Design Diary – Stonemaier Games

Design Diary

This is a compilation of the designer diary entries posted in the Expeditions Facebook group and on BoardGameGeek. They are listed here in chronological order, with the most recent entry at the top.

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July 9: Odds and Ends

Shipping for Expeditions is proceeding as planned; everyone in the first wave should receive their game by the end of July. You will get a shipping notice when your preorder ships. The second wave is mostly people who preordered the Ironclad Edition in the US in May or June; we’re on track to ship to you in late August.

I was looking over my notes, and I have a few random design stories to share today.

Ending the game: In a game without a set number of rounds, I think it’s important to give players a compelling reason to end the game if they’re able to do so (instead of unnecessarily dragging out the game). In Scythe, the game ends when a player places their 6th star; in Expeditions, it’s the 4th star.

But there are a few bigger difference between the two: In Scythe, the game can sometimes end abruptly if a player places multiple stars on the same turn. In Expeditions, you must Gather a “boast” benefit to place a star (exactly 1 star per boast), so it’s much more transparent when the end is nigh. The important difference is that if I place my 4th star, that doesn’t end the game in Expeditions; instead, each player (including me, at the very end) takes one final turn. In this way, all players are motivated to end the game if they can, knowing that they’ll get the final turn. Players take so many turns in Expeditions (a few dozen) that it’s how you optimize your time in Tunguska that determines who places their 4th star first, not the initial random player order.

Worker placement on cards: I discussed in some other design diaries how I really wanted players to feel like they had a crew, especially given the size of the mechs. I went through so many different purposes for the workers: bag building, worker placement on the locations, worker placement on the mech mats, workers as resources, etc.

What I ended up with is a way to use workers to significantly boost the cards you play. All cards have a core value–either 1 or more guile or power–that you get no matter what when you play a card. But if you have a specific worker to use the item, wield the meteorite, or employ the information of a quest, you get to activate the ability as well. This also let me try to pair certain types of abilities with each type of worker, applying certain subthemes to each color and leading to a lot of different combinations depending on if you focus on a few specific colors or pursue a diverse array of workers.

Also, sometimes I get excited to use a card’s ability before realizing right before playing it that I don’t have the matching worker available. I’ve found it’s sometimes helpful to place workers on cards in hand (which are conveniently kept face up to the left of your player mat), just as a reminder of what I plan to activate on upcoming turns.

Impacting the shared game state: One of my goals for most of the design process for Expeditions was to give players a way to change the shared game state. That is, in addition to you personally improving as you explore Tunguska, you’re also changing the locations themselves. Unlike Scythe, though, it didn’t feel thematically correct for players to build anything on locations or gain control of them–you’re explorers, not empire builders or conquers.

Finally I realized the twofold answer that now seems obvious in hindsight: One, all locations in the central and northern regions (14 total) start the game face down. You impact the shared game state by exploring those locations, permanently revealing them to all players. Two, the land itself is corrupted. All locations in the central and north regions have corruption tokens on them, and the corruption covers a benefit on those locations. Vanquishing corruption is good for end-game scoring, and doing so reveals powerful actions (upgrade, meld, and boast) for any player to use from then on. It’s a form of positive player interaction that has the side benefit of gating those powerful benefits so players can’t do them from the beginning of the game.

I’m near the end of my design diary topics, but if there’s anything you’re curious about that I haven’t covered, please let me know! Also, big thanks to Tim Chuon for taking the Expeditions photos you see here and elsewhere.

July 6: Tales from Production

Today I venture into the various Expeditions components I tested with Panda during the pre-production process in this video:

July 5: Working with Jakub

Spanning nearly a decade, my partnership with Jakub Rozalski on Scythe and Expeditions (both set in his 1920+ universe) is one of my longest creative collaborations. I care deeply about his success, and I’m grateful for the fruits of the partnership.

When I reached out to Jakub about the possibility of a sequel to Scythe, from the beginning I tried to understand what he wanted to see. He’s an artist, so I knew the collaboration would work best if he was really excited about the project. Some early concepts I heard from him were exploration, discovery, danger, and giant mechs. I pushed a little to make the game cooperative–I think that’s a good format for exploration games–but in the end, I think it’s good that Jakub pushed back against that idea, as Scythe’s audience is primarily competitive gamers.

