Order tile, which represents orders from on high, determines whether a battle occurs, and if it does, which order the forces use to deal damage.
The Commander card, which represents high-level military leadership, determines the damage the front will do that turn. Each commander has a hit value for each of three battle suits: Fervor, Discipline, and Leadership.
The Battle card, which represents forces in the field, determines which suit on the Commander is used to deal hits on the opposing force. A new Battle card is drawn during each battle.
For each hit defined in the previous step, players remove one military strength, represented by wooden chevrons, from that front. If an attacking front is stronger than the opposing front, it may advance and capture enemy territory, for some bonuses.
In each battle where one side deals more damage than the other, the active Commander learns a lesson about how to fight, which changes his stats. Of note, not every lesson is a good one; some lessons can actually make the Commanders worse at fighting; for instance, if it makes them complacent or arrogant.
Grant: What elements of unrest confront the players? How do they handle these challenges?
Akar: Unrest comes in 3 forms, during the Unrest phase:
Public outcry occurs if a player does not attack in a given turn. This removes a political power cube from the game.
Dissidents represent groups that threaten the regime’s power. The strongest dissident group on the map each turn has a massive negative effect, the second strongest has a moderate penalty, and the other three have a slight penalty. If left unchecked, the dissident groups can cause major chaos, but any troops dedicated to fighting dissidents are necessarily not fighting the adversary, so balance is important.
Coup attempts may break out if a commander has more political support than the regime. Each commander has a number of cubes on the card, which corresponds to his risk to the regime and typically corresponds with his competence. If a commander (or a group of commanders allowed to coordinate) has more cubes than the regime, a coup attempt may break out, and then the player will have to fight battles against the rebellious commander(s).
Grant: How does the design use cards?
Akar: The game has 4 types of cards:
Action cards allow players to choose from among four different military changes each turn, as listed above. Players can “reform” or upgrade these actions to have more of an effect, at the cost of political power.
Personnel cards represent the major figures involved in the conflict. They are dual use cards:
When horizontal, they are Commander cards, meaning that the person on the card now Commands forces. These Commanders each have different strengths across three suits (discipline, fervor, and leadership), which dictate how much damage they do each turn.
When vertical, they are Battle cards, meaning that they are forces in the field who are actually fighting the enemy. Battle cards dictate which suit on the Commander deals damage in a given fight.
Dissident cards represent the negative penalties from the five dissident groups that are in the game. Each turn, during the Unrest phase, players draw one of these cards, which determines what effect they have. The strongest dissident group this turn has a major penalty, the second-strongest has a moderate penalty, and the other three groups have a small penalty.
Grant: What is the layout of the board? What do the point to point tracks represent?
Akar: The War Map is a point-to-point map, which was a necessary design choice because the terrain along the Iran-Iraq border only allows approaches through specific narrow corridors, to avoid marshes, mountains, and other rough terrain. Additionally, the amount of land that each side managed to capture in the war was miniscule, so having a map to scale made little sense.
The map has different squares representing ground territory and sea locations. Black squares are Iraqi-controlled at game start, and red ones are Iranian-controlled. Each space has icons: stars are Victory Points, representing strategically and symbolically important areas; circles are Economy, representing oil infrastructure and sea lanes, and hexagons show the presence of dissident groups.
Beyond the map is a series of tracks representing the current turn, the strength of each country’s economy, and the current war progress (i.e., the winning side’s victory points and current objective).
Additionally, each side of the board has an area to show each regime’s current political power and active military commanders.
Grant: How is victory achieved?
Akar: The most important spaces on the board have stars on them, which represent victory points. Every time a side captures a starred space, the War Progress counter advances that many spaces. (Of note: this value is zero-sum, so only the War Progress of the winning side is marked; if the winning side flips, the counter flips to show that the other side is winning.)
Additionally, an Objective counter, marked with a dove, represents the current victory condition. The game begins with the Iraqi side having maximalist objectives, but as the game progresses, each side is willing to scale down their goals and definition of “victory.” So, the Objective counter moves left each turn, and additionally moves due to player actions.
If the War Progress counter ever meets or exceeds the Objective marker at the end of the Battle Phase, the game ends and that side is the winner! Of note, a side can even win with zero victory points, which probably was the real-world historical outcome.
Additionally, if a side ever runs out of Political Power cubes from their pool at the end of the Unrest Phase, that regime collapses and loses the game. If the other side still has cubes, then they win the game! If both regimes collapse on the same turn, then both players lose and Henry Kissinger wins the game.
