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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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att l we worked with rob to craft a story of agents tracking down enemy threats avoiding toxic vermin as well as prying locals in a six chapter genre thriller set in the 70s players basically played pandemic the card game but their abilities equipment and objectives changed from chapter to chapter as the story unfolded this led us to explore the design space even more which increased the number of events in the game the clockwork initiative was set in a gritty 70s townscape matt r the four doors more like the four designers amirite this part was really cool for me we were already working with matt l and now rob daviau as well especially because i am not a storyteller i like theme and i want it to make sense in games but i don t read flavor text i don t read the paragraph at the front of a rulebook telling me some lore about being a farmer or ship s captain or monster hunter or post apocalyptic delivery driver i want theme in as much as it does not get in the way of rules and my understanding of the game so to watch rob develop this whole story system and adjust mechanics and actions to account for that was really really exciting as a game designer why was the game abandoned matt l the game was a lot of work and we simply weren t having much fun doing it we took a hard look at the numbers since it was a card game it would have a fairly low price point and we d be splitting the design royalty four ways it would be a really heavy lift for a fairly modest reward ultimately we were happy to put our tools down and move on to other projects rob d hi just wandered in to note that i spent a year of my life on this and then matt kicked me out of the band creative differences he said going in a new direction he said there was also murmuring of me bringing everyone down to my level if you know matt or mr leacock as he demands i call him you know he s a cruel vindictive person full of spite and i should ve seen this coming actually this was fun to work on for a bit until it wasn t it was never going to be a great game in this iteration so i bowed out and wished everyone luck including mr leacock matt l coughs the project then lay fallow for some time until one of the good folks from gamewright who had tried the game out at a conference wondered if it might make a good forbidden card game i took a look it would the result became the forbidden island card game key dates first design journal entry 15 february 2023 last design journal entry 4 september 2023 i made the game s card square and arranged them into a 2x2 grid to form the island each location had two different shores that could be threatened what changed in this new version matt l in order to make the island for the game i removed one of the game s locations reducing the number of locations from 5 to 4 made the cards square and arranged them into a 2x2 grid since it didn t make a lot of sense to fly around the island the board was much more compact i dropped the fly action and let players simply move to adjacent locations for an action like they could in the forbidden island board game instead of having an improved treat ability when each cure was discovered players would find treasures that unlocked a new power for the adventurers who held them matt r you will notice less and less of my witty repartee in these sections and that is because as i mentioned before matt l could have dropped us at any time and we wouldn t have complained or thought less of him sure the dna of goonies has survived and evolved and improved throughout this process but matt l s effort had far outstripped ours at this point if that game had suddenly been released as forbidden island the card game i would not have blinked twice i know matt l never considered it he is a man of integrity honor justice and the like but just saying why was the game abandoned matt l i developed the game fully to spec turned it in and eagerly looked forward to its production and release then after reevaluating their plans gamewright decided to cancel the game so it goes remember fellow designers always be sure you get an advance upfront i put the game into file 13 perhaps something would come of it someday the four doors key dates first design diary entry 3 september 2023 last design diary entry 23 march 2025 published august 2025 gen con matt l i was fortunate that jason schneider of happy camper who had originally commissioned the game when he was at gamewright remembered the game and asked what had become of it i was happy to tell him that it was still available we got to work this cover composition prompted the four doors setting threats and goals what changed in this new version matt l jason suggested a treatment early on in the clearing of an overgrown forest stand four mysterious doors behind each door lies fantastic treasure but also imminent peril i ran with it the shadowy threats could be dispelled by illuminating them the doors could contain the treasures the adventures needed but they could be closed off if the players weren t careful i experimented with the door card layouts and came up with the idea of stacking them into a tower that opened up the idea of a lighthouse with a magical beacon on top this in turn led me to change the treasures into the relics needed to light the beacon to dispel the shadows forever i stacked the four doors to form a lighthouse the beacon card on top came soon after most of the work in this version was spent trying to make the game as accessible as possible one of the biggest development tasks was making it abundantly clear where each card goes on the table how to stack and overlap them and how to understand them in each of these states i also spent additional time on all the phrasing of the spell effects and adventurer powers another task was refining the solitaire version i found the recent work i did on the solo mode for the lord of the rings fate of the fellowship rewarding and applied some of that same energy to the four doors i wanted to make sure that the solo mode wasn t just a patch or afterthought and worked to ensure that every card was usable and balanced when you played the game on your own at last matt l the game premiered at gen con in 2025 and i couldn t be happier with the final result the mechanisms were refined over the five different incarnations and the product design really came together in this latest version if you haven t seen the shimmer on the lit beacon and the relic cards you really should check them out they re nearly blinding so happy that matt r and ben patiently came along all the twists and turns the game is better for it the published game in progress photo courtesy of ilya ushakov bonus material some additional odds and ends that illustrate the game s development player card evolution left to right the goonies adventure card game ben and matt s initial submission pandemic the card game the clockwork initiative forbidden island the card game the four doors prototype and early proof reference card evolution left to right ben and matt r s initial submission typeset by me pandemic the card game the clockwork initiative the forbidden island card game the four doors a relic card left and the final reference card right from the finished game image courtesy of board gaming crew a big top with four doors when i was translating forbidden island the card game with its square board into the four doors a briefly considered