designer tips

Cortiça Part 6 – Release

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Cortiça was officially released in April 2024 through the Board Game of the Month Club, Button Shy’s subscription service where backers receive a new game every month. This meant that the physical game was not sold on Button Shy’s store – except for a brief moment when 30 or so spare copies were available and quickly sold out.

One of my favorite things about Button Shy is how open they are to distributing their games as Print and Plays, which are files you can use to print your own copy. This has a lot of advantages, from making the games cheaper (the files are cheaper than the physical game and there are no shipping costs to pay), it is more environmentally friendly because it skips the logistics of shipping the games around the world and it keeps the games available for longer because the digital copies don’t run out. 

When Button Shy does crowdfunding campaigns for their games they always include the option to back it as a Print and Play. They also run PNP Arcade, an online shop for print and plays, where you can also find Cortiça.

It was a joy to receive my copies of Cortiça. Due to the high shipping costs (and now tariffs) from the USA to Europe, up until now all of the Button Shy games I had played were Print and Plays. The first Button Shy game I’ve held in my hand was the one I designed myself! I took the opportunity to take some photos: 

You can see more photos on its gallery on BoardGameGeek.

If you’d like to get a physical copy of Cortiça, good news! Cortiça is a part of Button Shy’s Reprint Campaign which is currently running and will last for 6 more days.

I’m very happy that the game is getting a wider physical distribution and I hope that everyone that wants a copy is able to get one. If you’re reading this at a later date, I’m sorry you missed it!

Before we go, I’d like to highlight these fan projects from the Button Shy community:

  • Ava Jarvis (sinopiasaur) created an elegant solo variant that allows you to play the game whenever you want! For such an interactive game, I am impressed by how well it works. I invite you to try it. The rules are available here.
  • Lee Smith (DragonWizard9) opened my eyes to another advantage of Print and Plays. You can print the games in different sizes and materials! First they printed a miniature foil version of Cortiça and they took it one step further by making a version out of cork, with a box and everything! How cool is that?

The best part is this happened before I had revealed the earlier plans for a cork version!

And with this, the design diary for Cortiça is up to date! If you’ve just found this article and would like to read it from the start, here is Part 1.

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Cortiça Part 5 – Publishers

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In the following year Gil d’Orey from Mebo Games contacted me about another of my prototypes and since they’ve published several games with Portuguese themes I brought up Cortiça. He tried it out, liked what he saw and for the next months we iterated on the game, both in terms of gameplay but also production.

Gil wanted to make the game out of cork, which sounded wonderfully fitting! They investigated several options. The first was to make the cards out of cork, but the production costs would skyrocket. They looked into only making the resource cards out of cork, bringing the number down from 18 cards to 6. Then they took a different approach of having a cork box instead, then a cardboard box with a cork sleeve to keep the lid shut.

One of Mebo’s prototypes, with resource cards made of cork

In the end there was no option that would be cost-effective to produce, which meant they’d be forced to charge a price that would seem too high for a tiny game of only 18 cards. In that price bracket it would also be competing with much bigger games that are well established. They politely declined and returned the rights to me.

A few months later Jason Tagmire from Button Shy Games got in touch and showed interest in publishing Cortiça, which sounded great since it had been designed specifically for them. He handed the game to his playtesting team, who regularly sent me helpful feedback and suggestions.

Some of the most notable changes: 

  • The Action cards are no longer shuffled at the end of the round, with the first one getting turned over. Instead, the player whose worker is at the bottom of the pile gets to pick which action leaves the line on the next round. This gives the players more control, works as a catch-up mechanism and makes the game more strategic, giving players a better idea of what action cards might be available next and in what order, and letting players choose to have a sub-optimal round in order to cue up the next one in their favor. It also reduces the hassle of having to shuffle and rebuild the action line every round.
  • The Action cards are now horizontal instead of vertical. This gives the art more room to breathe and form a landscape on the table. It greatly simplified things by placing all of the action spaces on the bottom of the cards, which was a lot easier to parse.
  • The Plan cards now show what’s on the other side as well, so players don’t have to memorize them or flip them to check, revealing their plans.
  • The “Get Help” card is no longer a permanent upgrade. In tthe earlier version the players who did this early had such a big advantage that it was hard to catch up. It also meant that action card was pretty much useless once the players upgraded both of their workers. Now the action is cheaper but it doesn’t last as long. It’s a bet on your next turn, so use it well!
Sara Mena developing the art direction for Cortiça

When it came time to think about the art, I mentioned I’d love it if the artist was Portuguese since they’d be more familiar with the topic, aesthetics and culture. I suggested Sara Mena, a talented artist who’s been an integral part of Cortiça’s development from the start, helping me with brainstorms, playtesting and overall support. She’s also my partner and we’ve long wanted to collaborate on a game. I was delighted that both Sara and Jason were up for it.

