I love factions in games. They are like super spice to any game. With Imperial Settlers I definitely wanted it to be a game with factions. I wanted four nations and I wanted them to work differently – to score differently, to develop the Empire differently, to provide different game experience and unique feeling.

And since the very beginning I knew – that was like entering a hell. Like asking for 4 times more work to do. Like adding additional hundred hours of balancing and polishing. Like the most stupid dream I could ever had.

And yet, I decided to go for it.

***

We will start with Vampire: the Masquarade Role Playing Game. Super successful game published in 90′. It was constructed like a perfect machine. Machine that had only one goal – steal heart of a gamer. With a brilliant clan system, with numerous choices during a character creation it was designed by a genius. It influenced hundreds of other games, including my two designs – Neuroshima RPG and Monastyr RPG.

Vampire was one of many examples that clans, races and factions are the best bullets if you want to hit precisely into gamer heart. Let’s face it – all biggest games of our times are all built with a great clan / race / faction system.

Armies in Warhammer Battle. Colors in Magic: the Gathering. Races in Dungeons & Dragons. It’s all the same. Faction system.

The truth is – there are few types of players:

There are 'dwarf’ players. Those who like to hold fast, those who like high stamina, great armory. Defender player in Strongold. Jaina players in Hearthstone.

There are 'elf’ players. Those who like high initiative. Fast movement. Guerrilla combat. The Outpost army in Neuroshima. Unicorn clan in L5R

There are 'tricky’ players. Those who like nasty play. Those who like dark magic. Dark elves in Warhammer Battle. Black deck in M:tG. Tangarian in AGoT…

There are…

You look at games and you will see there is one common pattern. Designers change clothes, but the underneath it’s one old song over and over – one time we call them Dwarfs other time we call them Crab clan. One time it’s Elf, other time it is called The Outpost soldier. One time we call them Tangarians, other time we call them Dark elves…

But this is all the same. This is well designed bullet that aims directly into heart of particular type of gamer. Because, believe it or not, you are one of those types we designers aim at. And yes, we can aim and shoot precisely to get you hooked into the game.

You probably already knew this. So let’s get back to Imperial Settlers and 51st State…

In 51st State there is New York faction. Their strength is to build many Locations. There is Merchant’s Guild faction and their strength is to sign Deals. There is Mutants faction and their strength is fire power. There is also Appalachian but these folks didn’t make it to the Imperial Settlers. These factions differ on mechanisms levels, but they don’t aim at heart of a gamer. There is not too much 'cool factor’ in playing Merchant’s Guild. I tried to fix this a little bit in Imperial Settlers. I begin with transforming them step by step…

New York transformed into Rome. Mighty Empire that builds great buildings, roads, aqueducts and of course Colosseum… Yes, Romans looked like perfect implementation of New York faction.

Mutants transformed easily into Barbarians. That was no rocket science. They attack, they burn, they pillage, they are bad, ugly and hungry. Barbarians!

Merchant’s Guild transformed into Japanese faction. They are from far east, they are merchants who wants to trade with new lands and expand their influence. At the beginning I worked on The Phoenicians but common knowledge about this culture is not that huge. So I shifted to far east and here we have – Ninjas and Samurai… and merchants… I know, it doesn’t make perfect sense, but hey, use some imagination!

And then there is forth faction. It wasn’t inspired by 51st State. It is a brand new invention designed exactly for Imperial Settlers. Egyptians. Mysterious faction, with dark magic, with slaves, scorpions and many nasty tricks in hand.

Good direction but not enough cool factor yet.

But at some point I found the solution…

In 51st State you have 4 factions and they differ only by a Base Card and 3 Contact Cards – these 4 cards describe unique abilities of each faction. The first change I decided to make in Imperial Settlers was to differ factions in much greater extend. I decided to design a separate deck of cards for each faction. It made both thematic and game play sense – each faction builds different buildings, buildings that represent their character and origins. That way during the game each player’s Empire will develop in a different way and with no doubt, just by one look at the table we will be able to see who’s playing Romans and who’s playing Egypt. It looked like we have a chance to have a cool factor here..

Romans are great at building action. They produce stone and they have many cards that produce even more stone. They have many cards that give them Gold or Victory Points for building cards – so you build and build and then build even more and your Empire is growing like crazy. When you play Romans you feel power of your Empire, you see your table full of great stone buildings and you have no doubt – Rome it is! The experience was very thematic and unique.