setting the game in some sort of a building or tent with a door in each corner i wasn t able to pull that together into an overall theme or story so i abandoned it 4 comments lisa with an early prototype of animal rescue team on may 7 2019 animal rescue team design diary october 15 2025 origins the idea for animal rescue team began in a conversation with my family as we walked our family dog fintan around the block 1 we were brainstorming different possibilities for rescue games because the license for one of my games had run out and i had the opportunity to revisit it unless you were really into 1960s era kids shows featuring marionettes you may have missed that game it was called thunderbirds in the game players go on rescue missions around the globe you have to gather the right rescuers vehicles and equipment in order to have the best chance of success the game requires you to make constant tradeoffs between risk and efficiency has a lot of tension and storytelling elements and did quite well when it came out in 2015 we discussed what players might rescue in a new game with a rescue theme and remembered the game animal rescue that my daughter had prototyped when she was in elementary school 2 what if the players were rescuing animals while discussing it we quickly realized that we knew a real life animal rescuer our friend lisa towell i contacted her shortly after our walk and was delighted to hear that she was up for helping to design the new game lisa and i started out by building out some tables for translating the game s characters rescues vehicles and setting over to the new theme i looked at things through a mechanical lens how might the game s mechanisms change to fit the new theme while lisa looked at the design from the other direction how might the game s new theme change the existing mechanisms during our early conversations it became apparent that we had two main goals we wanted to center the game on animals and we wanted to improve on the previous game wherever we could goal 1 spotlight the animals one of our early ideas was to embody the animals you were rescuing in the game making them an important part of play perhaps in the new game you could actually see the animals and load them into your vehicle when you completed a rescue this not only fit the game s story well but it leaned into one of the elements of thunderbirds that people reported enjoying the most in that game you could load pod vehicles into thunderbird 2 fly them around and drop them off in order to complete rescues in this new game we could give players the option to load and unload animals and equipment into and out of every vehicle we also wanted to be respectful of the animals shown in the game we favored showing the animals in a naturalistic way no exaggerated disney like treatments to their eyes faces or proportions give each of them their own names and treat them even the chickens and lab mice as individuals worthy of being rescued lisa spent a lot of time directing the illustrators as well she favored the depiction of animals of mixed breeds and wanted to make sure the little details were rendered appropriately examples that i recall a goat s tail points up and omg you d never hold a lead rope like that when handling a horse like all of my games we spent some time early in development on working out the language used in the game here s an excerpt from one of our controlled vocabularies an excerpt from our long controlled vocabulary for the game one dilemma while we wanted the players to emotionally connect with the animals in the game we didn t want them to despair if they failed at a rescue or at the game we used some strategies to provide some emotional distance for more sensitive players the cover of the game shows the animals in the act of being rescued not in peril the illustrations on the rescue cards show the animals but they re never shown in danger while the short stories on each rescue card describe real world rescue situations that text doesn t need to be read to play the game if you lose the game due to a failed rescue we assure you that another volunteer rescue team comes to help and we suggest you buy them lunch as a thank you we felt this approach maintained the game s realism and tension while reducing the likelihood of upsetting players especially young folks goal 2 lean into the fun clean up the janky this was also a great opportunity for me to revisit the underlying thunderbirds design and tune it up my goal was to lean into the elements that worked well while cutting out the bits that were confusing awkward or unnecessary over the course of development we made the vehicles more fun improved the way the cards worked dropped one type of action modified the dice and made a few other miscellaneous improvements make the vehicles even more fun animal rescue team makes use of six different vehicles and we really explored how they could be different and playful they have a toy like quality and we worked to ensure each vehicle s form helped communicate its function a rabbit and a specialist on a motorcycle on a truck prototype made from 3d printed resin and laser cut illustration board the speeds of each vehicle are printed directly on them making it really clear how fast they can go each vehicle can carry specialists animals and equipment and those pieces each take on a different form specialists are represented by pawns animals are represented by animal meeples and equipment is represented by tokens you always know what you re allowed to carry if it fits it sits we added a non drivable trailer to fit large animals horses cows and a tiger 3 that led to the idea of towing vehicles you can attach the trailer to the suv or truck using a hitch that s similar to the hook up used in brio trains we added a boat to the game for water rescues this in turn led us to change the board s topology players can move the boat between regions provided they share a coastline or they can hitch up the boat like the trailer and drive it between land regions we added a speedy motorcycle to the game which can be loaded onto the back of the truck which essentially lets one specialist move two vehicles at the same time all these additions resulted in a lot of playful variety without much additional complexity you can look at a vehicle and see what it can carry how fast it moves and whether it can hitch or be hitched to another vehicle or not because the vehicles are also limited in what they can carry they will start to fill up as they pick up animals to solve this vehicles can drop animals off at shelters where they ll be cared for in order to free up space but the shelters also periodically fill up leading to even more logistics problems make the special cards work better the game uses logistics cards which give players special one time powers these were called f a b cards in thunderbirds and event cards which challenge the players with new circumstances or restrictions lisa brainstormed all sorts of different benefits and challenges that we could throw at the players and then we both set out to figure out how they might play out in the game then i made the following changes to the two systems so they would function even better in the new game i changed the event cards so players encounter an ever increasing number of them at a time escalating the danger as the game unfolds in thunderbirds you only ever turn over one of these at a time which often led to dead beats when a card didn t really do much i also added events that change the topology of the board b...