Cortiça’s wallet is revealed, in great company!

Once Button Shy posted the wallet design, everything was suddenly more real. It’s finally announced and people are wondering what it is. It’s happening! One step closer to the launch.

This design diary continues in Part 6 – Release.

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Cortiça Part 4 – Design Challenge

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The deadline for Button Shy’s design challenge was fast approaching so it was time to prepare the materials to submit. The cards and rulebook were in a good state but there was one thing left to do: the pitch video. These videos are an important part of the process. Button Shy gets so many submissions for the challenges that they need these short videos in order to speed up their triage process. They’re also great practice for the designers so they can learn how to pitch their games and the video itself could be sent to publishers.

There were a few technical challenges. It was hard to find a place that didn’t create glare on the cards so I ended up recording on top of our bed, which meant I had to be on my knees. I had to rely on the camera’s microphone, which isn’t the best and left the sound a bit muffled.

Am I really that hard to understand?

I took the chance to try youtube’s automated subtitle feature, which is handy but gets confused with Portuguese names and words. Still, it was quicker to correct the transcriptions than to write everything from scratch.

Given the constraints, I’m happy with how it turned out. It gives you a quick overview of the game’s theme, rules and an example turn from the middle of the game, with five seconds to spare from the three minute limit.

Cortiça’s pitch video for the design challenge

I must add that I kept working on the game after the contest so these rules and cards don’t match the published version (spoilers!). I left it up as an example of a simple pitch video for other designers and people like you who are curious about how the game came to be.

Despite the demanding briefing there were over 150 games submitted to the design challenge! I was very happy that Cortiça made it to the 10 finalists but in the end the winner was Food Truck Feud, by Jay Yeates. It’s since been published by Button Shy as À la Food Cart.

Button Shy’s announcement video with the finalists and winner

At that time I was living in Ireland, and was a member of the board for IMIRT – The Irish Game Makers Association. One of my tasks was to help organize the IMIRT Irish Game Awards, which spotlight games made in the country. That year we were short on nominees, including for the Best Analogue Game category, which only had one. It was suggested I submit Cortiça.

I checked with the board before submitting because it could be seen as unfair since I was part of the organization, but since I was not a member of the Jury or part of the judging process, it was approved. I didn’t expect much because the other nominee was a published game with professional art. Mine was a tiny prototype, 18 handmade cards and rules in a ziploc bag.

Cortiça won Best Analogue Game and was the runner-up for Best Game Design at the Imirt Irish Game Awards 2020! 

They’re so pretty!

One of the big winners that year was Empire of Sin, by Romero Games. It won the awards for Best Game Design, Best Game Art and Best Technical Achievement, and was the runner-up for Best Game Narrative, Best Game Audio and Game of the Year. I was one of the game designers on the team! That was my day job. Cortiça was created in my spare time.

You can check the full list of winners and nominees here.

But that’s not where Cortiça’s story ends! There’s a couple more posts left to go.

This design diary continues in Part 5 – Publishers.

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Cortiça Part 3 – Playtesting

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Now that I had a playable prototype (with a theme and everything!) it was time to show it to more players. This time however, I didn’t have a playtest group. Not only that, it was July 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone was at home in quarantine, and it would have been irresponsible to break it to get someone to playtest my game. Time to get creative!

My cousin Miguel wanted to try it, so I improvised a setup with a tripod and a webcam in order to run a playtest through Skype. Since Cortiça has no hidden information, I could handle the cards for both of us. All he had to do was tell me his move.

Playtesting via webcam on an improvised streaming setup, on an improvised desk (Thank you, Ben!)

It worked but it was not ideal. The tripod had to be very close to the table and I had to be extra careful not to bump it with either my arms or my feet. It was tricky to light the cards without getting glare on the card sleeves and my camera’s resolution was a bit too low to keep up with the text on the cards. It was finally time to take Tabletop Simulator for a spin.

Recreating the game in Tabletop Simulator was straightforward. Once I had properly formatted files (one image with all the card fronts, another with all the backs), importing the cards was a breeze. That took care of the components! At this stage I didn’t want to get into scripting or automation because the game was still in a very fluid state where it could change drastically from one playtest to the next.

