Where Did That Idea Come From?

Design Diary by Barb Hirschfelder

My favorite moment in any creative endeavor is when inspiration strikes with a swift WHAM! And then there’s a new and intriguing idea in my brain that, over the coming days, weeks, and months, I can coax and craft into full form.

Here’s one of those moments: I am listening to a board-game-themed podcast during my daily morning routine. I am literally in the shower, which is probably why I mishear the following. The podcasters are discussing what they had played that week. Someone mentions the game Bruxelles 1893 by designer Etienne Espreman. I mistakenly hear Truffles 1893. Immediately I imagine a game in which players manage a group of pigs trained to dig up truffles in their many varieties and sell the harvested fungi to local restaurants, and I think, “Hey, I want to play that game!”

Needless to say, a few minutes later, it became clear that Bruxelles 1893 does not feature in any way fungi that grow underground—or pigs of any kind. (Bruxelles 1893 is about 19th century architects working in the Art Nouveau style.) But, hey, the fire was lit; I wanted to play the game that I had imagined. So what else could I do but design it myself. It seemed natural to use the deck-building mechanism and to give players the role of restaurant owners who must develop a menu of interesting truffles recipes, train the best chefs, and hire a farmer who can handle a herd of pesky truffles pigs.

Why pesky? Well, after a bit of online research, it became clear that pigs are especially adept at hunting down and digging up the highly prized tubers, but they are also prone to occasionally eating what they find. So that became one of the key conflicts of the game—the constant threat that one of a player’s pig cards will eat the desired truffles card instead of harvesting it.

Truffles has been a fun game to design and playtest. Most any game with pigs will tend to have a humorous tone. (By the way, players can also purchase and train truffles dogs, who will not eat any of the truffles they find.) Plus, using a strong theme like this can provide handy strategies for tweaking weak spots in the game. One problem with many deck-building games, for example, is drawing a hand of cards that do not combo well with each other. In Truffles, specifically, a pig card is relatively useless if the player does not also draw a truffles card. So that is one problem I was mulling over when, during one playtest session, several playtesters requested more interaction between players.

Keeping the theme in mind, it struck me I needed a “too many pigs” mechanic, which allows players with more than 1 pig card in their hand to steal a truffles card from either another player or the central supply. Eventually, “too many pigs” also inspired “too many chefs” (who steal recipes), “too many farmers” (who steal pigs), and “too many truffles” (who steal chefs). Don’t worry. The poor victim gets to draw an extra card as compensation.

Here’s another moment of inspiration: I am walking across the Santa Fe College campus enjoying the beautiful spring weather in Gainesville, Florida. The crepe myrtles are beginning to bloom, and the birds are active. If I listen closely I can hear the call of a peacock from the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo. Looking skyward I notice a buzzard gliding overhead. The silhouette of the buzzard from underneath reminds me of a T-shaped Tetris piece, with the buzzard’s tail making up the bottom part of the T. And then I think of how other birds—such as sandhill cranes—have the opposite shape, meaning the crane’s head and neck make up the bottom part of the T.

Sounds like an interesting game to me! Probably tile placement…. I think I’ll call it Flocks.

Prototype of Truffles: A Deck-Building Game for Gourmands
Prototype of Truffles: A Deck-Building Game for Gourmands
Prototype of Flocks
Prototype of Flocks

Truffles – Prototype

Prototype of Truffles: A Deck-Building Game for Gourmands
Prototype of Truffles: A Deck-Building Game for Gourmands

Truffles is a deck-building game in which players are connoisseurs of the elusive truffles fungus. Each player develops a network of truffles farmers, who train pigs and dogs to hunt for the fungi, patrons demanding new truffles recipes, and chefs expert in preparing dishes featuring the three types of truffles: common burgundies, tasty blacks, and premium whites. Players buy cards to improve their farming resources, gain access to desired truffles regions, develop new recipes, and hire chefs. The best players will balance their decks to meet each demand at the most opportune time. For example, truffles pigs and truffles dogs are only useful if truffles cards are drawn in the same hand. Chefs can only prepare dishes for their customers if the required truffles have already been harvested. The first player to earn 10 stars is declared the winner.

Game design and prototype by Barb Hirschfelder

Flocks – Prototype

Prototype of Flocks
Prototype of Flocks

Flocks is a 2-player tile-laying game in which players must make sure that birds of a feather flock together. Each player is given a set of 4 terrain tiles and 8 pairs of matching bird tiles, including 2 sets of birds for each type of terrain. Geese and herons flock to the river. Seagulls and roadrunners stalk the sand dunes. Hawks and parrots abide in the mountains. Hummingbirds and wrens nest in the trees. Players take turns laying 1 tile each and earn increasing numbers of points as the number of previously played matching tiles increases. The tile placement rules are simple: Place each bird tile must touch an appropriate terrain tile, making sure the bird’s orientation matches that of other bird tiles of the same type.

Game design and prototype by Barb Hirschfelder

It All Started with Three Dogs

Design Diary by Barb Hirschfelder

What were we thinking? We had never owned more than one dog at a time before. Now we were contemplating adding a third to our pack of dogs. We already had two, Angel and Truffles. How hard would it be to raise another at the same time? After all, they’re small dogs, mini dachshunds, still puppies.

