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description=Matt Leacock designs and licenses board games for the international market. His games include Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Roll Through the Ages, and Thunderbirds.;

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the, game, in, design, daybreak, of, and, on, to, key, dates, what, card, diary, pandemic, abandoned, changed, version, animal, forbidden, how, is, notes, bonus, origins, fun, make, it, more, why, was, this, new, evolution, real, life, four, doors, rescue, coming, soon, september, about, island, designers, designing, from, 2020, era, medieval, age, goonies, pitch, goal, animals, into, development, your, materials, cards, managing, world, resources, tabletop, network, other, prototype, first, same, at, even, different, sometimes, really, character, grind, march, 2026, team, lord, rings, fate, fellowship, find, me, bluesky, substack, leacock, lab, jungle, play, diaries, live, backerkit, crowdfunding, begins, 20th, overview, minutes, cooperative, climate, action, now, board, arena, clip, released, survival, over, zoom, rules, tips, inside, out, quarterly, report, 2019, february, laser, cutting, chariot, race, adventure, clockwork, initiative, material, spotlight, lean, clean, up, janky, process, results, compares, lisa, turn, starting, points, major, problems, solve, breakthrough, objective, complexity, concepts, staying, true, tolkien, thanks, setting, differentiation, antagonists, machines, challenges, alien, figures, replay, variability, beyond, portal, references, news, currently, working, conference, schedule, opportunity, takes, shape, one, question, roll, build, innovations, translating, final, product, expansions, planned, three, eras, glowforge, plug, elements, did, you, change, order, feel, like, for, originally, submitted, stayed, developed, last, vehicles, special, work, better, tuneups, specialist, building, than, just, field, operations, volunteer, responders, can, do, everything, though, we, want, safety, comes, types, disasters, don, all, happen, time, there, are, lots, sad, creative, problem, solving, always, required, realistic, traversing, middle, earth, clumping, easy, melds, monotony, combat, wounds, perishing, ring, bearers, evolving, characters, mobilization, zones, control, stacking, limits, location, effects, equipment, history, sources, trivia, tube, map, tension, doubling, down, eliminating, missing, gdc,

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ely if i do say so myself a new non pandemic cooperative game that i m working on with a first time designer a big box game that i ve been developing for over two years with two established designers and a few other unannounced projects in various stages of development the game designers i appeared in the documentary the game designers which premiered last november directed by eric rayl and produced by scott alden of boardgamegeek fame the documentary follows five different designers antoine bauza kelly north adams chris faulkenberry and doug schepers and myself at various points in our careers and gives an inside look at what it takes to design a boardgame check out the trailer below you can find it on amazon or stream it on demand via vimeo game design resources so it turns out that i ll be working with john brieger on one my upcoming games i bring this up for several reasons he s got a new company that specializes in game development if you re looking for additional testing and development resources check them out he s written some great articles on playtesting and uses a process very similar to my own he lives in my hometown and i had never met him until last month how weird is that if you re a local to the san francisco bay area and are interested in doing some playtesting your games or others be sure to check out some of the meetups that he s put together i plan on regularly attending friday playtesting at game kastle in mountain view missing gdc check out the boardgame summit on march 17th in san francisco designers developers and publishers in the tabletop game and tabletop game adjacent space are gathering to share their planned talks from gdc network and talk board games publishers industry service providers on hand for pitches and business meetings you can also check gdc s video archive for some great talks on design christina wodtke sent me this talk by alex jaffe on cursed design problems which include the quarterbacking problem that rears its head in pure cooperative games i thought this was a great framework for evaluating opposing forces in your game that may be irreconcilable tabletop network i gave the keynote talk at the tabletop network in dallas in november and spoke about the importance of emotion and empathy in game design update the talk is now available ttn is a gathering of board game designers talking shop networking and refining our craft organized by game designer tim fowers unlike gatherings like unpub and protospiel it focuses on talks and workshops and not on playtesting it s a fairly new event this being its second year i was impressed with the quality of the talks and especially enjoyed the ones given by elizabeth hargrave omg my wife loves your game and nikki valens creating representation for marginalized groups they ve also started a scholarship program to attract new voices to the industry i ll post videos or links to my talk and others when tim opens them up to the public 2020 conference schedule i ve taken this information down pending information from the event organizers 4 comments era medieval age design notes august 20 2019 era medieval age was released this year at gen con and will hit stores later this august the game has a long history which started nearly twelve years ago here s a look at how the game came to