All the card fronts in one image, ready to import to Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator has a lot of potential but its interface often gets in the way, complicating simple things such as tucking a card under another. Even after learning its controls, it still feels like playing a game while wearing boxing gloves. This can affect playtests in a number of ways. Due to its cost and controls, the players who are willing to playtest are often very involved in the hobby. A more casual player would still have to go through its learning curve, and it will color their opinion of the game. In addition, games tend to run longer than they would with a physical prototype.

In this occasion though, it suited me very well. I was even able to find a workaround for several of the technical issues such as its price and interface. Just like my playtest with Miguel, I could run Tabletop Simulator on my machine and share my screen, moving the cards for both players. This allowed me to playtest with people that didn’t own Tabletop Simulator, and they didn’t even have to learn the controls!

Cortiça’s prototype on Tabletop Simulator

All the while I continued playtesting at home with Sara, always patient and supportive. The game took shape as we tried different strategies and made adjustments. My digital notes gradually turned into the game’s rulebook – but that’s a topic for the next article, where we’ll cover the contest submission.

This design diary continues in Part 4 – Design Challenge.

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Cortiça Part 2 – Theme

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The first prototype for Cortiça, handmade and still without a theme, or a name.

At the end of Part 1 I had a high level idea of how the game could work, but it hadn’t been tested and I had yet to define what it would be about.

At this point I could either look for a theme to design the game around, or try to get the game’s basic rules to work and then find a theme that fits. The good thing is, there is generally no wrong answer here. As long as they’re in tune in the end, you can start however you want.

Given the strict component count for the competition (18 cards!) there was a risk of falling in love with a theme that demanded more components, or that would make me want to stretch the definition of a worker placement game to the point where it would no longer qualify for the competition. Gameplay it is, then!

There was still one question left to answer before assembling the first prototype: I knew what 13 of the cards will be used for, but what about the other 5? I gave each player an additional resource type to allow for more depth in their actions. The other three were made into public double-sided goal cards which would change throughout the game. These were meant to add variability and to help prevent a dominant strategy, which is when you have a strategy that’s so powerful that there is no reason to do anything else. Watch out for those, they can sap all the fun out of a game!

The first playtest went well. The core system worked, the economy needed another pass (but that’s to be expected!), and the game took exactly one hour, which is a lot longer than I would like. After a few tweaks, it worked a lot better! It was finally time to start looking for a theme.

Putting together a prototype in Affinity Designer

As I wrote in Part 1, I wanted this game to be about a facet of Portuguese culture that I hadn’t seen represented in boardgames before. Turns out, there are plenty of those! After a fun brainstorm session with Sara Mena, we ended with an A4 page full of possibilities. There was one tricky aspect, however…

The core of the game is resource conversion, which could suggest a theme of harvesting or manufacturing something, but there is an extra wrinkle that doesn’t line up with the standard manufacturing process. In the game you use your workers to gather A to turn into B, which you can use to get C. Think of C as points: once you reach a specific amount, you win. There are several ways to turn combinations of A and B into C, but you can also can turn C back into a larger amount of B! That’s because I wanted to give players the option to spend their hard-earned points for a chance of getting even more later on – but will they have enough time to do it? This could also work as a catch-up mechanism, because it gives a losing player a chance to sprint ahead.

The obvious solution would be for C to be money, so exchanging it for B could represent buying it, but since getting C is the goal of the game, that could easily be interpreted as “money is good”, and I did not want that at all. I’d much prefer if my game could help people forget about capitalism for a bit.

Fortunately, there was one theme on the list that could fit all of the gameplay so far: Cork!

Three wallets made out of cork fabric.

Cork is a big deal in Portuguese culture. You may have only seen it as wine stoppers, but has long been used to make tools and the recent invention of cork fabric has greatly expanded its possibilities. Not only can you make things like wallets, umbrellas, hats and even postcards out of it, but it can also be recycled.

So now I have a theme! When applied to my game, the result is: The players will assign their workers to grow cork oaks, extract the bark and process it into different products made out of cork. Players can also recycle their cork, which gives them raw material which they can turn into other products. I also had a name: “Cortiça” (/kuɾˈti.sɐ/), the Portuguese word for Cork.

On the next design diary we’ll cover playtesting during a pandemic: Part 3 – Playtesting.

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Cortiça Part 1 – Origins

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Photo of a cork oak tree in a dry Alentejo field, by António Carrapato

At long last, let’s talk about Cortiça! What is it, and where did it come from?

