I didn’t pay too much attention to solo variants for board games before. I saw boardgaming as a social experience and I rarely thought of it as a way to play alone. None of my previous games had solo variant (except 51st State for which I was asked by fans and finally designed one).

Then Robinson came. Solo play was so much deep in the theme that I had to design solo variant. It was not hard. It just worked right from the beginning.

I would forget about it right after releasing the game if not players who… really played this variant! It turned out everybody recommend it, and people really like it… I started to search forums and I learned something – gamers like solo variants. They like when game has good solo variant. This is one of traits my games should have. A good solo variant.

That was exactly what I told Michiel when we met in Bremen in February 2013. We need solo variant.

Michiel said he has no solo variant yet, but he can design one quite easily. The Legacy has no direct interaction (OK, it has but not too much) and we will only need to simulate the fact that players block each other on the main board. We will have solo variant, said.

And that would be true if not me asking a strange question again…

***

We were in the office. Walec was working on spouse cards with his desk looking like one big family tree. He was grumbling to himself, changing cards in the tree, taking some notes… 

’You know what would be cool?’ I ask.

That is the phrase that freezes the blood in the veins of my employees. They hate when I have this 'cool idea’ moments.

Walec stops grumbling.

’What?’ he asks.

’It would be cool if we could turn it top down. In solo variant you would start in modern days and you would try to discover truth about your ancestors. You would start with some initial information about your family and you try to discover the rest and fill blank spaces.’

’Yes, it would be cool.’ he says with tone of his voice saying: 'This is beautiful dream boss but don’t you even dare to think that we could do this!’

I am not good with this whole tone thing.

’I love it already’ I say. 'I can imagine myself sitting at the desk with all these cards and some clues about my family. I can imagine looking for answers and digging in the past. With hot tea, good music, late in the night. That will be best solo variant ever.’

Walec is in consternation.

’You have 8 weeks.’ I say. 'Try to design it that way. If it is impossible we will pass on it and we will stay with a classic solo variant. But I believe it is worth a shot.’

***

8 weeks passed like a day. We are back in the office. Walec is making set up for solo variant. He is a little bit nervous. He worked on this variant like crazy and today I will decide if we keep working on that or we cancel it and go back to basic variant.

’You start here. Here are your parents. You draw this two cards now. These are your first clues. They represent some old documents about your family you found in the attic. Old letters or something like that. Later on you will draw more these cards, older and older up to the manuscript from 18th century. Look, this one says your mother had two sisters, and the other one says your grandpa was a famous scientist…’

He explains me everything and shows me all available actions, and all these cards he designed and he talks and talks, with all these information about balance and ideas behind rules and I can’t stop him because he is talkin’ damn fast. It seems that when he is nervous he talks a lot. I can’t find even a one second spot to interrupt him.

At some point I know literally everything about this variant. And since the very first sentence he said I knew it was brilliant – we have a mystery here, some old letters and documents, old family, digging in the past…

I would tell him that I love this variant and he has green light to finish and balance it but I can’t say anything because he is still talking like a mad! This is getting ridiculous.

Finally he is done.

’What do you think?’ he asks and shuts up.

’I love it.’ I say.

***

I want to give credit to Walec. Michiel is author of the game and he will be on the cover. I am front-man of Portal Games and I will be always in the spotlight. Walec? He will be mentioned on the last page of the rulebook. Small font. Additional material section. No one would ever knew that he did the impossible.

He took components of The Legacy and he designed small mini game for one player. I own him this post.

Trash story #1: Dowry

Every Friend card in The Legacy has its cost. It represents cost of marriage. In terms of rules it tells you how much you have to pay for putting this card into play. For some marriages you pay more, for some you pay less. Simple mechanism. It worked well.

But… One day I did asked a question…

’In old days father of a daughter had to bring dowry to marriage. We don’t have it here, do we?’

’No, we don’t.’ said Walec.

He didn’t know what was coming…

’I think it would be really cool if we have it. If player has daughter, he wants to give her husband – he will pay dowry. If player has son, he wants to find him a good wife – he will receive dowry…’

Walec looked at me with fear in his eyes. At this moment he might realize what was coming. Quickly I confirmed his fears…

’I want every women card in the game have no cost value. I want income value that will represent dowry your family received. When you marry your son, you will receive money.’

Walec knew that defense makes any sense but still he took a chance.

’Ignacy, it will take all economy in the game to the bin. We will have to recalculate every damn friend card, every single action in the game, every single mission, patron, everything… We need to make it right from the scratch. And it is not only changing prices, whole economy of the game will change if players can earn money with marriage action – this is completely new strategy…’

I knew all of that.

’Can you recalculate all of that?’ I asked without a blink.

’Michiel had 3 years to calculate cards and actions and balance it…’

’So we will work faster. We have 6 months…’

That day we took whole economy of the game and simply trash it.

Trash story #2: Crystal ball

At the prototype stage there was Crystal ball action. It lets you draw 2 child cards and choose one. In terms of theme – you go to the fortune teller and you ask about gender of your child.

But there was a serious problem with this action – it was not worth Action pawn. At some point we make it even for free, no money to pay, only spend action – but still, too expensive. Action pawn is damn valuable in The Legacy.

So I removed this action from the game. It was less popular than other actions, so I decided to trash it.

As you can imagine, soon after that players started complain. 'I have 4 daughters! I need son! I need help! Bring Crystal ball back!’

’Oh, come on!’ I resisted 'Deal with it! I will not bring it back!’