Grant: What do you feel the game models well?
Akar: The game does a great job of building tension, fostering an alternating sense of hubris and desperation, and encouraging experimentation through trying different combinations of actions until one comes out ahead. All of these factors were present in the actual history, so I am excited that the game design reflects these traits.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Akar: I am pleased about the game’s originality. I don’t know of another game that shows the competing priorities of internal political stability and external military effectiveness quite in this way. I would be most excited if I (and eventually, other designers) could employ this system to explore other conflicts through history, or perhaps even outside of history.
Grant: What other designs are you contemplating or already working on?
Akar: As I mentioned earlier, I’m hoping to return to Tyranny of Blood, my game about the Indian caste system, and finally finish it. This one is the furthest along, but I have other games that I’m in the early stages of designing.
I’m hoping to adapt the Chalice of Poison system for a 3-4 game about the Vietnam War, tentatively called Riding the Tiger. My idea so far is to add some more asymmetry to the system. The South Vietnam player will likely play similarly to the two sides in Chalice, as an unstable strongman regime prone to coup attempts. The United States player will not face coup attempts, but will have to deal with popular support and an election every four turns. The North Vietnam player will have to manage its politburo, attempting to exert influence over the southern revolutionaries and balance between its Chinese and Soviet patrons (and their competing priorities for Vietnam).
I have another game concept, tentatively called Iron and Cardboard, about intra-alliance dynamics and competition among the Warsaw Pact nations as they rebuild from the destruction of WWII under Soviet domination.
Lastly, I have a concept called Pillars of Fire about competition and conflict among Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia from 1979 to 1991. It will be asymmetrical, based on the 3 different systems of government (revolutionary theocracy, strongman dictatorship, and conservative monarchy), which will vie for dominance of the region. Chalice actually began as the military module of Pillars before it took on a life of its own, but I think the grand strategy of this rivalry is worth exploring in its own game.
Leylines Designers: Daryl Andrews and Wolfgang Kramer Publisher: Arcane Wonders Players: 2-6 Age: 10+ Time: 60-90 mins Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4eRebnW Played with review copy provided by publisher Your ancestors have lived in the forest for generations, surviving … Continue reading →
Like many others this weekend, I stopped by my local theater to catch The Odyssey, the latest big-budget blockbuster film from writer/director Christopher Nolan. I’m not a scholar of the original works by Homer…no, I just like to see big event movies, and after getting pounded with ads during both the NBA Finals and the FIFA World Cup over the last few weeks, it is clear that The Odyssey is being marketed as the big movie of the summer.
Two hours and 55 minutes were sunk into this endeavor; even now, a few days later, I’m still not sure where I land on feelings about the movie. (I DO know where I land on one thing about the experience: if I hand over $21 for a movie ticket, I better get trailers for other movies, and not four commercials telling me to buy more Coca-Cola or a Kia or to waste more of my time on TikTok.)
Combined with some of my thoughts about recent game nights, the movie did make me think a lot about Odysseus’ hands, strangely. Odysseus has hands strong enough to string a massive bow even at an advanced age. For Odysseus, building a raft seemed like a walk in the park. But if I had to guess, whenever Odysseus had to make the trek over to his local gaming cafe in downtown Ithaca, I doubt he could shuffle a deck of small cards.
Occasionally, I table a game that features cards sized outside of whatever you call the norm, based on your country of origin and your physical hand size. Although I wonder how large a man Homer imagined Odysseus to be (Matt Damon will have to do, for now), I think it is safe to assume the hands of Odysseus were powerful, weathered, and larger than the average Ithacan soldier.
I’m 6’1”, and I get the sense that I have larger-than-average hands for my size. When a game arrives and the cards are poker-sized (2.5” x 3.5”), my hands breathe a sense of relief…cards that size will be easy to shuffle, because my hands have been shuffling cards that size my entire life. I can feel my paws getting a little more excited when the cards are the size of a normal deck of tarot cards (2.75” x 4.75”)...big hands love a big deck, and a hefty set of tarot cards always fits the bill.
For me, nothing beats the cards just a hair larger than tarot cards: the standard cards used in the Dixit series, a hefty 10mm wider than a deck of tarot cards and illustrated with some of the best art in the business. My copy of Dixit, Dixit: Cérémonie (the one I grabbed at Festival International des Jeux in Cannes a couple years ago), gets love from time to time simply because of the cards, and shuffling those Dixit cards is a blast because they are so large.