Thanks to Scythe, I found that I really enjoy working with artists who visually build the world during the design process. Seeing those visuals helps me mesh theme and mechanisms while I design. Early on, Jakub’s focus was on the locations, which range from light and populated in the south to dark and possessed in the north. Here’s a video of one southern locations, timelapsed from start to finish:

Jakub lives in Poland and I’m in St. Louis, so all of our communication is over email. To augment our written correspondence, after big breakthroughs in playtesting I would often create screenshot-style videos to visually explain how the game was evolving. This ended up being a great way to keep him in the loop despite the distance.

Like any partnership, there were also some tension-filled moments. Many of them stemmed from how long the game design process took. At one point in 2022 when I realized the game would benefit from a third type of card (items), I realized that I had overstepped in requesting a new batch of illustrations. It wasn’t that Jakub was against new art; rather, I was requesting art before I was 100% sure that items belonged in the game. That was an important learning moment for me. While art can inspire mechanisms, at a certain point I need to figure out the mechanisms before requesting more art, and I was careful about that from then on.

Jakub was even flexible when I told him very late in the process that everything didn’t fit into the square box we had initially planned. I really tried to get everything to fit into Tapestry- or Wingspan-sized box (smaller boxes are more cost effective to freight ship, fulfill, and fit on game shelves), so we always try to keep box sizes to a minimum. But was simply impossible to do so once we added an insert designed to protect the mechs, hold tiles, mats, & sleeved cards, contain a removable tray to make setup easier, and have a little extra space for expansion tiles, mechs, and cards.

Also, I want to give credit to our long-term (even longer than Jakub!) graphic designer, Christine Santana. She takes the myriad prototype files and art I send her and turns them into a cohesive package. We had a little miscommunication about a few of the prototype icons from game-icons.net ending up in the final game, but fortunately they’re open-source, and we credited their designer in the rulebook (Thomas Tamblyn).

Before I close out today’s post, here’s the update I included in today’s Stonemaier newsletter:

  • Schedule: Preorder shipping has begun! Our fulfillment centers have thousands of preorders to ship, so the process may take most of July. You will receive a tracking notification when your order ships.
  • Preorder Price: The special preorder discount will end on July 11.
  • Reviews: A number of reviews and playthroughs are now available here.
  • Ready to begin an expedition? Select your mechs and characters by choosing your own adventure or using a randomizer web app! The Dized interactive tutorial is also now available for free!
  • Design Diary: In addition to the various videos I’ve filmed about Expeditions, I’m also now posting written articles about the design process of Expeditions.
  • Stonemaier Scores app: Track your scores from day 1 on the free scoring calculator app for all of our games! It’s available on iOS and Android.

July 1: The Rolling Realm Promo

I realized that with Expeditions starting to ship (Australia and the US have begun, followed by Europe next week, then Canada–freight shipments arriving at slightly different times to 4 different fulfillment centers) that people are not just getting the game–they’re also getting the Rolling Realms promo realm! It’s about time that I share its stories and details.

I mentioned in a recent Expeditions design diary post that I probably designed (and went to print with) the Expeditions realm too soon in the process. One sign of this is the name: The game was originally called Expedition until we added the “s” late in the process due to another game announcement for the singular name, yet the promo still bears the original name.

Also, for a good part of the design process, Expedition(s) was a rondel game: Mechs moved in a clockwise circle around the map, collecting income when they crossed home base. It was with that mechanism in mind that I designed the realm, even though I dropped the rondel mechanism in the full game.

So in the Expedition realm, you “move” a number of spaces around a circle of hexes. Depending on where you end your movement, you collect a benefit from the destination, which is indicated by outlining the hex. When you move away from a location, you fill it in, indicating that you can never end your movement there again (though it’s still a location to move through, counting against the number).

It’s been quite a while since I’ve gotten this realm to the table, so I look forward to making its liveplay debut in a few weeks!

In case you’re not familiar with Rolling Realms, it’s a living roll-and-write card game in which each round consists of the same 3 random realms for all players. The realms are based on a variety of Stonemaier games and games from other publishers.