Unfortunately, Michiel was missing this action too. 'Players need to have chance to choose gender of child. It is important for creating right genealogy tree. It is important for strategy.’

’I know.’ I was replaying to his emails.

’Will you bring Crystal ball?’

’No.’

’What will you do then?’

’I don’t know.’

Months passed. No Crystal ball. No other option. Lack of good ideas for solving this problem.

But Michiel didn’t give up. He sent another email, this time to Walec: 'At that time doctors said that if you cut off one testicle…’

Walec received this email and he started to laugh. He read it aloud.

Quote:
An 18th-century French book called The art of boys suggested an extreme method of ensuring children of one sex. The author suggests that one testicle and one ovary are intended for each sex. By removing a testicle or ovary, children of the other sex can be guaranteed.

’This is good.’ I said.

Walec stopped laugh. Looked at me. 'What? What is good?’

’This is good.’ I said again. 'Player can draw from child deck as long as he draws daughter, but since the father lost testicle, he looses Honor. This is brilliant.’

’You must be kidding.’

’Why?’

’You actually want to introduce rule that let cut off testicle?!’

’Blend rules with theme. That is what we do here. I tell you, Michiel will love it! Put cutting testicle into rules and start testing.’

Is there any other game here at BGG that let you do this?

Trash story #3: Full bin

For the past few months we changed the game a lot. We trashed event deck, we designed and then trashed special skills for Mansions (they will be back as goodies for pre-orders!), we designed new action (Lands) and we trashed it after few weeks, we designed War action and…

Ah, War action!

Yesterday, when I started to write this article Merry said: 'You have to write about War cards. It was dumbest set of rules you designed for years!’

Yeah, she supports me 24/7.

Anyway, War cards – in the game there were scientists (connected with Fertility doctor action), aristocrats (connected with Claiming the title action), craftsmen (connected with Venture action), artists (connected with Mansion action), diplomats (connected with Mission action)… and there were officers – connected with no action.

Eurogames don’t like it that way, right?

So together with Multidej I decided to design War action. You could send your son to war. I designed deck of some about 40 cards and believe me, they were awesome.

Your son could become hero and gain Prestige.
Yous son could become captive and you need to pay money to rescue him.
Your son could get wounded and can not have children anymore.
Your son could find a beautiful foreign girl and you receive 1 of 10 friend card…
Your son could…

It was adventure deck. I love adventures. I was designing and designing new war cards and I have so much fun.

And then we played it.

One player’s son got royal honor after epic battle. Player got 3 Honor points.
Other player’s son got killed. Player discarded his card.

’Are you f… kidding me?’ he then asked.

’You know, you sent him for a war. What were you expecting?’ I was trying to defend but it was senseless. Randomness in this deck was crazy.

I was changing this deck back and forth for couple of weeks making it less random, but in the end it was always clear – War deck is adventure deck. The Legacy is not adventure game.

So I took all this amazing cards and throw them to the bin…

Trash story: conclusion

I was writing about it last year when I was posting about Vlaada Chvatil destroying my Robinson – designing game is basically trashing stuff. You trash stuff all the time. No mercy for your beloved ideas. Every single day you are looking for better solution and this is all that is important.

With introducing dowry rules and changing whole economy of the game we took to ourselves crazy amount of work to do. It was damn hard decision. But we did it because we believed it will make The Legacy better game, with more different strategies and with better theme.

Few weeks ago I was in Hungary. I was running demo game of The Legacy. When Simon (if I remember correctly) drew 3rd daughter card in a row he literally started to cry. Having three daughters is like announcing bankruptcy.

’Man, you need to open a venture.’ we said.

He burst into tears.

This one moment of pure fun and joy when theme was so nice incorporated and we all have fun that one player has 3 daughters and it will cost him so much money… It was worth spending all those days and nights recalculating every single card…

So here is the situation – I liked the game and I wanted to publish it. Michiel liked Portal Games and he wanted to get his game published.

Could we then sign a contract and move on to publishing stuff, order artwork and start talking with the manufacturer about production?

No, we couldn’t.

Before we signed a contract, I had to ask Michiel a very important question. I sent him an email. It went more or less like this…

***

I want you to know, that once the contract is signed, I own your game. I will change it and I will not negotiate with you about changes. I will inform you about them, I will inform you about the reasons I made these changes, but I will not discuss them. 

I will not ask you for permission. I am the publisher, not a negotiator.

I don’t care if you liked the event deck. If it sucks, I will remove it and I will resist your complaints. I don’t care if you like the look of the player board in your prototype. If it doesn’t work, I will remove it and I will resist your complaints.

I will take your game and I will change it. Are you prepared for that?

Play Portal Games titles. Play Neuroshima Hex, play Stronghold, play Robinson. And then ask yourself a question – Do these guys know their job? Can I trust them? Can I give them my beloved gem and see them redesigning it?

Michiel, please look at my games. This is my curriculum vitae. If you want me to work on your game, if you want me for this job, sign a contract. Sign a contract and start to cry because I will take your game and I will destroy it.

***

This is how it works guys. Publishers know their market. Publishers know what sells best. Publishers know what players demand. And what is most important… The publisher puts his money on the table. He prints the game. It costs a lot. The publisher has to have the full right to decide on the final product. 

So here is the question. Yes, question for all of you who submit your games to publishers! Are you ready for that? Can you give me your game and leave it behind? It is a tough decision…

***

Michiel signed the contract. So I took his game and I tore it to pieces…