When you first open a new game and the cards arrive in like-color sets or in numerical order (because they were printed and packaged that way), I love doing rounds and rounds of shuffling to properly mix the cards. If I have my Game Topper set up and I have a vault in which to safely spread and mix dozens or hundreds of cards, I might do a traditional “wash”, making a mess of the cards by spreading them all over the place, to then package them back into a proper deck.
But I prefer to shuffle the cards, using any traditional method you can think of: the “Overhand”, the “Riffle”, the “Pile.” Some people, myself included, find comfort in the stacking and restacking of traditional poker chips while considering their next move. A fidget spinner is much preferred over the handling of a cell phone. But often, I find myself quietly shuffling and reshuffling decks until I think they are properly mixed. It’s so peaceful!
The process of shuffling cards is easier if the cards are my preferred size. And if they are not, I find myself cursing the sky because the card size is too small to be shuffled easily by my big hands.
Remember the game Gutenberg? Medium weight Euro, currently resides in roughly spot 1,500 here on the Geek’s list of overall game ratings, very handsome wooden “type” pieces that players needed to fulfill order cards.
My plays of Gutenberg have mostly faded from memory. But the 140 cards included in the box? Those cards will always stay on the brain.
That’s because the Gutenberg cards were surprisingly hard to shuffle. The cards were oblong, 45mm x 90mm, presenting players with long, narrow cards that sat alongside a player’s board to inform what types were needed to complete a card’s requirements. For the large-handed, the cards were a pain to shuffle, and sometimes, I found myself passing the buck on shuffling responsibilities. (I could not pass the buck when I did my solo plays, though, and like many games, Gutenberg uses a very short deck for a bot’s decision tree that needs to be reshuffled constantly.)
Rankster, Ticket to Ride, Zero to 100, or Ipso? Same problem. Tiny square or rectangular cards that begged to be “shuffled” using the wash method, to make a mess of the cards on a table and then gather them all up again to form decks for players to draw from. My big issue with smaller cards sometimes ends up being fatal: bending these smaller cards to Riffle them might lead to me bending a card or two a bit too hard, leaving a crease that is noticeable during future plays.
I recently received a review copy of Devir’s new party game, One Round?. Fun game, but the cards are not easy to shuffle…because the cards are shaped a bit like pie pieces drawn from a circular center. That means the card sides are the same length, but the ends are different sizes. Watching players try to shuffle the cards was occasionally a separate dexterity challenge, and I blew it a number of times as cards exploded out of my hands when I tried to Riffle the cards into a clean stack.
Sometimes, my hand issues blow up even when the cards are a size familiar to my hands. While the game itself is glorious, The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era features the cardstock type that frustrates my hands the most: bendable, almost twistable, slick, waterproof cards from the fine people at Chip Theory Games. I’m a writer, but I should have made video content each time I tried to shuffle any of the decks from that game because it would have become the funniest video clip of the year.
Cards were flying all over the place if I didn’t concentrate on shuffling the cards. The plus side of these cards: they are indestructible. The negative? They are the only cards I’ve held that seem to have a mind of their own, constantly trying to scurry away from my control whenever I would try to keep them contained.
Maybe we need to add a filter to the BGG advanced search function so I can search for games based on card size? That might solve an issue or two down the road. It’s tough out there for the big-handed!!
Rajas of the Ganges is a 2017 game from Inka and Markus Brand, who made the Exit series. It was nominated for and won several awards. It was well received by gamers. I wasn't very interested to try it when it was hot, because it sounded like just another worker placement game, with dice. It was suggested at a recent game retreat, so I joined the game. It turned out to be much more
Le Chocolat Designer: Mashiu Publisher: Allplay Players: 2 Age: 7+ Time: 10 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4fBewv6 Played with review copy provided by publisher In Le Chocolat, you’ll split the chocolate bar and claim the flavors that taste … Continue reading →
I realize that it’s twee and condescending to repeat popular cliches like “Fortune favors the bold” or “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” but it’s important to internalize the metaphors. This is a story about designing a board game.
In 2022, as an exercise, I banged out a quick one-sheet game. It was a roll-and-write game with two six-sided dice called "Mirror Match". The idea was that somebody at the table would roll 2D6, and everybody would write one of the die numbers on one side of their sheet, with the other number in the mirrored space on the opposite side. The goal was to make sets of contiguous numbers. Sets of exactly two 2’s, sets of exactly three 3’s, etc. A few folks played it a couple of times, and it was cute, but not especially compelling.
