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The story of Elysium began (for us) at the Spiel International Fair in Essen in 2013, and in the beginning, there were cards, Romans, and dice. Brett Gilbert and Matthew Dunstan showed the Space Cowboys a card game for "experienced" gamers titled "Aurum et Gloriam" ("Gold and Glory" for those who don't speak Latin). Their curiosity piqued, Croc asked for a prototype copy, and once back at the office, we played a few games.
"A few" — this is not quite right. The way we work, every member of the team is strongly encouraged to give his opinion as frankly as possible. The meetings are pretty animated, each game having its supporters and detractors. Concerning Elysium, though the opinions were unanimous; the games kept going, and that was a lot of fun.
Originally, as Brett and Matt wrote, the game they showed us was about politicians who were attempting to seize power in the Roman Republic. Represented by cards, they were recruited by the players (who were playing as political parties) using four colored dice which each bore four different symbols. Each card required a specific combination of symbols (one or two) or a specific color to be hired by a player.
Seems classical, sure, but there were twists — and good ones.
The first interesting twist: Once a card has been claimed, the player discards any one of their four dice. "Any" is the key word here. If a card needs two symbols, you can remove the die you want, not necessarily one of the dice shown on the card. Thus, the cards have no price, but they have conditions. With four dice, that means four "recruitments", and as dice are discarded and cards are claimed, choices are narrowing and the game speeds up. This simple game mechanism creates pressure and limits "analysis paralysis" and the game duration.
The players also seek to gain the favor of a senator, a special card which determines the order of the next turn, grants a bit of Gold, and determines the promotions. (I'm coming to these!) Finally, each turn, they take (using their dice) three cards and a senator. To those who know Elysium, this should remind you of something, right?
The "Aurum et Gloriam" cards were divided into eight families: Augur, Tribune, Benefactor, Gladiator, Decurion, Optimas, Flamen, and Consul. Each had different powers (13 per family!) and affected various game elements: victory points, prestige, Gold, the other players' cards, etc. The card powers may be used during the recruitment phase. Since you already know Elysium (whaddaya mean, no?), let's just say that they haven't much changed since this point, other than to adjust the balance between some cards.
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The next twist happens here: When a card is promoted, it loses its powers, so you can't use them anymore. This small trick is interesting in more than one way. Creating combinations of powers with cards is classic, but "breaking" these combos to score points is intriguing. Not to mention that in five turns, you need to make difficult choices! And in our mind, play is all about making choices.
Another advantage of this twist: The game doesn't necessarily become more complicated as turns go on. You create nice combinations to earn you some Gold, help recruit more cards, or ease promotions, but sooner or later, you'll have to reduce your number of active cards (and so destroy your combinations) to score points. It's also quite difficult to gauge the position of each player: One could have a ton of victory points thanks to their cards, but little gold and thus few potential promotions. Therefore, uncertainty is maintained until the end, and there are often many surprises and big moves on the last turns. Kingmaking is nonexistent, which is a big plus in our book.
After our very first game, we displayed the whole package Matt and Brett had sent us and realized that we had played with five card families out of the eight contained in the game. This isn't a mistake, but a really clever way to keep the game fresh. The powers are so different that changing families upsets strategies and gameplay. Some sets of families promote interactivity, others cause a fierce competition for a resource which has become scarce due to the absence of a family. In short, 55 different "sets" are possible, which allows for a lot of plays before getting back to the same combination of cards!
In short, the mechanisms were pleasant, the length was right (between 45 minutes and an hour-and-a-quarter), the rules were fluid, and the card powers were varied. Our enthusiasm was so obvious that it became embarrassing, and in no time at all, we started seriously working on the game after signing the agreement with Brett and Matt. This is generally when the real, big discussions among us start — and we did it again.
The first major blocking issue was the theme. We love Rome and antiquity, but politics + senators are not so exciting. We started looking for an alternative and after a few unsuccessful attempts, we picked a fantastical Rome, with magical powers for some families.
We first dipped into mythology, researching the Senatorial Republic, and the rites and sorcery of Roman society. After this preparatory work, eight families were found, a kind of crossing between the families of the prototype and a few new ones.
Unfortunately, we found out that the theme didn't hit hard enough, and we had to start over from scratch. A lot of ideas were submitted, with some going from odd to zany. Let's see the list: A conspiracy-manic America in the 1950s, with lobbies, aliens, and corrupt politicians; a galactic Senate with alien races; alchemical schools; wizards; Louis XIV's court; etc. Again, nothing stood up to our critical eye.
During this work on the theme, we were also working on mechanisms. We needed to make sure that everything ran smoothly for two, three, and four players; that all card sets were interesting; and that combinations didn't create impossible situations or loops. This led us to many, many plays, but still "Aurum et Gloriam" kept being really fun to us, even after this gaming orgy. There was always a new combination to try out!
