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After the first edition of Tien Zi Que (TZQ) was published in Taiwan in 2009, people were asking for a four-player expansion for the game. Six months later, I published the White Dragon edition of the game, which can be combined with a copy of TZQ or a second White Dragon set to play with up to four players. At that time, I also introduced Event cards to the game. However, it wasn't the success I hoped it would be. One of the likely reasons: If you have four players, why not just play Mahjong with tiles? I also realized that the design lacked any multiplayer interaction.
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Novel Inspiration
Then, in 2011, I read a Chinese novel called The Empress of the Eleventh. (That's my own translation; I don't think it has an official English name.) The story was about a twenty-year-old female secret agent of the Eleventh division. Due to an act of terrorism, she is killed and travels back in time to a fictional ancient Chinese era. In this new time, she arrives in the body of six-year-old slave girl standing in an arena with many other slaves that are being used as shooting targets for a noble's sport. But she survives this slaughter, helps a young noble escape, and returns north for more adventures. It's a wonderful story that I just loved. If you like A Game of Thrones, you would like The Empress of the Eleventh.
So I contacted the novelist because I wanted to design a board game based on the story. Surprisingly, the novelist is a 24-year-old girl named Sunshine. (Background information on her in Chinese.) I say "surprisingly" because The Empress of Eleventh is about a power struggle, loyalty, betrayal, romance, war and battle – big topics for one so young. I was absolutely amazed by her writing style.
After a series of email exchanges, she agreed to let me design a board game based on her story. For months, I couldn't figure out what type of board game to design because the story had so many compelling elements and perspectives to it.
Sometime later, we had a chance to meet in Shanghai. Sunshine was preparing a script for an Empress of Eleventh TV series (which we hope to see produced in 2013). She signed my copy of the novel, and I showed her some of my game designs. Guess what? She just loves Tien Zi Que! I gave her my only copy of the Z-Man edition to take home and I thought, "Why not design a multiplayer version of TZQ based on The Empress of Eleventh?" So I began a draft of TZQ for multiple players.
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Soon, I had a two-to-six player prototype with event cards. Later, I added the "Peng" mechanism to increase interaction between turns and Command cards to create a unique gaming experience for advanced players. With enough Command cards, I added a team player rule so that the game can be played with up to nine players.
As for the setting, I figured that for foreign markets, a historical background would be better than a fictional Chinese one. As it turns out, The Battle of Red Cliffs seems utterly "fictional" to the eyes of Westerners.
I believe board game design is a process of practice and experience, just like drawing and painting. The more you practice, the better you get. During 2010 and 2011, I designed many games with solo game play options, such as Mines of the Sacred Dragon, Sudoku Taisen: Ice Age, Shadow Master, and more. I believe that each design improved my skills at this type of design, and now the solo rules for The Battle of Red Cliffs make for a very challenging game.
Ta-Te Wu
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Developer Addendum from E.R. Burgess
Shortly after the release of Tien Zi Que by Z-Man Games, my wife and I became fans of the game and started playing it regularly. When I was in high school, I played a fair amount of Mahjong – no, it's not just for old ladies – with my gaming buddies and I had grown up playing gin rummy and other similar games. I found TZQ to be a pleasant mix of those elements. As it happens, Ta-Te contacted me when he began to recruit playtesters for Di Renjie because he saw my high rating of TZQ here in BGG. I was more than happy to try out Di Renjie, being a fan of lighter deduction games. I ended up playtesting the game as well as editing the rules a bit.
Ta-Te is a prince of a guy and we got along well in email (having never met up to that point), so I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to help with The Battle of Red Cliffs. At first, the plan was for me to help with some editing and playtesting, as I had done with Di Renjie. But in the end I enjoyed Red Cliffs so much in my playtests that I had a fair number of suggestions – and then more suggestions. Ta-Te was happy to hear all the comments and used only the good ideas. I playtested the game extensively, even bringing it to The Gathering of Friends and Strategicon conventions in 2012 to get external feedback, all the while never having met Ta-Te in person.
I had been working on my personal designs for a while on my own, but working with Ta-Te opened me up to the idea of design collaboration because I so enjoyed going back and forth with Ta-Te on ways to refine the rules, simplify a turn, and tighten up the gameplay. Recently, Ta-Te finally traveled to Southern California (where he had lived in the past) and we finally met in person. It's been even more fun to collaborate face-to-face and because of this terrific experience, I brought in a new collaborator for my own designs while continuing to work with Ta-Te on some additional projects.
I'm excited about how much progress has been made to get the game to this point. I think it plays well all the way from the solo experience to the nine-player team competitions. I hope players who love Mahjong will find it a nice, portable alternative with some interesting additions to add some additional strategy to the game and keep it exciting.
E.R. Burgess
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