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Starting Idea (in the 1990s)
Why did I start to design a vampire card game?
First, I'm a geek. I've enjoyed board games since I was a child: Junta, Diplomacy, etc. I've played role-playing games and wargames since I was 14: AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Squad Leader...
Second, I was fascinated by vampire stories, as most teenagers are. Well, like 1980s teenagers were. Vampires are different for today's teenagers, as my references were the classical vampires inspired by Bram Stoker's novel. Also I was fond of the Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, a quiet and morbid movie, full of stillness and atmosphere, that still overwhelms me.
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The Nosferatu and Renfield in Herzog's movie
So I told myself, "I like games. I like vampire stories. I can make one myself!"
First Stone (1998-2000)
Actually Nosferatu is my second game design. I first worked on a tactical board game that's still unreleased.
I started Nosferatu with a background set in the Middle Ages. Lords had to identify a vampire hidden among them to free a princess kidnapped by the Lord of Darkness, so there was a princess card that had to be found in the vampire player's hand.
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First prototypes
[/center]The pitch was good. I tested the prototype several times with my friends, but it did not work. It was too easy to identify the vampire by crosschecking players' declarations. I could not find the key, and that's when I realized how difficult it is to create a game! Nosferatu was a real design challenge:
-----• A hidden-role game, with its specific issues about the hidden role not being revealed by exploits, and
-----• An asymmetric game that has to be precisely balanced
Pretty hard for a beginner! So I put the project down for, oh, ten years as I had to save time for another passion: music.
Development (2010-2012)
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Prototype card
I started a new prototype that I then tested with family and friends. Their feedback was amazingly positive, so I worked very hard for three years to develop the main mechanisms of the game:
-----• The clock pile, which contains several Night cards and one Dawn card that interrupts the game, sometimes trapping the vampire like in Dracula's movies.
-----• Several mechanisms that allow the Hunters to collect clues throughout the game.
-----• The one-shot stake needed to kill the vampire, making every game end with a paroxysmal tension.
-----• Renfield, who is not only a game manager but an actual player deeply involved in the strategy and bluffing.
Working with Grosso Modo Éditions (2012-2013)
So Nosferatu was ready. I met several editors — including Grosso Modo Éditions in June 2012 at the Paris Est Ludique festival — and their feedback was really positive.
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Grosso Modo stand in June 2012
I chose Grosso Modo because they told me, "Great game! I like it as it is! Let's do it now!" Then we worked very hard for six months. Grosso Modo involved me in all the facets of the edition. We chose together a talented Swiss artist, Ismaël Pommaz, who did great artwork. We re-wrote the rules for them to be clear for novices. I am a legal practitioner, so I have a tendency to write rules like laws — and while that's a good way to have precise rules, they tend to be quite sharp for normal people! So Grosso Modo did a great job and the rules are now fluent, with beautifully colored graphics.
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Working with Arnaud Pierru
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Work in progress by Guillaume Goujon
Release (2013)
Nosferatu was released in March 2013 at the Game Festival in Cannes. The public was fanatic! We sold one or two boxes after each game demonstration, so the game was sold out before the end of the festival! It was a beautiful surprise and a wonderful achievement fifteen years after I set the first stone of the game.
Now I'm working on an extension inspired by Bram Stoker's characters. To be continued, ideally before 2028!
Pierre-Yves Lebeau
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