Everything was going well — until we had a test session where the die rolls, due to bad results, broke an otherwise well thought-out strategy. Getting the symbols you wanted could actually become impossible if you had a run of bad luck. This was pure frustration, and we didn't want that. Also, we wanted to simplify the acquisition of cards so that they were all available right away, and make them easier to understand at the same time.
The dice Brett and Matt loved so much became collateral victims of this simplification drive as we kept the colors but removed the symbols. Among the studio staff, this decision wasn't unanimous at first. We tried a series of successive tests with and without dice, and we consulted the authors about this blasphemous idea. Removing the dice was an important transformation, so their agreement was needed. At the end of the day (well, it took more than a day!) everyone agreed, and the dice were replaced with the columns of the final version.
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The evolution of a card; visuals are ripped from the wonderful Augustus (Hurrican),
with the gracious agreement of Vincent Dutrait and Yves Menu. Thank you, guys!
A short time later, another idea (ergonomic this time) happened to indirectly unlock our theme problem. For practical reasons, when cards are promoted, it's preferable to place them UNDER the game board. After all, it's more logical for other players to be able to see the active cards more easily than those you won't use anymore until the end of the game — but it sounds like a promotion...down!
We had another thematic issue with that point: Politicians of "Aurum et Gloriam" get promoted and...lose power. Well, this doesn't sound very plausible!
Finally, these two problems ended up giving us the solution. Instead of being promoted, the cards now move on to posterity and "die". The words "Greek Mythology" having been spoken in one of our many meetings, it suddenly clicked: The Greek heroes descend to Hell and lose their "powers" but contribute to the legend of the players (in the form of victory points).
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Going down to see Hades and crew
Matt and Brett were enthused by the idea of Greek mythology, and they dove with true pleasure into a theme they both appreciate. By the way, this would be an excellent point at which to thank them both for their faultless goodwill. They went far beyond what we expected of them, and it was a true pleasure to work with them.
The domino effect continued: We'd been asking ourselves questions about the nature of the families and their quick identification by the players. You might know the answer already: The gods imposed themselves on the game! They have various "domains" matching the abilities of the game's families, at least with a bit of imagination.
Everything followed quickly: For the game's title, we needed a simple name, relatively short, that would describe one of the more important aspects of the game. As for some reason we wouldn't call our game "Column", we become interested in the Elysian fields of the ancient Greeks, the resting place of deserving heroes...and a play area in the game's rules. The Roman pronunciation gained the upper hand over several alternatives (the more "Greek" Elysion, Thrylos, etc.) based on rather subjective criteria, we must admit: "Elysium" sounds good, whether in English or in French. The name of the cards was the subject of a lengthy research session into ancient Greek myths — our job is pretty cool, come to think of it — and we realized that we had an embarrassment of choice more than trouble finding ideas for cards.
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At this point, a "light" issue remained. We needed to find an artist who would be willing (and able) to make 108 cards in two months. This is just impossible, even if we came upon a super-powered mutant. The only solution, given the production delays, was to select many artists — but how to divide our 108 cards between them, and how then to manage that common work, which is not their usual way of doing things? By working out briefs — that is, descriptions of what we wanted for each card from the artist — we choose to follow the path of simplicity. Each artist would be in charge of one family in order to maintain a coherent feel.
After many phone calls, the eight artists give their agreement, and the team started working. Some "shared" cards (such as temples, gatherings, and initiations) are common to all families, but don't always have the same power, for example. We needed to keep an overall coherence, but with a completely different interpretation for each god. In the end, the necessity to coordinate the work of our illustrators created an unexpected good-natured competition, and they seem to have appreciated this "team" experimentation.
You think it's over?
Nope! We need to choose between cards with text, cards with iconography, or both. In the end, the "iconography PLUS text" concept won out after animated debates — but we still needed to create said iconography!
After this somewhat complex work, we finalized the rules, in full cooperation with the authors, as we were making the English version of Elysium at the same time as the French version. Have I already told you that Matt and Brett are awesome? A few crash tests with volunteers who had never played the game and to whom we handed the rules without any extra explanations caused us to clarify a few points in order to complete the rulebook.
There was still the card guide to write, an addition which had been planned for some time to strengthen the game's theme and clarify a few specific situations, which are inevitable in a combination-driven game containing 108 powers. And let's not forget an original plastic box insert designed by Sébastien Pauchon, whose sturdiness (the insert's – not Séb's) was proven through a series of crash tests immortalized on video.
When the first boxes arrived in our offices at the end of January 2015, there was a feeling as if Odysseus had just returned from his travels...finally. Now the game is out, so choose your five gods and send all those cards to the Elysium!
François Doucet
(Final note: This article is adapted and translated from an original piece published in the gaming magazine Plato. If you read French, check out the magazine as it offers a wealth of articles on many games, and the latest issue is full of good Elysium stuff!)
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