Previous Design Diary Posts

June 28: Shipping Update and the Evolution of Expeditions (2022)

Before I finish the journey of the Expeditions prototypes, I have a quick shipping update. Expeditions has arrived and is starting to ship to preorder customers in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. First-wave US and Europe shipments will start shipping next week, and shipments in Canada should begin on July 11. Our fulfillment centers have a lot of orders to ship, so please wait until the end of July to be worried about your shipment. When your order ships, you will receive a tracking notification. I’m excited for you to get the game to your table!

When we ended 2021, Expeditions had 4 different skills/resources and I was fixated on the rondel system. I was also trying really hard give players a sense that they were operating a giant mechanical machine (the mech), resulting in an action-selection system featuring a bunch of workers scurrying around a flow of actions. Upgrade cubes both improved actions and added more options to the action flow:

I can’t remember why, but something about this round of playtesting helped me break through the 4-skill/resource system and streamline the game down to the two things you ever really need to solve a problem: power and guile. At this point I was also back to deckbuilding, using a system where you could claim quests to solve in the future; once solved, they were added to your deck. There was also an element of struggle against the game–I wanted a sense of danger or corruption to the wilds you are exploring.

A major breakthrough at this time is I finally let go of the rondel mechanism. Instead of requiring players to go around and around the map, I simply gave them a movement range and let them move wherever they wanted, stopping at unexplored locations. The loss of this mechanism meant that I had to drop the concept of income from the game (income was triggered after completing a trip around the map). But this change really helped the game start to blossom.

However, the rondel mechanism lives on in the Rolling Realm promo for Expeditions. I designed the realm while working on Expeditions, and it coincided with a print run of other realms, so it went to print with a mechanism that didn’t even end up in the final game! It also has the old name of the game–Expedition, singular–instead of the final name.

Another big series of breakthroughs soon followed. First, I started putting cards in between locations on the map. I really wanted these cards to matter–you’re going to different places to pick up quests and meteorites. Second, I streamlined the goal system, giving each player a unique mission to accomplish.

Around a month later, I had a fairly streamlined system that used a mech mat and a character mat (which had the power/guile track that would later shift over to the mech mat). At the time I think I wasn’t happy with how workers were used in the game, so I created markets to be placed within the map, each with a bonus if you used a specific worker. Guile or coins were used at markets.

I played Dead Reckoning around this time and remembered how much I liked the public goal system in Scythe, so that re-entered the game. The cards went back within the map, and I found a configuration I liked for the locations.

Yet there are still a few elements of the prototype that would later change. The mech mats were back to looking like Scythe mats–paired actions, but upgradable with both cards and cubes (you could upgrade a section using the top or bottom of a card). The character mats had a fun level-up system based on how many meteorites you had melded. I realized that I needed a third card type (not just meteorites and quests), so this is when items entered the game.

I was also inspired by Shards of Infinity here to have some cards improve based on other elements in the game. This ended up in several places in the final game.

I finally cut the overly complicated mech mat, as the cubes and cards felt redundant, and the game really started to shine. I had a streamlined action system along the lines of Concordia (no shift system yet, though), a mech mat upgradable by cards, and even the first appearance of corruption.

At first, mechs were only only upgraded by meteorite cards, but it didn’t take me long to realize that every card was a potential enhancement: meteorites could be melded, items could be upgraded, and quests could be solved, each providing a different ongoing benefit. This became one of the most compelling choices in the game: When do you remove a card from your pool of active cards to permanently enhance your mech?

You can also see the shift system here, though it was slightly different than the 100% final version. In the final version, you shift your action token and perform the exposed actions. Here you shifted to cover a different combination of actions and proceeded to perform those newly covered actions.

While I had run blind playtests throughout the process at different types, this is when blind playtests went into full swing. The game was working great, and it was just a matter of making each card fun, functional, intuitive, and balanced. There was mild asymmetry in the game via the pairings of characters and mechs, but I wanted most of the asymmetry to emerge during the game, not during setup.

I have some other design stories to tell that aren’t paired with specific photos, so I’ll leave them for another post in the near future. For now, thank you for joining me on this journey through the prototypes!

June 22: The Evolution of Expeditions (2021)

When 2021 began, Expeditions was still a bag-building game. It had a cube-based upgrade system like in Scythe, and like in Slay the Spire, you had to overcome a location before moving past it, which granted you a completed quest card.