be origins of era back in october of 2007 my friends chris and kim farrell threw down the gauntlet and challenged the members of our gaming group to a contest in the spirit of nanowrimo the national novel writing month our mission was to each design a civilization building dice game that was playable in 30 40 minutes during the month of november we were to go off into our corners and come back with our results at the end of the month i gave it my best shot i saw the challenge as a great opportunity to boil down the experience from one of my favorite games francis tresham s civilization 1980 into something that took far less time civ was best with about five to seven people who could devote eight or more hours to play and that was becoming increasingly hard to manage i shared the results to the gaming group in early december encouraged by the results i pitched it to publishers at a conference the following april i got immediate interest and the game was picked up by griffon games as part of their bookshelf line they published it as roll through the ages the bronze age in 2009 the game did well garnering a nomination for the spiel des jahres in 2010 the publisher saw an opportunity to ride on the game s success and encouraged me to design additional ages and soon after i designed a print and play expansion but my attempts at other ages felt dry and lifeless and i abandoned them after one failed start after another tom lehmann finally stepped up to extend the line with a version that we dubbed roll through the ages the iron age 2014 after that the game seemed to have run its course view fullsize era medieval age 2019 cover art by chris quilliams era medieval age 2019 cover art by chris quilliams roll through the ages the bronze age 2009 the challenge that my friends chris and kim threw down was to create a civilization building dice game that could be played in 30 40 minutes view fullsize a near final prototype version 23 of roll through the ages from 11 years ago the early prototypes were initially pitched as dice of the ancients a near final prototype version 23 of roll through the ages from 11 years ago the early prototypes were initially pitched as dice of the ancients opportunity that is until i was approached by plan b games in 2016 they were fans of the game and wanted to know if i d be up for breathing new life into it and potentially turning it into a series i promised to take another look during this exploration i started thinking about an idea where players could develop a city drawing its buildings instead of creating another checklist game dominated by a technology tree i ve always been fascinated by the idea of games with a drawing component i can trace that as far back to games like empire builder 1982 and source of the nile 1978 even knit wit started out as a drawing game i did a bunch of reading on the medieval period sketched a lot tinkered around one key breakthrough was the idea to map the four classes of medieval society to different dice that represented their role for example peasants would provide labor and food burghers would provide more trade goods clergy could provide administration allowing you to manipulate your dice and nobles wouldn t produce anything but could raise taxes and could rattle their swords to defend their domain or threaten their opponents soon i had some early prototypes of a new medieval age view fullsize may 2017 here you can see some concepts taking shape i often start with a concept map of the key objects and actions in the game sometimes this works other times you get a boring stilted lifeless games may 2017 here you can see some concepts taking shape i often start with a concept map of the key objects and actions in the game sometimes this works other times you get a boring stilted lifeless games view fullsize early sketches of buildings and resources early sketches of buildings and resources view fullsize more concept mapping more concept mapping medieval age takes shape this new medieval age used dice that were similar to the ones used in roll through the ages they had resources and skulls on them and players rolled them three times in an attempt to optimize their turn but the experience was nicely differentiated from the bronze age when you were done you could look at a unique city that you had illustrated over the course of play i also came up with a new turn structure that reduced downtime considerably and found a way to work that back into the original bronze age design after a solid year of development the game was ready to turn over to the publisher contracts were signed and the game was well on its way to becoming a reality view fullsize i spent about a year designing the roll and write version of era medieval age players drew buildings on graph paper and drew walls segments on the lines that separated them the game also used a reference card for building shapes and a simple pegboard to track resources i spent about a year designing the roll and write version of era medieval age players drew buildings on graph paper and drew walls segments on the lines that separated them the game also used a reference card for building shapes and a simple pegboard to track resources one question the publisher liked the design it was quite fun to play and fairly straightforward to manufacture they did have one issue with it however it was really hard to see what your opponents were doing this is a bit of a classic problem with many roll and write games they can feel a bit like group solitaire if you re only focused on your own board they pulled out a napkin sketch of a building made from a few wooden blocks and asked me what if it was in 3d would that work little did they know that i had just received my first laser cutter earlier that week my answer was an excited let s find out we d have to