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Gunkimono is a re-theme of my game, Heartland (a.k.a., Eine Frage der Ähre), which was first published in Germany by Pegasus Spiele in 2009.
I have lived in Berlin for most of the past 24 years, and it was here that I discovered the wider world of board games and was also inspired to become a board game designer — but my inspiration for one of my first games was the home I had left behind. I had always thought that the patchwork fields of the Midwestern United States, when viewed from the air, looked like a game board, and I wanted to make that game.
Although I had a theme to guide me, the design was abstracted in order to keep the rules streamlined. I wanted the game to be appealing to gamers with plenty of tough choices and player interaction, and I also wanted it to be accessible to those who are not used to learning new game rules every week.
Tile-laying games usually provide a great balance of strategy and accessibility, and that fit in with the theme of "planting" square fields on the board. I used domino-style tiles in order to give each tile two strategic possibilities. The goal was to place the fields in a way that would score points for all similar fields of the same type of crop connected to your tile.
Then I added another dimension. There were one or two barns on each side of every tile, and now players had the choice to either score immediate points for groups of like fields, or they could advance their markers on the "barn tracks". If they advanced their markers equally, they would eventually be able to place one of their barns on the board, which reserved those fields — and points — exclusively for them. But if they focused on getting a marker to the top first, they could score valuable "livestock" tiles. The game now had a myriad choices within a fairly simple and intuitive set of rules.
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Harvest Time
The game was an immediate hit with friends and family as well as in my group of established game designers, who encouraged me to show it to publishers. When I did, there were many requests for prototypes, and Pegasus offered me a contract within two months. The game was published two years later and enjoyed positive early reviews, including being chosen for the German National Board Game Championships. A multi-language edition exported to North America also garnered favorable reviews, although many felt that the theme could have been more attractive — and more appropriate for such a tense and highly interactive battle.
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Heartland eventually went out of print, but the positive reviews continued, most notably on The Dice Tower, and the game was soon quite expensive on the secondhand market. Naturally, I hoped that another publisher would eventually reprint it, perhaps trying a different theme in the process.
Another fan of the game, reviewer Dan King (a.k.a., Game Boy Geek), also wanted to see a reprint and connected me to Scott Gaeta of Renegade Game Studios. Scott agreed to publish it and decided on a feudal Japanese setting. Now players must use their tiles to form armies of different types of troops, or use their tiles to advance their honor, build strongholds, and earn war banners. The new theme is both colorful and reflects well the conflict in the game.
We were also able to make some tweaks to the rules, using feedback from the many fans of Heartland over the past nine years, to make the game more balanced at all player counts and less dependent on the luck of the draw.
Heartland was one of my first published designs, but as its popularity continues to show, it is still one of my best. I'm happy to have it widely available again to both serious and casual gamers in this improved version.
Jeffrey D. Allers
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