The quests were proving to be a problem. Basically, whenever a new location appeared, players had to find a small deck of quests associated with that location, shuffle them, and place them nearby. It was thematic (specific quests linked to specific locations), but incredibly cumbersome.

The map–or lack thereof–also felt really disjointed. So I started testing different versions of a game board, with all locations printed on the board with different terrain nodes in between (different mechs were better at moving through different types of terrain). Clank was definitely an inspiration for this concept:

Also, at this point in the game design, Expeditions had combat! Each character had their own set of custom dice that they could use to attack other players. As you can see on the above player mat, there was even a system for upgrading the benefits if you win or lose a fight.

The node-style board felt disjointed, so I tried a hex-based version of it. The benefits on the blank hexes were gained when you explored a new location on that hex. I think this was also the first time I tried associating random cards to gain with specific areas of the board (in this case, each column):

Also, at this point the game was back to being a deckbuilding game, though with an influence from Aquatica (each card had multiple power levels).

I liked some of these systems, but the game had become so much about the hexes and the cards that I was worried that the feeling of controlling a giant mech was lost. So I started experimenting with different mech mat systems. This one was tied to the core actions, again using the cube-based upgrade system from Scythe:

Here’s another version of a mech mat, this one with stronger asymmetry (4 different abilities to unlock, just like Scythe):

There are a few other developments in the photo above that would end up impacting the final game (and some that wouldn’t). I experimented with the character as a mat with different skills to unlock (it took me a long time to realize that the skill system wasn’t working, and I switched instead to just power and guile). I removed the board and just had free-floating hex tiles.

Also, importantly, I switched to a quest system where the quests weren’t either in your deck or needing to be sorted by location; instead, they were all in one quest deck, and you had to find and move your mech to the quest’s location to solve it. Each quest had 3 ways to solve it, each with escalating rewards; these were inspired by Scythe’s encounter cards.

This next playtest was particularly memorable because (a) it was outside on my patio (COVID times) and (b) we were joined by special guest Ira Fay, a developer who has worked quite a bit on the game Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread. There’s nothing like playtesting with a relative outsider your respect and admire to realize that many things aren’t working in a game!

Looking back, the problem was still with the system of 4 different skills, but I wasn’t able to see that yet. So even when I continued to iterate, the iterations included the skills. The terrain types were also still impeding the game, as was the rondel system, but I wasn’t ready to give up on any of them (one of the reasons the game took so long to design: stubbornness!)

As we reach the end of 2021, I do want to mention one system in the game I really liked but would eventually need to cut. For a while I had a mission system in the game that contributed a bit to the games’ written and emergent narrative.

In the photo above, there’s a big card associated with location 12 that says, “Stash away a harpoon.” I randomly received this mission at the beginning of the game, and I needed to go to location 12 and use 3 exploration skill. When I did that, I then gained a random card–it looks like 2 cards, but it’s really just one card with a random location on the left and always the climactic location 20 on the right. Together these formed a little story of my journey: If I completed all of them, I would have stashed a harpoon, attached it to a whale (this probably should have been “attach it to a boat”–we shouldn’t attach things to animals!), and used it to defeat Tarkovsky. I really liked this 3-part narrative, but it ended up being too cumbersome to keep in the game.

I’ll be back next week with some or all of the many developments that happened in 2022!

June 18: The Evolution of Expeditions (2019 and 2020)

I didn’t remember until I sat down to write this post that I started working on Expeditions in late 2019 (I thought it was early 2020). Sure enough, I have photos of a playtest in December 2019:

When I started discussing the idea of a Scythe sequel with Jakub, I wanted to design a deckbuilding game (and potentially a living card game [LCG]). I think this was before Jakub even knew the thematic direction he wanted for the game, hence why all the art in this photo is from Scythe.

The original idea was a deckbuilding game in which you could upgrade all the standard deckbuilding elements via a Scythe-like player mat. Some cards would be permanent upgrades to your mat, while others would remain in your deck. Remarkably, this almost describes the final version of Expeditions, yet the game went through so many interactions that didn’t involve these mechanisms.