Over the next couple of months, I further refined the game and added a touch of polish. I themed it as a magical gardening game and named it “Potion Patch” as a nod to its origins as “Mirror Match”. I wanted it to be a mint tin game because… that’s what I decided I wanted. I changed the die pips to plant icons. I upgraded the six-sided dice to eight-sided dice and added two more. On a turn, a player would roll all four, then assign two to themselves and two to everybody else, an effort to add a little more decision space.
I playtested this new version a couple of times, and I was pleased with it, but I didn’t feel that it was ready to pitch to publishers. I was nervous that it wasn’t… enough. I put it up on the shelf for future fiddling.
Fast forward a couple of years. Now it’s late 2024, and I’m preparing for my first-ever board game convention, PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. At that point, I had a couple of new prototypes and meetings lined up to pitch them. S’Morse Code and Match Hatchery. I put the homespun boxes of chipboard and packing tape into my backpack. And then… right at the last moment… I impulsively threw that two-year-old mint tin into the bag. I had no compelling reason to bring Potion Patch along, but I thought that maybe I could cajole some poor sap into playtesting it with me to help find whatever magic it needed to make it pitch-ready.
In Philadelphia, I had three pitch meetings lined up. One for S’Morse Code, two for Match Hatchery. One of the scheduled meetings was with The Op, but about two hours before the meeting, I received an email. They had reviewed Match Hatchery and found it wanting. Shucks. “Oh, well…” I sighed, “I guess that frees up some time for me. I’ll walk the exhibition floor and figure out ways to get rid of my money.”
At just about the time of the canceled meeting, I made it to the exhibition floor of PAX Unplugged, and I walked around at random to experience the wonders on offer. Two minutes into my wandering, I spied Pat Marino, the Director of Hobby Games for The Op. I only knew what Pat Marino looked like because I had happened to watch a video presentation of his for the Tabletop Game Design Association a couple of weeks earlier. That was the guy I was supposed to meet with for Match Hatchery. I figured that I ought to at least shake his hand and make a quick introduction.
When I did, it turned out that he was sitting there waiting for me. Due to a communication mix-up, he didn’t know that the meeting had been canceled. I explained that, yeah, the meeting was canceled because Match Hatchery had already been thanks-but-no-thanksed. To that, Pat said, “Well, have a seat anyway. Let’s chat.”
Pat went over the finer details as to why Match Hatchery was not a match for The Op, and I really appreciated the insight. Pat was extremely generous with his time, his knowledge, and his candor. I learned a lot about board game design, product development, and pitching in about fifteen minutes. It was a great chat, after which he asked me, “What else ya got?”
“Well, I have S’Morse Code here, but the Op has already reviewed and passed on that option,” I said. What else? I thought. What else can I pitch now that I’m here at a canceled meeting with every opportunity in the world?
Potion Patch. I had Potion Patch in my bag, the wee mint tin game that wasn’t good enough yet. A game for which I had no sell sheet, no pitch patter, no preparation, nothing. Just an unlabeled off-brand Altoids tin. Well… what the heck, why not? The worst that could happen is for Pat to throw the game across the convention hall in disgust, punch me in the face, and stomp off to make sure nobody ever works with me again. I hadn’t touched the tin in over two years. I didn’t even have a solid recollection of the rules.
With trembling fingers, I pulled Potion Patch out of the bottom of my bag and said unsteadily, “I have this.” I cracked the tin. For about five minutes, I stuttered and stammered my way through the core loop and scoring of Potion Patch.
When I finished, Pat stared at the splay of the game for a beat, then pointed at it and said, “There’s no way I could ever sell that. But I see what you’re doing here, and it’s interesting. Take what you have here, get rid of the roll-and-write element, put it in a $40 retail box, and then bring it back to me.”
“Okay, Pat. No problem!”
I took the tin back home and got to work on the mathematical acrobatics it would take to convert the nigh-infinite combinations of four eight-sided dice into a reasonable stack of cards and tiles. I worked on the game on and off for about five months, changing, adding and subtracting mechanisms until I felt it was the game Pat had asked for.
I had playtested the game online a few times, but the real work was to be done at The Unpub Festival in Baltimore. I had lots of Potion Patch playtests scheduled to sand off some rough edges and shake out any anomalies. Then I could finally present the repackaged game to Pat. But—wouldn’t you know it—there he was, right there at Unpub.
On the first evening of Unpub, I sat at a table with my buddy Mike and a prototype copy of Potion Patch when Pat Marino walked past. I whispered, “Mike! That’s Pat Marino! That’s who this game is for.”
