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Train selfie!
In our first approach of the design, we wanted to create a game that had those 18xx vibes of getting shares from a train company, doing stuff that raises the value of that company, and at the end of the game multiplying the number of your shares by the value of the company.
But instead of the company, we'd use the train lines in Japan.
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This approach turned out to be too convoluted for the type of games we like to design, and there were too many stations, cities, and lines! So we sent this prototype to the drawer at some point in 2018.
In 2019, while reading an article about the Shinkansen, we learned that the first line of the train was built for the Olympics in 1964, and we saw these two picture from the inauguration:
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And that ignited the spark to start the final design: Those sci-fi vintage trains were too good to not have their own game. Even the number of stations was reduced at that time — only 12 — and the line went through many of the cities we visited during our trip.
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And if the train was that amazing, why not let every player have their own? So that's how all the actions of the game turned out to be wagon cards for your train. Every turn you pick a card with an action, then that action will be executed during your turn. You already have one engine and one tail wagon, and the wagon cards will be placed in between. We got started on the final design by drawing trains!
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But how many rounds should the game last? How many actions? Can we repeat the formula from The Red Cathedral and give players the choice of one out of three or four actions? That approach didn't suit the game well, so we went back to history: The game will last five rounds to match the five years it took to build the train, and it will have five events. We added a mechanism of turn order selection, and we were ready to go.
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In the first versions of the prototype, we used real yen for the game; we had brought home a lot of 1 and 10 yen coins from our trip to use in games with a Japanese theme
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We also added the cities of the first line to the cards to still get that 18xx sensation. Stations will be built in those cities, and you will multiply the value of that station for the number of cards of that city.
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In the first versions, the value of the stations was fixed and was randomly placed face down in the city spots — and that didn't work well. All the playtesters wanted more control over the value, so we put all the stations outside the board with a fixed value and cost. They loved the fact that they can rush to get the most valuable ones and put in the cities they have in their cards.
So we have the basics: get tracks to open the space for stations, lay those tracks to build the train line, and build stations to get the final points.
We went to the biggest prototype fair in Spain with the game in a bare minimum design state, but the feeling of every test we made was awesome. Some things worked, some things didn't, but overall we had really good feedback.
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And then the pandemic started in Spain, and we went to lockdown with the game having a publishing promise if we evolve it a little bit. During the lockdown, we worked on the game to make it publishable, even simulating the players to get tests for four players.
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Many of our design sessions ended with family zoom calls during the lockdown
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We had to learn Tabletop Simulator to run the final test for Ludonova to finally get the publishing contract — and we needed to make the game even bigger!
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We came up with the idea of having three Olympic venues as well as a fourth action in which you have to invest in those venues. We added that action to the game, but that broke the number of actions available. The game still lasted five rounds, but by adding a new way to spend the player actions, the game felt too tight.
We spend a lot of time refining and balancing the number of actions per turn and per player because we wanted to see the map mostly completed by game's end at every player count.
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When the lockdown was over and it was kind of safe to meet with people, we made some playtests with all the new changes, in addition to continuing to work in Tabletop Simulator with gamers around the world and with the publisher — something that couldn't be done if we hadn't learned to use TTS.
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We went through a lot of events and things during the design and development of this game, but we pushed hard to get this game done and we think you will notice that in the gameplay.
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Loka Made Studios did an amazing job!!
And as if a pandemic weren't enough, all the shortages and wild container rates and other shipping issues put in danger the release of the game at the SPIEL '21 fair at Essen. Those uncertain times between the production of the game and its debut were a nightmare, but...you know what? This story has a happy ending.
Happy gaming!
Shei and Isra
Another train selfie! We’re getting good at this
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