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At the beginning of that story stands Web of Power, a board game that I was (and still am) very proud of. Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that before too long I started creating little expansions for that game, along with a very different card game version of it: Kardinal & König: Das Kartenspiel, a.k.a. Web of Power: The Card Game.
Although Joe Nikisch, the developer of Web of Power, was enthusiastic for this spin-off game, the publisher Goldsieber Spiele was not really interested in line extensions or companion games. That sentiment was common at that time in the game industry; expansions and promos were rare and made only for games with really big success, like The Settlers of Catan. The main argument at that time was that only a specific percentage of buyers of the base game would buy an expansion, so profitwise it wouldn't make sense for most of these releases. Of course you know that nowadays publishers have changed their minds completely on this topic and understand that such expansions and games can be a valuable marketing action.
Spiele aus Timbuktu
Nevertheless, I wanted to have the card game released, but since it couldn't be released under the same name from another publisher, I decided to release it myself, with the production of it being a professionally-printed sheet of cardboard that you had to cut apart yourself prior to playing. Even a special box could be cut out and used for the components.
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This small publishing project of mine was named Spiele aus Timbuktu, and it was the home of a lot of small expansions and unusual games that I made. Maybe you're familiar with the train trilogy of games that includes one of my personal favorites, Mogul? With a little help from my friends Bärbel and Friedhelm Adam of Adam spielt, I had kind of a distribution that helped to keep the project alive over a long time.
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In 2002, I received a request from Ravensburger for two-player games because they wanted to start a new series. I reworked two of my games that were especially for two, one of which became Crazy Chicken, while Web of Power: The Card Game was reborn as Richelieu.
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Both games were supervised by Stefan Brück, and they sold well and were well-accepted, with Richelieu landing on the 2003 Spiel des Jahres recommended list, but unfortunately right after their launch, the publisher decided to stop the series. (I had this experience again with Ravensburger in the early 2010s, with my game Lucky Numbers being part of its short-lived "Einfach spielen" series.)
In the subsequent years, I published a variant of the game for three and four players as a download. MaBi released an online implementation, which later was available also on my own site boardgames-online.net, followed by another online release at Yucata and an implementation as an iOS App under the name Web of Power Cardgame: The Duel that was created by Shannon Appelcline. Here on BoardGameGeek, you'll find a lot of nice fan editions from that time that kept the game from being forgotten.
Rebirth
In 2017, I received a request from Gonzalo Aguirre Bisi for a possible re-release of Richelieu. He wanted to change the theme, graphics and name, and to start a Kickstarter campaign with his company ThunderGryph Games. I was not quite sure whether crowdfunding for a re-release would work well, but Gonzalo was very enthusiastic and I wanted to give it a try.
The incredible support for the game on Kickstarter — more than €350,000 — was like a fairy tale and a total surprise to me. The team was incredibly professional on every issue of the campaign for the freshly renamed Spirits of the Forest.
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In parallel, we worked hard on all the nice additions. Finally, the campaign ended after reaching all its stretch goals. (I was very happy especially about the very last one, an additional spirit that's bound to the fireflies.) I was overwhelmed by the big interest in the game, and now we are so close to the production, it having taken more or less twenty years to give the game the best possible release for this design that's been well-developed over the years.
Development and Changes
If you look close, you may find some conceptional similarities between Spirits of the Forest and the Web of Power board game, but both designs appear very different from one another.
Originally Web of Power: The Card Game was for three to five players with a different kind of token (for special actions instead of symbols). After the Richelieu reworking for two-players only, the game now can be played by one to four players. Again, I was quite skeptical about a solo variant (my first!), but it works extremely well and plays out full of tension. It's surprising how many nice little ideas could be found and included, even after this long development time.
The strong artwork of Web of Power was made by Franz Vohwinkel and was also partly included in Web of Power: The Card Game. Oliver Freudenreich was the artist for Richelieu, and Natalie Dombois made the incredible, wonderful artwork for Spirits of The Forest. (Have you seen the sweet trailer?) Hope to see more from her in the future.
I have to come to an ending now and can say that the design process and the work with all these nice people was a lot of fun and very inspiring — a happy ending.
Michael Schacht
P.S. I just visited the warehouse and held the Spirits of The Forest Collector's Edition in my hand — so impressively beautiful...
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