Pat walked on by, and Mike barely glanced in his direction. Mike was staring at me. Hard. Finally, in a concerned voice, he asked, “What’re you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
With a touch of exasperation, he said, “Go show it to him.”
“No, I don’t want to bother him. I’ll pitch it to him afterward, once it’s been playtested more.”
Astonished, Mike huffed, “What the hell are you talking about? This is Unpub. He asked you to make this. He’s right there. What are you doing? Go show it to him.”
“Fine. Fine.” I trundled off and chased Pat down. “Hey, Pat. About five months ago, you asked me to take a mint tin roll-and-write and turn it into a $40 retail box. This is that box,” I said, slapping my hand on top of Potion Patch. We chatted briefly; he congratulated me on my efforts and told me to contact him after Unpub. Great.
Later that evening, I found a free playtesting table and set up Potion Patch to rustle up some playtesters and find any cracks in the game. The table filled quickly, and play began. Who should happen by? Pat Marino. He stood at the end of the table and watched a few rounds of gameplay, then asked me a couple of questions about the rules and components.
“Pat,” I said, “I have a playtesting slot tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., if you’re interested.”
The next day, we had a great game of Potion Patch. Afterward, Pat had some additional advice on how to zhuzh up the game just a little more.
“Okay, Pat. No problem!”
I went home and got ready to tuck in for another four months of game development, but Pat contacted me very shortly after The Unpub Festival to ask me for a print-and-play version of the game. “I’ve been talking to people in the office about Potion Patch, and they want to see it.”
“But I haven’t implemented any of the design changes.”
“That’s fine, just send it over. People are very excited to try it.”
I sent over the files, and within a few weeks, I had a contract. Potion Patch would be released as Evenglow.
There was a staggering array of near misses that could have prevented Evenglow from ever being made. I could have opted not to put the tin in my bag. I could never have scored a meeting with The Op to begin with. The meeting could have not been canceled. I could not have watched a Pat Marino video to later recognize him. I could have walked in a different direction on the exhibition floor at a different time, or not gone at all. I could have chickened out of introducing myself. Pat could not have been as generous with his time. I could have been too scared to present Potion Patch. I could not have “bothered” Pat at Unpub. Any single one of these choices or happenstances working out differently would have put the kibosh on the game.
Dr. Strange: "I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict board game pitch.” Me: “How many did you see?” Dr. Strange: “Fourteen million, six hundred and five.” Me: “How many did we win that ended in publication?” Dr. Strange, holding up a single, dramatic index finger: “One."
A fragile, accidental weave of timing—along with a few fleeting moments of uncharacteristic moxie—turned my scratched-up mint tin into Evenglow. I could chalk it up to fate, but that would cheapen my contribution: months of small, boring work and grind without ever being sure if it would amount to anything. When an unexpected opportunity presented itself, I had a little extra blood, sweat, and tears to fish out of my backpack.
This is not a humblebrag about how great it is to be lucky or how lucky it is to be great. This whole story is a lesson for you and me both. Have a little faith in yourself. Don’t self-reject. When the ball bounces into your hands, don’t focus on the miss; shoot your shot.
On June 4th, 2026, despite the considerable difficulty of coordinating regular play sessions with a group of six, I was part of a group that successfully completed a campaign of The Queen’s Dilemma. For 15 sessions over the course of about three months, we were the six nobles ruling in the queen’s stead. For 30-35 hours, we dealt with famine, a new religion, an influx of migrants, a religious schism, and put the matter to a vote.
It was time well spent. I was hanging out with five of my friends, doing what we do best: cracking jokes and selling one another up the river. It was easy to forget sometimes that we were playing a game. The Queen’s Dilemma, like The King’s Dilemma before it, is deeply social. The game melts away while you’re playing. That’s key to its magic. All games exist to engender some sort of social dynamic, but the more involved a game is, the more the game itself tends to insist on its own presence. You can’t play Agricola and forget there’s a rulebook. The Queen’s Dilemma is the world’s most involved party game; it wants to vanish. You spend so much of each session staring into the eyes of the other players and asking them what they’re thinking that you…
At the beginning of 1793, after the execution of King Louis XVI, France was drawn into a war against a coalition of most European monarchies. On 24 February, the National Convention decreed the mass draft of 300,000 men to defend the eastern borders. Throughout the country, revolts broke out against this conscription, everywhere they were brutally repressed with success. However, an insurgent territory, called the “Vendée Militaire” resisted. Determined to engage in a trial of strength with the new revolutionary regime, the Vendéens gradually organized themselves until they formed a “Catholic and Royal Army”.