After Blight Chronicles: Agent Decker wrapped up, I was done. It was such a negative experience that it left me incapable of working on my own projects for a while. It taught me what a panic attack was, even if I didn’t have a name for it yet. Every so often I’d come up with an idea for a mechanism or a theme that seemed interesting and would write them down, but as soon as I started to develop it into a prototype, there would be instant splitting headaches and my heart rate would go up. The message was clear, I had to take a break. This was supposed to be a hobby. This was supposed to be fun.

This went on for a few years.

It had been almost eight years since me and my partner moved abroad for work. I wouldn’t describe myself as a patriotic person, but as time went on I started to miss facets of Portuguese culture that couldn’t be found anywhere else. It was heartwarming to see new, popular boardgames using Portuguese themes but they seemed to focus on just a few aspects of the culture such as wine and azulejo tiles. There’s so much more! One day I brought this up on Twitter and a random user responded with an angry version of “If you’d like to see more games with Portuguese themes, why don’t you make one?”. I think they were just trying to shut me up, but I wanted to make something to answer back. Is it wrong to make a game out of spite?

In June 2020, Button Shy Games announced a new design contest: “Create an 18 card worker placement game. Cards only.“. This seemed impossible! Worker placement games usually have plenty of tokens for workers, currency, resources, sometimes even victory points! How can you compress it all into only 18 cards? It got my brain going. I still wanted to take things easy so I didn’t commit to the contest right away, but I had to see if I could crack this puzzle.

Boardgame designers often get asked “Do you start with the theme or the mechanics?”. In this case the component constraint was just as important. If it can’t fit those cards, it’s no good. So I started to do research on worker placement games. I had to get to the essence of what makes them work, because there wouldn’t be room for much more. Action drafting, timing, blocking, action resolution, collecting and converting resources, multiple paths to victory. In 18 cards…!

This needed a new approach. I figured one way to make sure the game would fit into 18 cards was to sketch what it could look like while in play. This really helped! I still didn’t know what the game was about or how it played, but this let me allocate cards for different functionalities to see how many I would need for a basic worker placement game. After multiple attempts on paper I moved to the computer and sketched something that started to look like a game:

Mock screenshot of Cortiça

There is a central row of action cards with one or two slots where you can place workers. Each player has their own worker and resource cards, in their color. Workers are double-sided so they could be upgraded. Resources are counted by rotating the card. The amount on the top edge is your current total and they’re double-sided, so each card can count up to seven. And the best part is, I have five spare cards!

Now that I had an idea of the general shape and limits of the game, I could start to figure out what it is about, and how it plays.

This design diary continues in Part 2 – Theme.

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MIND IS SOFTWARE – Porting SUPERHOT from the screen to the table

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Every so often I look for talks about the process of designing games and only found a few. Maybe I’m spoiled by all the postmortems that happen in the videogame medium but I’d love to see something similar from boardgame designers, especially about working with IP or adapting games from one medium to another.

So when Gamedev Camp invited me to do a talk and let me pick the topic, I knew what I had to do! I went with the design process of adapting SUPERHOT from a videogame to a card game.

I hope you find it insightful!

Blight Chronicles Designer Diary 2 – Your Mission

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Missions are a key part of Agent Decker.

The original game had a fixed sequence of five missions:

Agent Decker (full art version) by Sara Mena

For added variability SUPERHOT: The Card Game ditched the fixed sequence and instead had a deck of goals to draw from. The further you are in the levels, the more goals you draw.

SUPERHOT: The Card Game by Paweł Niziołek

Due to its heavier focus on story and progression, Blight Chronicles needed a new system.

First let’s clarify the terms: in this game “Mission” refers to the whole campaign, which is divided into “Stages”. Stages define the goals you’ll have to complete in order to progress through the Mission.

One of the challenges of letting the players customize their own deck throughout the game is that, depending on the player’s choices, some goals might become too easy and there’s even a risk of them being solved instantly once the setup is done. This, combined with our motivation to make the goals more challenging and engrossing, lead to the current system:

Multi-goal stage cards!

Blight Chronicles (work in progress), artwork by Ramses Bosque and graphic layout by Paweł Niziołek.

As you can see, the goal is “Discard 6 Mixed resources to jump over the fence”, but did you notice the 1-star requirement before it? That means you can’t complete it right away.

You see, before the start of the stage a briefing will inform you that you’ll need a pair of Night Vision Binoculars in order to keep a low profile when infiltrating the enemy complex.

Blight Chronicles (work in progress), artwork by Ramses Bosque and graphic layout by Paweł Niziołek.