Barbarians are frenzied locust. They have many workers and they can produce much more workers from their cards and they use these workers to attack opponents in so many different ways. They steal resources. They steal people. They burn buildings. They are pain in the ass. Aggressive and always hungry. Something very different from Rome. Thematic and unique.

Japanese are all about trades routes and merchants. They produce food and with food they sign a Deal one after another. Their production is growing like crazy with so many deals – and with that, they can move in many directions. Use resources to build. Use resources to gain VP. Use resources to activate unique abilities. They are traders. They have so many options. They are so damn flexible.

Egypt is nasty. This is dark magic. This is Tangerian deck. This is black M:tG deck. They send Scorpions to other players locations to block them. They use magic to take control over other players locations. They can repeat actions of locations. They can break any rule there is. Thematic. Unique.

It looked like I finally got this. Cool factor was here…

Factions in Imperial Settlers play differently. They are unique. They have their character and style. They offer different game experience. And what is cool – they attract different players – some prefer to play Egypt, other prefers Rome. I bet you will have your favorite too.

And you know… If you do have your favorite, that means that my bullet hit precisely where I was aiming.

At your heart, my beloved gamer.

At your heart…

Many of you know this story – there is a group of 4 players who wants to play Robinson. I sit with them, I explain goal of the scenario and I point my finger at round 7th depicted on scenario sheet. ’You are gonna die here. Round 7.’

***

Last week I was in Coy, Spain with a group of great people who works in education as trainers, teachers, event and activity organizers. I was teaching them about modern board games.  One day they asked me to present them Robinson. I told them what’s the goal of the scenario, I pointed my finger on 7th round and I told them they will die here.

They played. They survived till round 8th. It was an epic struggle.

Few hours later, in the evening they asked me if they can play rematch. They wanted to play again. So they played. Long, epic struggle that ended 1 A.M. Round 10th. They died. I thank them and went to bed.

Next day they approached me again. ’We stayed at the board for half an hour that night trying to find mistakes in our strategy. We also had today in the morning meeting.’  they said – ’We were planning our strategy. We want to play again. We will win.’

We set up Robinson again and they played again.

In the 11th round they were like John McClane at the final 10 minutes of any Die Hard movie. Covered in blood from head to toe, they were hardly breathing. The Island treated them with no mercy. It was 11th round and the wood pile was far from being ready. I used all me experience in the game, calculated every option I could see and I said: ’As far as I see… theoretically you can still make it. You need a miracle, but you still can win against this f… Island.’

And you know what? They did it. They won. Their third game in a row finally ended with a success. Merry recorded this moment when they survived event phase in round 12th and put wood on the pile.

They were so damn proud and happy.

And believe it or not, I was 10 times more proud and happy. Just in front of me passion, emotions, pure joy and happiness were happening because of Robinson Crusoe. It was amazing feeling. Me in heaven. Again. Thank you.

I don’t remember exact cards that I had on the table that evening. I do remember we were with Merry at the dinning table, it was late, kids slept and we played card game. At some point I put into play a card and my eyes got wide open when I realized what combo I just built. Few cards that I had already in play plus this new one just merged into one smooth mechanism that was just fuckin’ brilliant.

Never before I saw such configuration. Never before those cards worked together. I couldn’t hide smile on my face. I knew I discovered something amazing, something never seen before.

The game we are playing was The New Era. My very own design…

***

I design all those combos you discover when you play. This combos are there not by accident. I put these all tricky cards into the game so you have fun discovering them and building cool mechanisms.

Yes, I put on purpose ’You may repeat any of your action cards’ ability into Egypt deck and yes, I know how amazing it works with this card that says ’Spent 1 gold for 3 Victory Points’.

Yes, I put on purpose ’You may built without Fundament cost’ ability into Common deck and yes, I know how cool it works with Roman deck where the Fundament is the only problem they have.

Yes, I know you will smile when your Daimyo’s Castle is combined with Farmers at Work. First one gives you 3 VP in production Phase, second one makes production card work twice in a round…

I know all those tricks. I know all those combos. I designed them for you. That’s exactly what my job is all about…

***

And yet…

And yet I lost about 80% of my test games against Palmer, my main tester for Imperial Settlers. I knew every damn card in every damn deck, I knew all combos and correlations and yet, he beat me over and over.

