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Eggs and Empires sprang from a conversation between Ben (herein writing in red) and me about how we liked blind bidding as a game mechanism because, well, it was just fun. We loved For Sale and other games like it. As it turns out, we also REALLY like card powers. Who doesn't right? So, what if...
Blind bidding + card powers = Fun. I mean, it had to! That is sound math right there. With no further ado, we decided to make a blind bidding game that used awesome, interactive card powers. So we did. The design cycle went surprisingly fast. If you read the designer diary for Fleet, you know that design took a long, LONG time. With Eggs and Empires, we brainstormed card powers and within a few days had proto cards mocked up and played a hand or two.
Matt is being too kind with his version of the story. He deserves much more of the credit on this one than he'll give himself. The conversation above we did have, multiple times even, but it was Matt who showed up excited at my house one day and said, "Here it is, our new game. Blind bid plus powers. Every player has the same ten cards, pick one, bam." Immediately the idea of positive and negative goal cards emerged and the powers to avoid/discard/pass those negative cards soon followed. Funny enough, at that time we had never even heard of Raj and some of the other big games in the genre. Having positive and negative goal cards in the pool is a staple of some of those as it turns out. Who knew? Great minds think alike, I suppose.
We began playing the next week at lunch as we often do and right away the game was fun. It was early in the process still, but we knew we had something here. We began tweaking powers, adding new ones, discarding ones we didn't like. We played and played and played. Very soon we had ten powers that we liked and that worked and were good. Those would become the Empire Deck.
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Most of the final powers in the game are pretty close to what we came up with early on. By now, we seemingly have a decent grasp on what makes an interesting decision turn to turn, so powers that were too lame or too obvious in use were weeded out quickly. It wouldn't be a fun game if it were overly apparent each turn which card you should play. Therefore each card has some sort of opportunity cost or risk built in that makes the player think twice before choosing. I know one of our personal favorite choices is when to sneak in the Merchant (5) card. Avoiding an egg and getting that 6 VP from him can be a huge boon, and it's a really satisfying play.
We had been playing for VP cards without defining the exact values, so it was time to do so. We knew we wanted "good" and "bad" VP. We designed several of the powers with that in mind. Boring math and lots of brute force later, we had a nice spread of positive VP cards and negative VP cards. The negative VP cards — not wanting to win a hand or trying to figure out how high to go to get the good card but not get hosed into taking the bad card — drove good decisions.
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GOAL: We should make a game that truly anyone can play, but we still enjoy.
This is true. I wasn't sure we had it in us, but I think with plenty of luck and brute force we stumbled upon it. Now onto my next big goal: a party game. Make a party game; rule the world. Actually my design bucket list does include a party game, along with super heroes, time travel, something regionally themed to Michigan/Detroit, and a heavy thematic adventure game.
Now, LOTS of games say "Fun for new AND experienced gamers!" As often as I hear that, I cannot actually say that I have played many that deliver on the promise. It is a difficult balance to achieve. I tend to think it is more achievable in a filler length game and those tend to be the games that indeed are fun for everyone. Eggs and Empires definitely fits perfectly into that mold. Ben and I generally prefer heavier games, so if we made a light, fast-playing, easy-to-teach game that WE liked, it had to be good right? (Hint: IT IS
)If Matt sounds a little big-headed here, it's because he is, both physically and figuratively. I'm generally the voice of reason in this outfit. At least I'm claiming so in my section after he's already done writing his part.
Sigh. Honestly.
One of the reasons that we wanted to make a game like this is because of how successful Fleet has been. Fleet and Fleet: Arctic Bounty have been incredible. We are blessed and humbled by its success. Fleet is a gamer's card game that is not terribly difficult IMO, but it does take some time to learn and to teach and is generally enjoyed by more experienced gamers. Our family and friends, many of whom are non-gamers, were incredibly supportive of Fleet through development and the KS. It has gotten many of them into gaming and we could not be prouder. With that said, there are many that have a copy or two of Fleet sitting proudly on a game shelf or in a closet on top of Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit...still in the shrink. That motivated us to design a game that those family members would actually play. We realized that Eggs and Empires could be that game, and we kept that tenant in mind as we designed and tweaked.
I tease my lovely wife all the time that she doesn't like Fleet. She would never admit it, but she does not. At all. Fleet just is not for her. She likes lighter, gateway games like Settlers of Catan, Compounded, and Takenoko. We play Takenoko with my 10yo daughter, and it IS a blast.
We have played hundreds of games of Catan with my family, and it is still fun. She still requests it. I wanted Ben and me to make a game that she would request, that she would WANT to play, not just begrudgingly agree to play. Eggs and Empires has been that game. She truly loves it. She makes her family play it. It was the first time they agreed to play something other than UNO or Kids of Carcassonne (which is the BEST kids game BTW), and it went smashingly! They came over a few weeks later, and my nephew and mother-in-law asked to play it again. It was so cool.
Somewhere in there we argued about theme and probably tried 25 different ones that we didn't like until we found one we did. I wish there was a more exciting story, but that is the truth of it. If you know Ben and me at all or read any of our blogs or tweets, you know that theme does not come naturally to us. In the case of Eggs and Empires, it was simply that we thought the idea of dragon eggs was pretty cool and could imagine adventurers from different kingdoms, or empires, fighting over them. And that was that. It worked and it was fun. Plus, it ended up leading to some really awesome art work as a bonus.
To be fair to us, at this point we did tweak some of the powers to better integrate the theme once chosen. Theme usually seems to drive home the last 25-30% of the game and gives it the character that makes the game what it is. Our design process is basically mechanisms for a long time, find a suitable theme, then allow the theme to guide us to the finish line while making adjustments as needed — unless we're talking about monster trucks. Then it's theme all the way from day one.
That Eggs and Empires was picked up by Gryphon Games is very exciting. We know they will do a bang-up job. We showed it to Gryphon Games at Origins 2013 and they were immediately interested. After several months of development and art and planning, it is finally here. Well, almost here. Here any day now....
The art turned out amazing. Cristian Chialhala has been outstanding. Our vision was something a bit lighter, silly even, but when he showed us his vision we were hooked.
Thank you so much for reading this little stream of conscience.
Agreed. I hope you at least mildly enjoyed this read, and if it sparked your interest, please check the BGG page. We think E&E turned out great, and it has been complimentary to see it compared to Coup and Citadels and Love Letter. I admit that I did NOT see any of those comparisons coming, but it is cool with us as they are all great, great games.
Matt Riddle
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