As part of the setup for the stage the binoculars are in the Obstacle Deck and will eventually make their way to the line. When you manage to eliminate the Guard House you get two things:

  • The Night Vision Binoculars, an item that you can use from now on.
  • A star token (currently named Event), which is placed on the Stage Card.

Now that the requirement is met you can finally complete the goal!

I won’t spoil the other goals but I hope you can see the potential of this system! We’re having a lot of fun coming up with different ways to use it.

“Special Setup”? “Visibility”? What could those other icons mean? Stay tuned for the next Designer Diary!

Blight Chronicles Designer Diary 1 – Expanding Agent Decker

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Welcome to a series of posts about the design and development of Blight Chronicles: Agent Decker, the expanded official release of Agent Decker, published by Board & Dice.

Agent Decker’s campaign is designed around a sequence of five missions.

The good part is that they give the players new objectives along the way, forcing them to adapt as they’re gradually forced outside their comfort zone. The bad part is that this only works once. Once you know the missions and how to beat them the mystery is gone and you can prepare for them in advance.

– From “SUPERHOT: The Card Game – Designer Diary 3”

The design for Blight Chronicles started from that very problem and arrived at different solutions, for three reasons:

  • Story: While it seems subtle on the surface level it is an important part of the process because it informs the design of every card.
  • Progression: The feeling of progression where you’re gradually facing stronger obstacles as your gear (hopefully) improves.
  • Relevance: The original Agent Decker files are still available online and Superhot: The Card Game is in stores, so why would you play this one instead?

The obvious solution to increase replayability was to leave the obstacles deck untouched and simply increase the amount of goals you need to complete. Instead of a fixed sequence of 5 missions you would have multiple goals for each mission. During setup you shuffle their pile and draw one for each – face down so you can’t fine tune your deck in advance.

Simple!

The thing is, this time I am not designing alone.

This is a co-design with Matt Dembek, who was so inspired by the original game that he wanted to expand it in pretty much every aspect. I can’t wait to tell you what we’re working on, starting with how we changed the missions.

Blight Chronicles: Agent Decker is coming to Kickstarter soon!

SUPERHOT: THE CARD GAME – DESIGNER DIARY 3

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superhot_setup

Agent Decker’s campaign is designed around a sequence of five missions.

The good part is that they give the players new objectives along the way, forcing them to adapt as they’re gradually forced outside their comfort zone. The bad part is that this only works once. Once you know the missions and how to beat them the mystery is gone and you can prepare for them in advance.

Being a print-and-play game the players would have to assemble it before playing, so I wanted to keep the card amount fairly low. Instead of adding more goals I added a high score system. The first goal is to beat the campaign and the second, if the players want to, would be to beat their previous high score.

This lack of replayability was one of the first things I wanted to address in SUPERHOT: The Card Game.

In the original videogame the main objective is to kill every enemy in the level. That’s where my design started, but I quickly ran into three problems. First, it’s easy to lose track of how many enemies are left in the deck, and I didn’t want the players to stop playing to flip the deck over and count.  Second, being a deckbuilding game there was the risk of a player simply adding all the enemy cards in his/her deck in a previous level, preventing the completion of the next one! Third, having a single objective got very repetitive, even if the enemy total would increase throughout. It nudged the players towards building one specific type of deck, ignoring everything else you could do in the game.

To fix this I had to steer a bit away from the original game. Varied goals were added, aimed at exploring the game’s mechanics and obstacles while keeping within the focus of the game: manipulating the level, the enemies and the flow of time. The goals can now be shuffled to give the players a different sequence every time, keeping players on their toes.

surrnder3-1030x579

This meant I had to rethink each goal’s difficulty. Agent Decker’s fixed sequence let me control the pace at which the difficulty increases. This system doesn’t. The goals have to work whether they show up at the start of the game or further along, when the challenge is meant to have ramped up.

The solution was simple: more goals!

  • Draw 1 goal for Level 1
  • Draw 2 goals for Level 2
  • Draw 3 goals for Level 3

The difficulty comes from the time flow mechanic and the bullets.

The core structure of the game had to change as well. Once a planned sequence of goals where from time to time new cards are added to the deck, now the obstacle cards had to be designed for versatility.

To extend the replayability that ramp had to be replaced by a more open design. The cards became a series of dots which the goals ask you to connect into different shapes.

SUPERHOT: The Card Game is on Kickstarter right now! It was funded in the first three hours and is currently at 703% of its goal.