Vendée 93, a card driven two player wargame, takes you back to this particularly epic period in the French history, which pitted the young French Republic against the Royalist insurgents from March to October 1793.
“White” or “Blue”, choose your cause and take command of your troops! “White”: you will have to take the advantage quickly at the risk of seeing the Republican forces inexorably strengthen, forcing you into a sinister “Virée de Galerne”. “Blues”: time is on your side, resist the first assaults of the “brigands” to then be able to face the hell of the bocage in order to definitively extinguish the insurrection.
Movie Night Designer: Peter C. Hayward Publisher: allplay Players: 1-10+ Age: 7+ Time: 5 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/44zVb7i Played with review copy provided by publisher Movie Night is a cooperative game where you and your friends try to think … Continue reading →
When DV Games suggested that I write this designer diary for Raindrops, I hesitated... I started working on Raindrops in 2019, and I was afraid I might no longer be able to carefully retrace all the paths that brought it from there to here. But I decided to embrace the challenge, revisit my notes, photos, and memories, to share a little of how this game came to be. Think of this text as a patchwork quilt about the creative process, a passion for games, deep bonds of friendship, inspirations, and all the wonderful relationships we build around a gaming table.
Coming from a creative background (my career spans advertising, video, and animation production), I quickly realized that I wanted to explore board games as a means of expression. It all clicked for me after my daughter, Olívia, was born in 2017, and I began dedicating myself more seriously to the dream of designing games. Between 2019 and 2022, my game designer mode was in full swing, and I worked on multiple projects simultaneously. Inspired by a group of game designers from Rio de Janeiro who organized a playtesting group called Oficina do Playtest, I got in touch with them intending to replicate the experience in my hometown of Belo Horizonte.
Together with other designers, we started meeting weekly to test and develop our projects collectively. A few months later, we decided to launch an online edition of the event as well, making it possible for people from anywhere in the country to participate (especially those who might struggle to put together a local playtest group in a small town). Without us realizing it, this initiative became crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing together and supporting a large community of Brazilian designers through a particularly challenging time. Raindrops was one of the games I worked on the most during this period, going through dozens of playtests and iterations over the months, both in-person and online.
Cardboard Dreams
The idea for this game had been floating around in my head long before I realized I wanted to turn it into a board game. As a child, I loved connecting water droplets that condensed on a surface after the rain. There was something magical and deeply satisfying about pushing one droplet into another and watching them trickle down, pulling several more droplets along the way. Looking back, that was already a game in itself...
My first actual note, however, is brief and dates back to July 2019: an idea for a game about rain, using overlapping cards and some Mahjong-inspired mechanics. I remember putting together a few cards with a 2x6 grid of symbols and experimenting with hiding/revealing overlapping icons. Soon afterward, I cut the pieces into domino-shaped tiles, which quickly evolved into what would become the core experience of Raindrops.
Prototype and First Playtest at Oficina do Playtest
My next note already read as follows: • 2x1 tiles form a grid. • Players complete paths of matching colors within that grid (never moving upward). • When a player completes a path, they collect all the tiles in it, and the remaining pieces "fall" to fill the empty spaces, like in Tetris. New tiles are then added.
From the very first prototype, Raindrops' core gameplay loop proved to be solid and never strayed far from the original concept, even though dozens of mechanic variations and refinements emerged throughout the ideation and development process. In the game, players observe patterns of raindrops on a windowpane and try to find the optimal descending path of connecting symbols. Then, they collect the connected tiles and use them to complete patterns shown on objective cards.
During those very first playtests with the windowpane, it quickly became clear that the most enjoyable part of the experience was watching and making the droplets slide along the tracks. That was the heart of the game. Identifying those interactions so early in the prototyping phase proved invaluable because, after the lockdown, my main playtesting space became the online groups. And tactile nuances like these are much harder to perceive and validate when working solely with a digital prototype.
Online Playtesting Days
Call it hyperfocus, escapism, or a survival strategy, but during the pandemic I worked tirelessly on my games. Every week I playtested, gathered feedback, and iterated on my designs. Here’s a snapshot of the very first digital version of the prototype, running on Tabletopia:
The main challenge at this stage was finding the right balance between collecting tiles on the windowpane board and completing patterns on the individual player boards. The two experiences felt disconnected and not particularly rewarding. The main board featured a mix of 2x1 and 1x1 tiles, which significantly slowed down the refill process between turns. Each player had two 2x4 building areas and competed over public objectives, displayed in the center of the table. Interestingly enough, this objective format (2x4) made its way back into the game near the end of its development cycle!