defer the game s release at least another year but hey lasers i got to work view fullsize i actually used craft foam for my first 3d version of the board which was a direct translation of the roll and write shapes buildings went on squares walls went between them it looked promising testing soon showed however that players had a hard time figuring out how to place buildings on this grid i actually used craft foam for my first 3d version of the board which was a direct translation of the roll and write shapes buildings went on squares walls went between them it looked promising testing soon showed however that players had a hard time figuring out how to place buildings on this grid view fullsize i thought a laser cut version with little white circles to help position your buildings might work it didn t i had to abandon this system as it went against years of lego training i thought a laser cut version with little white circles to help position your buildings might work it didn t i had to abandon this system as it went against years of lego training view fullsize when i moved the walls onto the same grid as the buildings the problem went away the board also was significantly less noisy looking when i moved the walls onto the same grid as the buildings the problem went away the board also was significantly less noisy looking roll and build switching the game to a set of physical buildings opened up all sorts of possibilities in addition to the wonderful tactile feel i could now work with a new dynamic supply and demand i modified the rules for walls so they d come in different lengths which introduced a strong push your luck element players now had to weigh the desire to defer buying walls since they don t help you bootstrap at all against the temptation to buy them early when longer lengths are available and if players wait too long the supply can run out putting a huge number of points at risk having a building supply also made for a more dynamic game end condition rather than playing until a single player built a certain number of buildings which was tedious to track on the score sheets i shifted the game end condition so the game finished when a certain number of buildings ran out this added more tension to the game since it s harder to predict when this will happen view fullsize all the laser cut pieces for the buildings plus a few experimental bits and other odds and ends i cut the buildings out of illustration board glued them together using a special tacky glue then painted them with acrylic all the laser cut pieces for the buildings plus a few experimental bits and other odds and ends i cut the buildings out of illustration board glued them together using a special tacky glue then painted them with acrylic view fullsize a robust city at the end of a game the buildings in the prototype had little pips etched into them so you could see how many points they were worth the published version uses a more robust score sheet satisfies this requirement in a better way a robust city at the end of a game the buildings in the prototype had little pips etched into them so you could see how many points they were worth the published version uses a more robust score sheet satisfies this requirement in a better way view fullsize all the parts for two prototypes painted and ready to go before i was done i created six full prototypes all the parts for two prototypes painted and ready to go before i was done i created six full prototypes view fullsize a special shout out to anthony rubbo who worked tirelessly to convince me that the screens were worth trying out he was right a special shout out to anthony rubbo who worked tirelessly to convince me that the screens were worth trying out he was right other innovations the additional year of development brought other improvements as well most notable was the introduction of player screens that hide the results of each player s roll during the roll step i was hesitant to add these as i was convinced that players needed to see each others dice while rolling in order to increase player interaction testing strongly showed otherwise however players welcomed the faster pace the element of surprise and the shorter play time that the screens afforded they also made a great home for the information on the play aid translating the prototype into the final product the eggertspiele development team helped polish the remaining bits and pieces together we created the solitaire version and they helped refine the disasters including increasing the number of scorched earth tiles that came with the game from what i specified remind me to be wary of playing with them the biggest change during production was to the player boards these shifted from punchboard to molded plastic while the icons are harder to read on the plastic boards they re sculpted rather than printed the boards are much more durable than punchboard and the plastic nicely grips the building components keeping them firmly in place in the video below you can get a good look at how everything turned out in the final game as i give a quick overview of the rules the harbor and great hall along with the baron bishop and merchant dice that come in collector s set 1 expansions planned if you purchase the game from the eggertspiele web shop you can already pick up the first of several expansions planned for the game collector s set 1 this mini expansion provides two new buildings and rules for upgrading your clergy noble and burgher dice into a bishop baron or merchant first of three eras eggertspiele has already announced that era medieval age is the first of three titles in the era series for the second installment it s likely that fans of roll through the ages the bronze age will be re released in an updated and modernized version the third game in the ser...