And that’s how Chloe’s Snowy Baby came to our house, and we welcomed the adventure with open arms–more rough-housing during play time, more potty trips outside, and insanity trying to control three dog leashes with only two hands.

One morning I thought, “That would be an interesting race game.” Imagine that each player is trying to get a pack of dogs to walk in an orderly and civilized fashion from one end of the dog park to the other. There could be different sized tiles representing various breeds of dogs, maybe with each breed having a distinct personality trait that would influence their movement somehow. But your pack wouldn’t always behave in predictable ways, so there would be dice of different colors matching the tiles. By the next morning, I had a prototype drawn in pencil on card stock. But that would not be the last iteration of the game. Oh, and I had a name: Bark in the Park.

I grew up playing games. Risk, Hearts, and Scrabble were the go-to games in my family. Two hundred miles away, my future-husband, Carl, was playing Monopoly, Samba, and Cribbage with his large family. Both of us, being the oldest kids, were frequently called upon to join the adults or to teach games to our younger siblings.

When Carl and I met at Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro, Kentucky, we most enjoyed playing Scrabble or Samba together. (Carl usually won.) After we got married, we even created an exploration-type game based on a map of the college campus. Every few years, I would cobble together another game–one was a zoo game, another was a gardening game. In those years, the technology available was rather primitive. I didn’t have a laser printer or graphic design program. And no one had Internet access. So the first prototype was hand-drawn, and the first prototype was usually the last prototype.

Now I have a color laser printer, a solid working knowledge of MS Word and Illustrator, and high-speed Internet access. With my Mac laptop, I can get creative in any room in the house. I am thankful to have online access to royalty-free clip art and illustrations to add flavor and consistency. I probably over-rely on Wikipedia when researching my themes.

Working on Bark in the Park, I learned how much easier it is nowadays to quickly build a prototype so that we can start playtesting as soon as possible. And making changes can be virtually instantaneous with a few Sharpie markers and some label paper.

I also learned that the ideas are unending. In the past two years, I have generated ideas for more than 50 games and created prototypes of most of those ideas. Dogs are featured in 5 of those games, which is a topic for a future post.

Saturdays are the best days at our house, when we get to spend time together and play games, with the three girls–Angel, Truffles, and Chloe–curled up at our feet.

A newer prototype of Bark in the Park
A newer prototype of Bark in the Park

Serengeti – Prototype

Prototype of Serengeti
Prototype of Serengeti

Serengeti is a tile laying game for 2-4 players that uses “+” shaped tiles. When players add tiles to the savannah layout, if they increase the size of an animal group—lion pride, hyena pack, zebra herd, or gazelle herd—they earn bonus actions, some of which earn the players points. Develop a large enough pride of lions, and you can successfully claim a group of herd animals as part of the pride’s territory. Giraffes, on the other hand, scare away the predatory lions and hyenas. Elephants earn more points the more elephants that already reside on the savannah. If a player manages to create an open space in the savannah that is completely surrounded by tiles, a pond develops and players earn points for having different types of animals surrounding the communal watering hole.

Game design and prototype by Barb Hirschfelder

Godiva – Prototype

Prototype of Godiva
Prototype of Godiva

In the two-player game Godiva, players take on the role of either Lady Godiva or her husband and Leofric, who are battling over the direction their Realm (Mercia) should take. Leofric, under pressure of English King Cnut to keep the Vikings away by paying Danegeld, has instituted various taxes. Further threats come from the Normans, who will eventually invade in 1066. Godiva cherishes the higher arts and hopes to increase the literacy of her people. Husband and wife can each present powerful examples and artifacts by playing cards that support their cause, with new cards played on each area that equal or exceed the value of previously played cards. When a certain number of cards have been played on an area, scoring takes place, and the player with the most influence (the number of face-up cards played on the area) wins the points. Special cards allow players to speed up the scoring or to increase their influence without increasing the card count. Let the best case win!

Game design and prototype by Barb Hirschfelder

Bark in the Park – Prototype

A newer prototype of Bark in the Park
A newer prototype of Bark in the Park

In Bark in the Park, each player is in charge of leading a pack of dogs on a glorious romp through the park. The more each pack member is in tune with its companions, the faster the pack will move. Like any good trainer, the dog walker has some influence over the pack and can take advantage of useful toys. Distractions are inevitable, though, like other dog packs in the park, and pack members will straggle or jump ahead of the rest. Thankfully, a good trainer will be able to quickly increase his or her influence with his or her pack, lead them quickly through the park, and earn bragging rights over the other dog walkers.

On their turn, players roll dice, assign dice to the matching dog tiles, and move a contiguous group of dogs with matching die numbers. Before moving tiles, though, players can use their turn actions (or influence) to change die numbers depending on the varying influence each dog tile can exert. Different breeds have influence that can increase or decrease die rolls, switch two dice, or even copy the die roll of a neighboring die.

Game design and prototype by Barb Hirschfelder