The next version introduced a major change: two types of objectives: public (3x3) and personal (polyominoes). An optional action was also added: before tracing their path, players could remove one tile from the board, adding an important strategic layer to the puzzle. The feedback confirmed that the game was moving in the right direction, allowing for more control and planning from one round to the next.
In the following iteration, wildcard symbols made their first appearance, enabling more route connections across the board. The interaction between public and personal objectives was also refined, allowing players to score partial points for public objectives completed by someone else. The game's duration (determined by the number of tiles in the bag) was proving to be both consistent and satisfying for the players. I could tell the game was beginning to reach a more "stable" version as the feedback gradually shifted focus, moving away from structural concerns and towards usability and balance perceptions. As I continued making the necessary refinements, I also began preparing the first version of the rulebook, sell sheet, and pitch materials. I owe a special thanks here to Renato Simões and [user=lucaspasseti]Lucas Passeti [/user]for listening to my very first pitch, and providing me with valuable advice, giving me the first push toward seeking international publishing partners.
In the Foothills
With that came a major personal challenge. Up to that point in my life, I had never dared to express myself in any language other than Portuguese. Even though I was able to understand English well enough, I considered myself incapable of holding even a simple conversation with other people.
It was around July 2020 when we traveled to spend some time at the home of dear friends Dani, Chico, and Dudu in Ouro Branco. We had been isolated for months because of the pandemic and felt the need to reconnect, share our anxieties, make plans for the future, and help one another care for our children. We even put together a shared schedule to rotate between work, cooking, house chores, and playing with the kids.
Around that time, I started applying for the growing number of online speed pitching events that were beginning to appear. I also started taking English lessons, and to practice, we spent our evenings playing board games in English (some of our favorites, along with the occasional prototypes). As cheesy as that might have sounded at first, it helped me a lot. I'm deeply grateful to my friends for their kindness, support, and patience. Even though our lives eventually took us to opposite sides of the globe, I still feel that part of us remains in that time and place. Watching our kids laugh and play together in the backyard remains something beautiful and deeply inspiring. Thank you for those wonderful memories, my friends! 💞
The Pitching Circuit
Fortunately, the responses to my applications started coming in, and between July and November 2020, Raindrops was selected for several pitching events and publisher meetings. It was incredibly exciting to see the game begin to attract the interest of players and publishers alike! I'd like to sincerely thank the organizers of some of these events, namely Ian Parovel and Alain Fondrille (Board Date), Heather O'Neill (Metatopia Speed Pitching), and Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim (The Pitch Project).
The Pitch Project was particularly meaningful. Not only because Raindrops became one of the 50 finalists out of more than 750 submissions, or because I had the opportunity to present it to more than 40 publishers, but because it created a remarkably democratic opportunity (especially for designers from the Global South, who often face greater barriers to participating in the industry's major events). Sen and Jay shared an incredible amount of knowledge and advice on preparing sell sheets and pitches, as well as guidance on industry best practices, working with publishers, and publishing agreements. I even bothered Sen in his inbox a few times, and he was always incredibly generous and helpful in every interaction we had. Thank you again!
After these events, I had very promising conversations with at least four publishers. I'm deeply grateful to each of them for the opportunity and for the time they dedicated to evaluating whether the project would be a good fit for their catalogs. In the end, Raindrops found its home at DV Games, and we signed the publishing agreement in December 2020!
Development, Roadblocks, and More Development
The game's initial production target was Gen Con 2022. I won't go into every adjustment that followed in the production timeline, but I can say that the past five years have been particularly intense and unpredictable for the industry. In the aftermath of COVID, along came disruptions in global shipping, wars, inflation, tariffs... A really unfortunate series of events, to say the least. After all of that, I couldn't be more happy to see the game finally being released at Gen Con 2026!
At DV Games, my main point of contact was Marta Ciaccasassi, an experienced game developer who led the project. She has overseen the publisher's most recent major releases, including Bonsai, Koi, and Wonder Book. Marta always kept an open channel of communication, constantly sharing playtest discoveries, proposing alternatives, and openly discussing the trade-offs behind every major decision.
