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The first ideas and mechanisms were rapidly elaborated, with druids needing to re-forest a glade thanks to their magical powers. With their energy, they could place magical stones in a glade, and these stones could then be changed into trees (freely inspired from an episode of Asterix, a well-known cartoon in French-speaking countries and elsewhere). As I had promised myself, the abscissa/ordinate system was used as these magical stones could be created only at the intersection of magical lightning bolts emitted by two druids of the same team. These druids could also capture forest animals (rabbits, boars or toads) in order to acquire extra powers that corresponded to the supposed properties of these animals. It was very important for me that mechanisms and theme be tightly linked.
The name of the game was Carnutes, the name of the forest in France in which druids used to meet for what could be called their annual congress. Reading the first rules for Carnutes now, I realize how different the game play was compared to what finally resulted: Karnag. I cannot enumerate all the differences, but for example each player had five magical stones, and the player must use a quota of five squares to move their druids.
Another way to move was to exchange a druid's place with one of the opponent's druids, but only if the opposing team had a lower level of energy. After the move, if possible and desired, a magical stone could be created at the intersection of the two lightning bolts emitted by the druids (something that's still the case in the final version of the game). If no stone was created, then the player had to choose one of the two animal cards shown near the animal card deck, move the animal as indicated on the card, and capture it if the animal ended its move at the intersection of the two lightning bolts.
The player had to decide when he wished to change the stones into trees. Victory points were given according to the number of squares forming the line between two stones (again, something that's still the case). Animals placed on the lines between transforming stones were captured, and any stone of another team situated on one of those lines was removed from the glade. The game ended when the last tree was placed or when the last animal left the holes at the center of the glade.
Here are a few photographs of this first version:
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And here's a diagram extracted from the rules that shows how to move the druids. The blue druid moves one square forward, swaps places with the red druid, moves two more squares forward, then jumps over the green druid to reach the Cauldron space.
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Hippodice
I sent this version of the game to the 2005 Hippodice game design competition in Germany. It reached the final round, but did not end up among the first five games of the ranking, being in the "Empfehlung" (recommendation) list. Later, reading the report that was written about Carnutes by the people at Hippodice, I had the impression (because my knowledge of German is not so widely developed) that they did not end the game the right way. Maybe the English rules were not clear enough on that point, but okay – no problem.
Being selected for the final round of this contest was apparently sufficient for visibility as soon after the publication of the results I was contacted by a publisher. They seemed interested in the game and asked for a prototype for playtesting.
I had only one prototype remaining and this prompted me to make a new one, which represented a non-negligible workload since I modelled the little animal figurines myself as well as the markers and stones, and had to bake them in the oven for hours – but I sent them the prototype they needed.
They kept it for one year.
Finally, they sent the game back, explaining that they would not publish it. The parcel was accompanied by a letter in which they explained the reasons for not taking it, specifically explaining which parts of the game were weak in their opinion. Some of this advice has helped me to develop the game further.
Several new versions were created, some being odd, others acceptable. I tested them with friends at home or in the game clubs where I'm a member. The board was kept (and is still the same); the basic principle of the game also remained the same to this point.
Another publisher was contacted. I sent a prototype and never got any feedback.
Boulogne-Billancourt and Publisher #3
I kept on making new versions of the game. One of them was very nice in my view as the gameplay was changed with the introduction of Action cards in a Puerto Rico-like system. On each card, there was a major action for the player who took the card, together with a bonus, and all other players could take the same action, but with no bonus. Yellow stones were put on the Action cards not chosen (equivalent to the money system in Puerto Rico), and these yellow stones could serve to increase the number of moves of the druids or the animals, or could also give victory points at the end of the game.
This version was much appreciated by "hardcore gamers" during the various tests and during some proto days in which I participated. One of the problems was the duration of the game, but nevertheless I decided to send it to another game design contest: the one of the "Ludothèque de Boulogne-Billancourt" in France. The next photograph, which dates to 2007, accompanied the submission to the contest.
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Well...the game did not even reach the second stage of the competition, being rejected solely on the basis of the rules. I found it strange at that time, given that the design had reached the final stage of the Hippodice contest some time ago. I suppose these are the ups and downs of game creation.
Then I went to work again in the hopes of improving the game, but what to improve? The game was nice – a bit long, but nice.
Among the different changes, I introduced the concept of a druid council, which was suggested by my son. It was a nice idea, but this new element suggested that a new equilibrium had to be found with the other elements. At this time of the development, I must admit that I was a bit lazy and did not work every day on the game. Months sometimes passed before I re-opened the box and worked further on it. I suppose others could have gone faster than I did.
I changed my strategy to have the game published and set an appointment at Spiel 2008 with publisher #3 as I thought this game could fit in its product line. They looked interested indeed and kept my prototype with the promise of giving me an answer in February 2009 at the latest, be it positive or negative.
