Designer Diary: Behind the Scenes of Rebel Nox

A German, a Swede, and a Norwegian walk into a car. "Have you ever played Doppelkopf?" the German asks. This car ride was not the beginning of a joke, but rather the beginning of the journey of Rebel Nox.

Doppelkopf, the game that the German was talking about, is an old, traditional trick-taking card game that is popular in northern and western Germany. The German had, of course, played Doppelkopf many times growing up in Helmut Schröder's Bundesrepublik in the 1990s, but the Swede and the Norwegian had never heard of this game, so the German had to explain: "As with many traditional games, there are hundreds of popular house rules and modifications to 'DoKo', as we Germies like to call it, yet one thing is common: It is a team game with hidden teams. Whether you hold a queen of spades in your hand determines which team you are on, and to find out which teams the other players are on, you need to carefully observe the cards played." Then the German uttered the most arousing words any German can ever utter: "Perhaps it's possible to make a modern, streamlined game based on this concept?"

One week later, the Norwegian brought the first prototype of Rebel Nox to the table, a game that would turn out very different from the game that inspired it.

The Basics

For the rest of this article to make sense, it is necessary that you understand a little about how Rebel Nox works. At the beginning of the game, players are dealt a hand of cards. Among the cards will be some rebel cards. Players with a rebel card in hand are on the rebel team, while players with no rebel card are on the loyalist team.

The game is played over several rounds, and each "trick" is a fight for a unique location. Winning a location lets you recruit followers, which is what your team needs to win the game. Each location also influences the rules in some way, making each round different. The teams are known at the beginning of the game, but cards can change hands during the game, meaning that players' team allegiances may also change. When cards change hands, players therefore need to pay close attention to how cards are played in the following turns to deduce whether allegiances have also changed.

This posed the first design challenge. An easy way to assign players to teams would have been to deal each player an "allegiance card' at the beginning of the game — but we wanted a change of teams to be a dynamic consequence of tactical card play. We therefore wanted the rebel cards to be dealt as part of the players' hands. This carries with it the risk that one player ends up with all the rebel cards. For this reason, we introduced winning conditions that depend on the size of your team: Winning a round with a lot of team members on your side is of course easier, but if you manage to win alone, you can get a lot of followers, which may win you the game.

These basic premises were in place relatively early in the design process. The next thing we worked on was the 'circular trumping system": In most trick-taking games, a player can usually be certain to win with high trump cards. In Rebel Nox, we reduced the number of colors to three and had the trump be determined by which color is played by the leading player: Each of the three colors would be trumped by one of the other colors. This means that there would be no such thing as a "bad hand". In the right circumstances, all your cards could be trumps.

Team Play and Card Effects

The circular trumping system meant that the leading player could not play trump directly. This made the leading player more dependent of their team members. This we saw as a good thing as we wanted to encourage team play. To strengthen the element of team play further, we wanted each play of cards to be a potential hint to the other players as to which team you were on. We therefore introduced three special abilities on the low numbered cards:

• The first special ability was the assassin. An assassin will take out the highest card. Ideally, you play an assassin when the other team is winning and a player on your team has the second highest card. This will send a strong hint to the other players about your team allegiance — but since you have to follow the leading color if possible, you will sometimes be forced to play a card even if you do not want to. This creates an atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty as the other players constantly have to interpret your card play to determine its meaning: Was the assassination intentional, or was it forced?

• The second special effect was the flag. The flag increases the value of the current location. Ideally you play this card when your team is winning. But again, sometimes you are forced to play a flag even when the other team is winning.

• The third special effect, the infiltrator, was the trickiest one to finalize. We wanted an ability that let you swap cards with other players, but we struggled with implementing it properly. At first, you simply drew cards from the hand of any player of your choice, then returned the same number of cards — but this made it too easy for a player to give away their rebel card in the last round if the rebels were about to lose. Also, it felt frustrating to be on the receiving end, being handed a rebel in the last round when there was not much to do about it.

We tried out several different restrictions, such as letting you trade cards only with the player to your left or letting you draw cards only from the player winning the trick. This worked slightly better, but we did not like that the effect was so predictable for the player who played the card. It also differed from the other special abilities in that it carried no risk of backlash.

It was therefore very satisfying when we finally landed how the infiltrator would work: The player with the lowest card would draw from the winning player. This way the effect became unpredictable to exactly the right degree. You wouldn't necessarily benefit from the effect yourself, so you couldn't save the ability to easily trade away a rebel card in the final round. Since other players could now actively play to have the lowest card, they could "steal" the effect from you if they wanted a chance to change teams — or if they just wanted to hinder you from doing so. In most trick-taking games, everything revolves around who plays the highest card. Now it also mattered who played the lowest card.

An Efficient Puzzle Generator

It turned out that the three-color circular trumping system paired well with the three abilities: Every round felt like a dynamic puzzle. Even if you did not have the highest card, there was almost always some card play that would be meaningful, either to help your team or to set up for another player to change teams.

But the greatest contributor to the dynamic feel of the game were the locations. From early in the design process, it was clear that we wanted each "trick" to be a fight for a location with a unique effect. We wanted the locations to be streamlined and easy to understand, yet offer a wide range of effects that each had a significant impact on gameplay. At "Souq Sector", for example, an assassin is already present. Winning "Sulfur City" makes the bonus points from all your flags negative instead of positive. If the winner of "Hathor Rift" also wins "The Nexus", this player's team automatically wins the round. The winner of "Artefactories" must pass the location to the player to their left, which means that you want this particular location to be won by a player sitting to the right of a player on your team. The huge combination of location effects, card abilities, and player seating turned out to be an efficient puzzle generator, and the game constantly confronted you with unique tactical dilemmas.

This variation is perhaps the game's strongest point and its weakest point: Your first playthrough may not be representative for the game. It is a game that is hard to pinpoint and categorize as it offers a unique game experience. Add the subtleties of hinting through card play and the difficulty of trying to indirectly influence on which team you end up, and the result is not a very accessible game. It is, however, a very varied game that constantly places you in new tactical situations — and that is why we did not lose interest in the game even after hundreds of playtesting sessions.

Finally Due

The game that was conceived that night in the car is finally full term, ready for its delivery in October at SPIEL '18. We know that this is one apple that will indeed fall far from the tree. The little seed from Doppelkopf has grown into a unique individual with its own rebellious personality: A modern, streamlined game with endless variation.

We also expect our little creature to look quite pretty. Stunningly beautiful, to be honest. After all, we managed to get artist Kwanchai Moriya on board after publisher Aporta Games decided to set the game in the same universe as Capital Lux. Kwanchai has made some beautiful art, both for the characters and for the locations. Now we are just hoping that you will explore all of the game's depths and come to love it as much as we do.

The loving parents,
Kristian, Helge, Anna and Eilif