Raindrops entered active development in 2022, and the team's priority was finding the ideal form factor for the central board. A lengthy period of research and development was dedicated to validating different materials, testing the weight and friction of the tiles, and ensuring they would slide smoothly while providing a satisfying player experience. At the same time, production costs, product positioning, and the environmental impact of the chosen materials all had to be carefully balanced. Multiple cardboard and plastic concepts were explored, and several prototypes were produced to evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
Player tiles were still part of the game during the early stages of development, and the team experimented with some gameplay ideas centered around creating ascending paths on the board (while the falling tiles pushed them in the opposite direction). This led to several new theme investigations that happened between 2022 and 2023. Among them were koi fish swimming upstream in a river, a fantasy-oriented theme where spirits picked up snowflakes, a hot air balloon festival, and even a theme inspired by Georges Méliès' pioneering film editing techniques.
As development progressed, discussions with distribution partners evolved, and the team gained a clearer understanding of how to position the game in the market, Raindrops gradually took on its final form in 2024. Several refinements were introduced to streamline gameplay and simplify maintenance between turns. Instead of competing over public objectives, players would now build directly on Memory cards of 5 different categories by placing tiles onto them. This change significantly improved readability and reduced analysis paralysis while solving the puzzle. The shared competition element was maintained in the form of the Cloud tokens, introducing a light set collection element to the game. Another important change was the removal of the 1x1 player tiles, ensuring that every tile in the display uses the same 2x1 format. When tracing a path, players now always begin from the top of the board. The 1x1 tiles remain in the game as Bonus tiles, helping players complete their Memory cards. The action of removing a tile from the windowpane before taking a turn was also expanded and refined. Players can now choose between three Special Actions: flip a tile, swap two horizontally adjacent tiles, or pick a tile and place it back at the top of the same column. These options provide plenty of room for players who enjoy setting up the perfect turn!
The final piece to complete this puzzle was the arrival of Andrea Guerrieri to create the game's illustrations and graphic design. I was genuinely thrilled when I saw the first cover sketches he shared. I think he captured and translated the cozy atmosphere of the game beautifully, and I'm sure this box will be a hit with cat lovers everywhere! I can't wait to see it on people’s shelves!
By the time this game reaches players' tables, nearly six years will have passed since signing the publishing agreement with DV Games, and seven since that first note in my notebook back in 2019. And how many raindrops have raced down the window since then...
I hope this game brings you wonderful moments and lasting memories around the table with your favorite people.
Normally, when I’m sitting in meetings with our publishing partners at shows like Gen Con or SPIEL Essen, I ask about the games that are on the horizon. And, normally, we buzz through that part of the conversation with ease, since there’s not much in the way of real, earth-shattering news: another expansion for that popular title from a year or two ago is underway, or a new animal-themed trick-taker is set to hit the following summer. My brain says “ho, hum” and I quietly move through my meeting schedule.
But during the Board&Dice meeting at SPIEL last fall, it was hard to believe how many perfect-for-Justin products I saw on their 2026 dance card. Nucleum: Gibraltar, with the game’s third map and more goodies in a game system that I have fallen for over the last couple years. The crowdfunding campaign for The Voyages of Marco Polo, a classic game I’ll be backing whenever the project goes live. One of the designers of the Rats of Wistar-adjacent game ANTS, Andrea Robbiani, had a new title on the way called Maestro.
Board&Dice shared one other 2026 release. That game was Entropy, a new strategy title co-designed by three of the foremost game designers of our time: Tommaso Battista, Simone Luciani, and Nestore Mangone. Between the three…
In SPQR: The Battle of Alesia 52 BC, you recreate the historical final battle of Alesia which took place in the year 52 B.C., during Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. In the heart of the Gaul region, a battle unfolded that would reshape history. Julius Caesar had been carving a bloody path through the Gaul lands.
Vercingetorix, the famed and confident Celtic warrior-king, rallied the scattered tribes of Gaul into a desperate stand on a fortified hilltop in Alesia. From within the encircled settlement, he watched as a vast Gaul relief army of some 250,000 men gathered to finally crush the brutally outnumbered Romans, a storm cloud promising a final, glorious clash.
Will you lead the Roman Legions to glorious victory? Or will you face annihilation in the muddy fields of Alesia? The choice is yours…
The escape pod rattles violently as it tears through the atmosphere, before the noise suddenly fades away. A rough landing throws you against the restraints, leaving only silence until the hatch finally creaks open and fresh air rushes in with a long hiss. After you take off your helmet, you can smell unfamiliar scents. As you climb out of the pod, you can see a landscape unlike anything you have ever seen before. There are giant mountains that disappear into the clouds, strange plants that sway gently in the breeze, and countless mysteries that are waiting to be uncovered. You notice that you crashed high on a lonely hill, giving you a really good Vantage by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games with art by Valentina Filic, Sören Meding and Emilien Rotival.
Anmelden
The Players' Aid
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