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Quote:
Ragnarok approaches… and the Midgard Serpent, Jormungandr, is stirring.
The spawn of the Serpent, a horde of serpentine monsters called the Endless, are now scattered
throughout Midgard hiding in deep canyons and valleys, awaiting the final battle.
While many Vikings have attempted to enter such places wishing to aid the Gods in their struggle, none have returned.
The Endless Pass is one such place… will you enter the Endless Pass and emerge victorious?
The spawn of the Serpent, a horde of serpentine monsters called the Endless, are now scattered
throughout Midgard hiding in deep canyons and valleys, awaiting the final battle.
While many Vikings have attempted to enter such places wishing to aid the Gods in their struggle, none have returned.
The Endless Pass is one such place… will you enter the Endless Pass and emerge victorious?
Different board game designers point to different starting points for board game design; a theme, a mechanism, even the components themselves can spark the first game ideas. For Endless Pass, I really enjoyed tying a mechanism and a theme together to create the idea of the Endless. How they interact with the players, their name, and even the name of the game itself comes from the synergy between a game mechanism idea and a theme.
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The serpentine Endless, which have not changed much visually
except for my awful (but practical) drawing skills
The Mechanism: Infinite Runner Video Games
When the first idea of creating this game came up, I was inspired by the movement of the characters and monsters in "endless" or "infinite" running platform video games. In these (usually single-player) games, the player can jump or attack monsters in addition to picking up treasure or health while always moving forward in a seemingly endless world and trying to survive the perils on the path. The player cannot stop; the character is always moving. As the difficulty of the game increases, so does the speed or the perils in the path of the player.
I imagined what would happen to the monsters that were left behind in these games. What happens when the player jumps them? Well, in those games, nothing; they are forgotten on the path and left behind. But what would happen if another player were also following that same path after the first player?
With this question, the idea that the Endless are persistent monsters came to life. If they are not defeated, the Endless will remain on the path and encounter the next player. Endless can be defeated by using Attack or Greek Fire cards, but any Endless that are evaded or defended against are still in play.
This creates a challenge for the player as she may encounter a lot of enemies on the path, but it also adds the ability for that player to use the enemies to defeat other players in this competitive game. If you are not able to or don't want to defeat the Endless, they will be passed towards the next player. Therefore, the name of the game is also inspired by this move as the Endless keep "passing" from player to player.
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After the main game was designed, I added more challenge with the nine Endless Hunters
as they are harder to defeat
The Theme: An Endless Serpent and Norse Mythology
The ouroboros is a well-known symbol that represents the idea of infinity, a snake that bites its own tail in an endless circle. The idea of theming the Endless in Norse mythology came easily through the ouroboros connection. Who could these Endless be but serpentine creatures, the spawn of the most dangerous ouroboros of all, the Midgard Serpent?
According to the legend, the Midgard Serpent (Jörmungandr, World Serpent, Miðgarðsormr) will battle Thor during Ragnarök, the great battle of the gods that will lead to the inevitable destruction of the world.
Following this idea, the Endless are monsters waiting for the end of days in the dangerous mountain passes of Midgard, while the players are Vikings trying to prove their worth to the Gods and fight in the coming battle they know they will lose.
Quote:
The cause the forces of good are fighting is hopeless. Nevertheless, the gods will fight for it to the end. Necessarily the same is true of humanity.
If the gods are finally helpless before evil, men and women must be more so. The heroes and heroines of the early stories face disaster.
They know that they cannot save themselves, not by any courage or endurance or great deed. Even so, they do not yield. They die resisting.
A brave death entitles them — at least the heroes — to a seat in Valhalla, one of the Halls in Asgard, but there too they must look forward to final defeat and destruction.
In the last battle between good and evil, they will fight on the side of the gods, and die with them.
Edith Hamilton, Mythology, Grand Central Publishing (1942, 2011) pp. 442-443
If the gods are finally helpless before evil, men and women must be more so. The heroes and heroines of the early stories face disaster.
They know that they cannot save themselves, not by any courage or endurance or great deed. Even so, they do not yield. They die resisting.
A brave death entitles them — at least the heroes — to a seat in Valhalla, one of the Halls in Asgard, but there too they must look forward to final defeat and destruction.
In the last battle between good and evil, they will fight on the side of the gods, and die with them.
Edith Hamilton, Mythology, Grand Central Publishing (1942, 2011) pp. 442-443
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The evolution of the two-sided player boards, with one side for a nameless Viking,
the other for a Hero
These Heroes and Heroines were also inspired in Norse mythology. For example, Hervor, the spell-singer, is based on the practice of magic or shamanism called seiðr, a Norse witch or a völva. While this character is more versed on the art of casting spells with runes, I also designed a male seiðr who was a seer and another younger völva, a rune weaver. In addition to the Berserker, the bear warrior included in the game, I also explored the wolf and boar warriors from the shamanistic tradition. From the original twelve characters that we playtested, we included only six in Endless Pass, with an equal number of female and male characters of different ages.
Design Evolution: Norse Fantasy
While the first idea for the development of the game was related to the movement of the monsters (i.e., the infinite runner), I originally just placed the game in a generic fantasy setting. However, very early in the design process I established the connection between the infinite movement and the ouroboros, between the fantasy and Norse mythology. These thematic ingredients influenced the design not only of the Endless, as I've described above, but also of other aspects of the game. For example, following the Viking belief that victory is possible in death, in the game it is also possible to win after being eliminated (as you are the Viking with the most Glory in Valhalla).
In this Norse fantasy game, the thematic also influenced the types of items that are found in the Pass. For example, the Greek fire designs (which were originally just fire bombs) were inspired by Byzantine grenades. We incorporated this idea because Vikings knew about this technique and used it on their ships (Varangian Guard of Basil II).
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The evolution of the Greek fire card, which was playtested as both an action and an item
The artist, Craig Petersen, took care to include some Norse fantasy details in the illustrations and the design of all the cards for the game, from the weapons, shields and helmets to the rune symbols used (except for the symbols of speed and actions, which are meant to be more helpful for the player than faithful to the theme).
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The evolution of some action cards
Finally, in these pictures you can also see a bit of the evolution of the design of the Speed, Hide, and Attack Action cards — not only graphic changes towards adapting the illustration to the idea of the mountain pass, but also the evolution of the gameplay itself due to playtesting.
Aside from playtesting with friends, family, game design colleagues in Barcelona and board game clubs, I also playtested the game at conventions such as Protos y Tipos 2017 (Zaragoza, Spain) and UK Games Expo 2017. From these playtests, the Speed card evolved from two separate actions to one action with two options (speed up and slow down). Hide also evolved from two different actions (change direction and skip turn). Observing the players, it was determined that the merging of actions both gave more decision power to the player and simplified gameplay and rules.
I hope that you've found this behind-the-scenes tale about Endless Pass interesting. Let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding this design diary! If you would like to check the rulebook of Endless Pass, you can download it from the BGG file page.
Núria Casellas
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