Over the next few months, Jakub and I talked quite a bit about what the game was. Jakub continually set the scene with new illustrations, and he set some parameters: This was to be a competitive game focused on exploration and discovery, and each player would control a single mech as a moving base used to traverse a dangerous land.

Because the initial attempts at deckbuilding weren’t working, I switched to bagbuilding using meeples, kind of like Orleans. You could use certain combinations of meeples to take actions, including what appears to be some sort of grid puzzle (I can’t remember at all how it worked).

I also knew how much people liked the encounter system in Scythe, so I played around with ways for the locations themselves to act as encounters, giving you 3 options per location with variable costs and benefits:

I was always asking myself what people enjoyed about Scythe and how I could represent it in Expeditions. The photo below shows how I tried to implement the upgrade system into Expeditions using a combination of cubes to improve costs/benefits and cards under the mat. I was also constantly iterating what movement looked like in the game: How would the locations fit together, and how would they be revealed?

I lingered for quite a while on bagbuilding, sometimes using the meeples for worker placement and sometimes using them for push-your-luck skill tests. Slay the Spire was a constant benchmark for me, and I was really fixated–too fixated–on the idea of completing a location before being able to advance to the next location:

You can also see in this photo that I was starting to play around with the concept of quests. I also had players balancing sanity with knowledge, neither of which ended up in the final game.

I’ve enjoyed this walk down memory lane! I didn’t expect Expeditions to take over 3 years to figure out, especially given that it is a sequel to an existing game. I’ll share what happened in 2021 in the next design diary post.

June 9: My Favorite Mechanisms in Expeditions

Today I discuss my favorite mechanisms in Expeditions!

May 21: Games That Inspired Expeditions

In today’s video I talk about the many games—tabletop and digital—that inspired Expeditions during the 3-year design process: Slay the Spire, Clank!, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Dune: Imperium, The Quest for El Dorado, Shards of Infinity, Nemesis, Yedo, Great Western Trail, Magic the Gathering, Tyrants of the Underdark, Dominion, Ark Nova, Moonrakers, Dwellings of Eldervale, Dead Reckoning, Islebound, Concordia, Century: Spice Road, Inscryption, and, of course, Scythe itself.

 

May 5: Meteorite Cards and Melding

Today I share how meteorite cards and melding work in Expeditions, including a number of up-close card examples! Each color of meteorite leans into a certain theme–which color resonates with your style of play?

April 20: Item Cards and Upgrading

Today I share how item cards and upgrading work in Expeditions, including a number of card examples.

 

April 6: End-Game Scoring

Today I walk through an example of end-game scoring in Expeditions, including:

  • an example of the mech mat with riser stickers in use
  • how the endgame is triggered
  • end-game scoring

March 23: Mechs, Replayability, and Variability

Today I shared all 5 mechs in detail as part of a discussion about replayability and variability in Expeditions, including the impact of:

  • asymmetric pairings (30 combinations)
  • 20 locations revealed at different times in different places
  • 90 cards and how/when you use them to level up your mech
  • 8 different glory goals (only 4 stars per player)

March 9: Unboxing the Updated Pre-Production Copy

I received some updated printed components, so I unboxed and discussed them in this video! I also showcase the insert here.

 

February 16: Story, Characters, and Goals

Here is a video discussing the events that precede Expeditions, the characters (their motivations, companions, and abilities), and how the overall goals of the game are tied to the theme.

February 10: Expeditions vs Scythe

Here are the 10 categories (similarities and differences) explored in this video:

  • Encounters/exploration
  • Asymmetry
  • Tension
  • Multiple paths to victory
  • Engine Building and Progression
  • Popularity
  • Resources/Cards within the Map
  • Animals and Mechs
  • Art and World
  • Action Selection

Forgot to mention: Like Scythe, Expeditions has a robust Automa solo mode and an achievement sheet!

 

February 8: Tucking Cards and Risers

I have some good news for those concerned about the tucking mechanism in Expeditions. The photo here shows the three ways you can improve your mech: solving quests (top), upgrading items (right), and melding meteorites (bottom). When you tuck a card, you slide the card under your mech mat (or under other tucked cards), leaving a portion of the card revealed.

There are three important tokens on your mech mat–guile, power, and action–and I was concerned about those tokens sliding around when you tuck. But in testing, I found that it’s actually very easy to lift up the mat enough to tuck a card without moving the tokens.