He was building totally new combos. He was using my cards in a way I could not imagine. He was building structures I did not predicted. He was taking my cards and he was gold digging – he was looking for ways to play the way I did not expected.

He was finding new cool combos and he was proving me that there is much more there than I thought.

He was gold prospector. He took my cards and looked for gold.

***

Playing card games is a gold prospecting. You play in hope to find gold. You play in hope to find unique combo, deadly combination of cards that you have never seen before. Whenever it is Race for the Galaxy, 51st State or Hearthstone – we all play over and over and we wait for this moment of discovery, this fulfilling moment when our eyes get wide open and when we realize we just did it – we found a combo that is mind blowing and will win the game for us. I love card games, my Merry loves card games and so many of you love them too. Creating this small engines, building structure and looking how it turns into beast that brings you victory. And every time looking for something new, for new set of cards, for new structure on the table, for new hand that will work just like crazy…

Imperial Settlers is for you. With 4 different factions, with more than 200 cards I give you, my dear gold diggers and prospectors, hours of fun and hundreds of smaller and bigger findings. You’ll take these cards and you will find all gold pieces I left them. And you’ll find more gold. Gold pieces I didn’t even know they exist…

***

P.S.  Few days ago, late in the evening I got SMS from one of testers. The game was already at manufacturer, testing was closed but he was still prospecting. He couldn’t stop gold digging.

He wrote: '101 pts.’

101 is a new score record.

That evening he found a gold.

And then he got back to digging…

[this is guest post by Michał Oracz]

– Let’s play something. I’ve got some new titles…
– Ok, let me see what you’ve got… How about this one? Is it good?
– Um, it’s not very good. I’ve bought it some time ago, played a few times, it’s not working very well.
– Let’s try it, I’ve heard that it’s fine, lot of people praise it!
– Well, fine

– Do you have a manual?
– It’s ok, I’ll explain it to you. It’s easy, but quite strange… Well, Setup: In first two rows you place your pawns. You’ve gor black and I’ve got white. Those small should be in the second row, I guess, others in the first one. Goal: You have to take all of my pawns. You take them always when your pawn enters the square occupied by mine. Every pawn moves differently. Those small for example moves by one square only.

– Any direction?
– Yes.
– And this one?
– This is a Rook. It moves side to side, forward, backwards and diagonal. It can’t stop until it hit on another pawn, then you take it.
– Ok, And this one?
– This is a King, it moves by one square only and you cannot take it.
– Oh, it’s imba.
– I think so too. But this one is even better, you cannot take it too, but it moves as it wants, like a Rook but it can stop wherever it wants.
– All right…
And this one is a Knight. It moves in a sort of stupid hook way: Two squares forward and one to the right. All right, Let’s play. You start. Everyone move one pawn…

***

Do you know what game is it?
On the box it is written “Chess”.
But it was explained by the one who knows the rules because he “played it several times”.
I take part in conventions, I am walking around the tables and watch the games. Dozens even hundreds. Sometimes I see games which I know quite good. Sometimes I play games too. I see how we play and I am terrified.
We start… The game isn’t working at all. Hmm it’s crappy. What an idiot designed it.
The game isn’t working. Or maybe we just don’t play it properly. No… The game sucks and we have no time for rubbish. Let’s take another one, we will rate this one, maybe… 1? No, it’s not so bad, it’s just not polished up. I’ll rate it 3. Next one.
I’m not better.
Many times we have played popular games, and they didn’t work at all. After playing we were looking at each other and we just put it away with disgust.
“Last Night on Earth”. The nonsense. We have found out a perfect winning method in half an hour.
“Arkham Horror. It’s not working. And it’s boring.
“Shadows Over Camelot”. We have broke it. There is winning strategy. We have found it in an hour.
“Heroes of Normandie”. It’s not working. It’s unbalanced.
And so on.
But I’m more careful than my friends. I’m not talking around that this game is crappy, that they should avoid this game, that I’ve played it and it was bad. I’m not going to rate it 1, 2 or 3 and maybe if I’m graceful 4 or 5 out of 10. Why?
Because I know that we might have played wrong.
I’m conscious that I had no chance to experience this game well enough to rate it. I might have not like it, I have a right. But rate it? Unfortunately, I have right too. Generally, I have right to write and say whatever I want. Right is right, who forbid me? Maybe it is some inner honesty.
The author and testers played it thousands of times. I played it only four times. Every publisher organizes groups of testers – fresh players who tests rules, if they are clear. There are good players who play everything “for 30 years” so they will test every possible tactic and if the game is playable. Players who are specialized in statistics and optimization, they are looking for holes and winning strategies.
Am I a genius? Can I find all of defects in four games? Defects which have been omitted by the author and all the testers?