But I received nothing in February, nothing in March... I sent several mails and never got any reply. I am still waiting for a single message from them. I do not know what to think of such behavior. Are they so busy that they cannot send a message saying, "Sorry, but we will not publish your game", something that takes approximately fifteen seconds?
After some months, I looked for another publisher as I implicitly understood that this one was not interested.
Publisher #4
While other players and I liked the game, I found the action-selection system a bit too close to that of Puerto Rico. Therefore, I wanted to find another system, with the rest of the game remaining unchanged.
In this new system, each Action card was divided into two parts, one being more advantageous than the other, and the players could choose the actions they wanted by placing wooden cubes on the cards. The mechanism had become a worker placement system. The yellow stones were still in use, with one stone on each less advantageous action; the first player to choose this action would claim the stone. The Action cards in the game at that time were:
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Actions: (1) Move the druids, (2) Set up magical stones, (3) Change stones into trees,
(4) Move and capture animals, (5) Recover energy, and (6) Draw a Power card
And here are the aforementioned Power cards:
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Powers: (1) Shoot lightning through a bush, (2) Swap two druids, (3) Move a tree one orthogonal space,
(4) Gain 3 energy points, (5) Move one of your stones one orthogonal space,
(6) Return a yellow stone and discard the depicted animal from the game to score the indicated number of points
This version was submitted to publisher #4 in the early summer of 2009. I was still working on the game's "worker placement" mechanism – although the then-current version was playable – as I had new elements in mind. In January 2010, I sent to this same publisher a new version of the game that I found better, one still with worker placement but with a new way of resolving the actions (the one now used in Karnag); this version also abandoned the yellow stones and introduced knowledge tracks (which are still present in Karnag).
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With the knowledge tracks, you can increase points scored for capturing animals, increase your move capacity,
gain energy, move stones or increase your influence at the council
I think they liked the game, but found it too long. They asked me to modify the design so that the duration would not exceed 90 minutes. I worked on this and delivered several modifications, but the game was still too long in their view. What's worse, in my opinion, is that the different modifications made the game less interesting.
This publisher did not like the theme either. Druids and animals were too childish for them, and under their influence this is why the theme became a bit more fantastical. Players now had magicians, and monsters were coming to invade our world. Bye bye, boars, toads and rabbits! The stones were transformed into menhirs, not trees. Consequently, I also had to change the name of the game, which simply and temporarily became Creatures. I also introduced two different scenarios for the end of the game, whether the gate can be encircled or not.
One additional reason for changing the name and the theme was that, according to this publisher, the Carnutes forest is known only in France and would not be appealing in other countries. I accepted this reason, of course. I didn't mind much about the name of the game. Publishers are the ones who invest the money in the projects, after all. Why not respect their fears?
That said, the success story of Troyes and Tournay in the meantime tends to demonstrate that the game mechanisms are more interesting to the players than the name written on the box. Who had heard of these French and Belgian cities in the rest of Europe – much less the world – before the release of these two games? Did it prevent their sales?
Despite the multiple modifications and multiple playtests, the versions of the game that were obtained were not satisfactory. I even tried a kind of card-draft system to select the actions, with no success.
And so we reached the year 2011.
There was still no final decision taken by this publisher. In the early summer of 2011, I heard that a new Belgian publisher was looking for games to start its product line. And, ooh miracle! He was looking for games destined to "hardcore" gamers, preferably of long game duration!
I approached him with the "strongest" version of Creatures, the one from January 2010. After a single playtest, he was enthusiastic and decided to publish it! It was the kind of game he was looking for. I told publisher #4 about this, and they were happy for me. (I think that they wouldn't have published it anyway.) See you later, maybe, for a future game!
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Action tiles in the final game, which are shuffled at random each turn
Sit Down...and Play
Thus, Sit Down! was going to publish the game. They did not like druids and animals either, though, preferring to situate the action in "silent space" with spaceships, satellites, and so on. I was not able to make this theme fit with the mechanisms, however, or find a nice story with this theme.
Having a game that tells a story was very important for me. There are enough abstract games with an unrelated theme! I did not want to do the same.
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Finally, we agreed on the "fantasy" theme. Druids and creatures were back. As some elements had to be removed and others added, a lot of adjustments were needed, requiring again a lot of playtests – but with the perspective that the game was now being published, these playtests were less bothersome than the previous ones. At this stage, the game was named Karnag, the celtic name of Carnac, a French city known for its multiple lines of menhirs. Since the game consists of creating lines of menhirs, it also fits the whole story.
We are now in 2012, and the game will be ready for Spiel in October. It may sound like the end of a story, but I hope it is the beginning of a new one...
Pascal Cadot
Final look for the Power cards
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