However, quite a few people have expressed their concern about this tucking process. Again, I don’t believe it’s a problem, but I still heard the concerns. As I state in the Expeditions FAQ, a dual-layered mat isn’t an option. It’s overkill for 3 tokens, and it doesn’t actually make the cards any easier to tuck.

Fortunately, there was another solution that we were able to implement on short notice. It’s somewhat non-traditional, and I don’t even recommend that people use this solution the first time they play, as they may realize it isn’t an issue on their table.

The solution is that we are now including thick stickers to act as risers for the mech mats. If you decide to use them, you’ll put them in the 4 corners of the back of the mats, lifting the mats just a little off the table so you can tuck a card without using your hands to lift the mat (therefore alleviating the possibility of accidentally moving the tokens).

I totally get that not everyone is comfortable applying stickers to their game–that’s why they’re entirely optional to use. It may seem odd to permanently stick something to a mat, but a mat itself already has multiple layers of cardboard and paper stuck together by glue. Permanent adhesives are a part of every game.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about this in case you noticed the text box in the final draft of the rulebook. Thanks for reading this far!

February 4: Gameplay Video (4 Quick Turns)

February 1: The Teaser Trailer

15 Comments on “Design Diary

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  1. Looking forward to the inevitable expansion for Expeditions – and seeing the air molecules still left in the base box, it looks like there is room for 2 more mechs! Nice, with player board, okay… a few more hex selections (Does this mean further north? or maybe just some variations in the N,C,S regions?). Just trying to see into the future of 1922 and if the expansion will allow up to 7 players on an expanded map? Or just some more mech/player options for up to 5 players. . . Or 7 players on the same map (a very crowded map maybe)…

    1. Thanks Paul! Indeed, we left room in the insert for 2 more mechs and their mats (that’s the only aspect of the expansion we’ve announced so far) and potentially more location tiles and cards.

  2. Hey Jamey, I was wondering that usually there is a design diary post dedicated to the Automa system, but that seems to be missing here. Is there a reason why? I would love to know more about the automa design process. Thanks.

  3. Thanks for doing these design diaries they are really interesting. I noticed in some of the early photos that the mech models look like the finished ones. Wondering if they were unused designs from Scythe or if Jakub just did them super early.

    1. Paul: Those are all original designs specifically for Expeditions–we just started early because miniatures (especially metal miniatures) take a long time to create.

  4. The opening paragraph on this page refers to the Rolling Realms Facebook group — presumably that is a typo and should instead be the Expeditions group?

  5. Really looking forward to the game. Always enjoy these design sneak peeks. I was wondering if Panda would be down for a sneak peek behind the scenes of actually crafting Expeditions

  6. I think that raising the board will just result in cards shooting underneath. Hopefully somebody will come up with a play mat or 3D printed dashboard with slots so that this works, but it makes me hesitant to buy. You’ve had endless feedback about this. It’s a really obvious flaw. I don’t think dual layered is helpful. I think I’ll spend the whole game fishing cards out with my fingernails and rearranging constantly.

  7. Jamey,
    Seeing the hexagonal location tiles brings up a design-related question I’ve pondered in the past; however, it is not specific about your Expeditions game: Why do games with separate board pieces that are placed together rarely have interlocking parts (like a jigsaw fit)?

    Yes, this does mean there are art and functional considerations needed for the concave/convex parts of the pieces, but I see these advantages:
    1) The game board layout stays in place better.
    2) It offers gameplay opportunities since the adjoining piece brings an attribute to the piece(s) it connects to, making the sum something new.

    Is production cost the main factor?

    By the way, I’m a Stonemaier Champion, and look forward to playing Expeditions.
    Thanks

    1. Great question, Tony. I think there probably are games where interlocking pieces make sense–it isn’t a matter of cost at all. I’d say it’s more about durability, aesthetics, and how the tiles fit together (are they rotated? Are there empty spaces in between them? etc).

      But you’re right: For the right game, it would be neat for an element on tile A to become a part of tile B.

  8. How about making a “dual-layer” Mech Mat with notches underneath where you can slide a card into without lifting it?

    1. I appreciate the idea, and our solution has the same effect while being far more cost- and space-effective for you. :)

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