Of course. I am a genius. We like to think of us as a geniuses. .

On the other hand, I believe that if those are popular games the problem is somewhere else. I have some inner red light: Those games cannot be completely meaningless, be ease to break, or unbalanced. I believe that we were thinking it after those few games because we have played it wrong. Or even after dose of games, because we have played it wrong.

Indeed, we may play this game wrongly for our whole life – If the game works anyway it is ok. Every day a player is informed that he understood rules of his favorite game wrongly. And if it’s not working and we still play wrongly? And we play and we still think that this game is bad?

Situation with less popular games is even worse. With our attitude those games have no chances. Those games cannot defend themselves. There is no inner red light.

Meanwhile there is another question. Why have we played wrong? Maybe it is something wrong with the game?

It is not games fault that we are playing them wrong. It is because of complicated manual. When we play wrong it might be because we do not read them properly. We have to much information, we don’t have enough time for other things, we do not try to understand those games. We rate them very fast.

Do we have to read every manual and learn how to play every game like in school? We cannot have C, we have to have highest grade so we would be able to rate this game.

Of course not.

There is no obligation, we have paid for this game we can do whatever we want with this game. We can just have a look and play and if we do not like it we can throw it out. We do not live in poor country, we do not have to study every game we play, just because we have paid for it. We can afford it. The game has only few seconds to attract us if not: rate 1. All right it might be 3, dust on the shelf or trashcan… And the next one!

And maybe it is because of really bad games? Crappy games? Badly tested and published too fast? Are there game like this? Do you know any games like this? Is there a plague of game like this? Maybe there are game like this which teaches us how not to trust theit authors, testers and publishers? There is attitude that f the game is not working there is no sense in reading the manual because we wouldn’t find resolution there.

Mybe if the game isn’t working it’s because a fool designer it and another fool published it. In the group of foolish testers there was something missing – me. The experienced player who can spot every hole and mistake after few games? Who knows.

PS. I hope that fans of those games, we enumerated in this text, and the fact that they were example to this problem wouldn’t feel offended. Those games are excellent and we all know it.

I worked on Imperial Settlers for the past 8 months. I worked day and night. Every day, every weekend and every holiday. I was testing on Christmas and I was testing on Easter.  There was no way to get rid of the game, no way to clear my head and stop thinking about Imperial Settlers. You think about new cards when taking shower, you worry about balance when you get to bed. This is obsession. This is changing your whole world around one thing – Imperial Settlers.

The game is scheduled for Gen Con 2014 –  this is my most important release, this is the moment I was preparing for years, this is me debuting at Gen Con, biggest event in North America. This is it. This is the moment when I put on the plate all the best I have and I go to US and say: Here I am. This is my new game. Play and have fun. This is my moment.

But…

The games are not yet in US. They are at manufacturer.

It may happen that manufacturer will screw up, print something bad and we will need to postpone Gen Con release.

It may happen that shipping will have some problems and games won’t make for Gen Con.

It may happen that some documents will be wrong and customs will hold the game for few weeks.

It may happen that nearly year of my obsessive work and biggest event of my life will be ruined by a mistake of one person hardly involved in board games. Manufacturers worker, shipping guy, custom employee… A guy.

You can imagine how much broken, devastated or simply pissed off I would be if it happens.

Yesterday Japanesee referee – hardly involved in playing football – ruined months of preparations of Croatia players. He threw all their hard work into bin. He took their hopes and dreams about World Cup and said: Sorry, you worked hard, but I made mistake and all those hours you spent in training were waste of time. I can’t imagine how broken, devastated or simply pissed off Croatians are now.

Football is a broken game. I love it, but there are these moments I am so close to throw my TV off the window. Yesterday I had this moment. And as I can imagine, many of you had it too.