Designer Diary: Wanted: Rich or Dead

Hello! My name is Dariusz Kułak, and I am the designer of Wanted: Rich or Dead, a Western-themed party game scheduled to debut from Galakta at SPIEL '17. I wish to tell you a little about my newest game and how I created it.

Actually, despite being a quick and easy game, Wanted: Rich or Dead (as it came to be known) took a long time to design. Its first version left my drawer over four years ago in 2013! Considering that people like Uwe Rosenberg manage to create, say, A Feast for Odin — a game the size of a giant — in half that time or less, I guess I should be ashamed of myself.

Anyway, the first version of the game was called "Acreage", and it was supposed to be a rather simple strategic game of Small World weight. Different races controlled by players would fight for resources, land, and food. The thing that would make this title stand out was its theme: birds, with tomtits that specialized in quick food collection, combat-oriented grackles, and the sparrows who are builders extraordinaire. Most of the mechanisms were based on action cards being played simultaneously and used to create paths to resources, build nests and storages, or expand to new territories. However, a hexagonal board and units with unique statistics resulted in many similarities with Neuroshima Hex!, and in the end I stopped on an early-prototype level.

Some time later, one of the Polish game publishers proposed that I create a strategic game that would consist of only 55 cards. Although it seemed like a tough task, I returned to the idea of "Acreage" and started making serious cuts. After some time, I was left with a number of areas presented on cards, simultaneous actions, and a deck of items providing certain bonuses.

I also created a more sophisticated background to strengthen the theme; the game was still about birds, but they turned into bird gangs trying to prepare for the coming winter by gathering sunflower seeds. Each bird species became a different organized crime group such as Yakuza or Cosa Nostra. I even drew my own art so that playtesters would be immersed even deeper in this brutal world of bird-eat-bird. (Plus, it's quite hard to find gangster bird artwork...) In this way, "In Your beak!" (more commonly known as "Birdies") was born.

In "Birdies", each player controlled one of five different bird gangs. Five areas were placed on the table, and players simultaneously played one of six action cards to move their pawn to a certain area. If a player was alone, they got their resources. Otherwise, a quarrel had to be settled. It can't be simpler than that, right?

The things that people liked were very quick gameplay, practically no downtime, and a light, amusing theme. One of the unique mechanisms was based on the birds getting "fat" with sunflower seeds; the more a player had, the weaker they became, which is the opposite of a snowball effect. By doing this, players who were short on victory points at the beginning could quickly catch up with the leaders. Effectively, this led to an exciting game finale as everyone had a strong chance to win. The playtesters liked it very much, and I knew the development was going well. At some point I even added a neutral bird, a kind of a swallow "Robin Hood" controlled by the poorest player. That bird could steal seeds from rich birds to give them to the poor, which resulted in even more balance.

Lots of playtesting later, "Birdies" was ready for production. However, at that point serious problems with my publisher started. Not to dwell on the past, but the company that ordered the game chose not to produce it after all, so I had to look for a publisher the usual way — by sending the game wherever I could.

At some point, another company (which also refused to cooperate with me on this project) stated that the bird theme is too narrow and the target group too small and I couldn't hope to publish the game with anyone until I changed it. I had to consider some other ideas for the setting, and after giving it some thought I chose to go for the Old West.

I did not have to change much, to be frank: seeds were replaced by cash, birds with gunslingers… The original mechanisms were perfect for accommodating a game about robbers! But I did not feel like it would be enough, so I changed the statistics to introduce a four-sided die. What's more, instead of using the same set of action cards for all players, I made each player deck unique. As a result, each bandit had a unique feel and strategy. Additionally, I removed the "Robin Hood" part and exchanged "getting fat" with "getting burdened by cash". Then I prepared a nice-looking prototype and got to playtesting. That is how Wanted was created.

The playtesters immediately got to like the game. Some of them even compared it to a better and less random BANG!, which is a great review to hear considering that both games have the same setting and BANG! is a worldwide bestseller.

Anyway, because of the changes, I had to balance the game yet once again hoping that some publishing opportunity would present itself so that my toil would not be wasted. It seems I must have drawn a lucky hand then as Galakta announced its yearly prototype competition. A few weeks later, I was ready to send Wanted to them along with all necessary materials…suddenly realizing that I was meeting the deadline with only one day to spare! I got lucky again as maybe three weeks later I got a call from their lead developer asking for a meeting. I felt that something big was coming! By the way, I won the competition in my category, which tells something.

The meeting was more than fruitful. Aside from some minor changes, we reached a conclusion that the very unintuitive D4 die should be changed to a D3 (which meant more balancing and tackling numbers), then we were ready to send the game to a wider group. The game was scheduled for the 2017 SPIEL game fair in Essen, which meant we had about half a year left to work with it.

While I was perfecting the game, Galakta was working on game components. It came as a great surprise that the game originally based on 55 cards swelled to much bigger dimensions. First, the great comic book artist Rafał Szłapa was hired to prepare the front cover and the characters. Michał Lechowski was responsible for items and the general layout, and together they created a really impressive piece of work. Second, the game attained its 3D aspect with thick cardboard buildings and stagecoach tiles. Finally, the dice were custom made to feature bullets and resemble in color real dice used in the Wild West, while the pawns actually started to look like cowboys!

With some cards left on the printing sheet thanks to various changes, I could design a mini-expansion with a completely new building and action cards. The final touch was the title — Wanted: Rich or Dead — and a short background story to make the characters more believable, then we were ready to go.

As you can see, my game has undergone lots of changes, both its rules and its graphic design. I am more than satisfied with the final result, and I am already thinking of some bigger expansion, perhaps adding new players, new characters, new buildings… Just get the game and experience for yourself how much fun it brings. I hope you will have as much good time playing as I had designing. Visit Galakta's stand during SPIEL '17 at 2:B130 to check it out!

Dariusz Kułak