The Convoy is Coming Are you Ready?

Neuroshima: Convoy, 2nd Edition rolls into your hands at Essen Spiel 2015. We are extremely excited to bring this new edition to gamers world-wide. We cleaned up a few spots, streamlined a few others, and tweaked the art and graphic design… and, I must say, the game looks simply amazing. Years before that hard work, however, Ignacy had to design the game… and as always, there’s a story about that. From his blog a few years back, a story about the… fun… of designing Convoy in a weekend.

I could do it better

I tend to complain about games. I never do it on public, I never write reviews of bad games, I never criticize games or designers aloud but generally speaking, I am a complaining player. During a game I often say: ‘Nice game, but I could do it better.’, or ‘Great idea, but I could do it better’, or ‘This has potential, but I could do it better…’

You know, every author is a little bit cocky. I am author too so yes, I am a little bit cocky.

Well, to be honest, in my case “a little cocky” is a pretty big euphemism. Oh, yeah.

We talk a lot on Skype with Yann, my friend from France. We talk about games we’ve played. Yann knows that no matter which game we discuss, Ignacy will say: ‘I could do it better.’ That’s him, Ignacy. ‘

Few months ago, in November my friend Tycjan visited me and we played Revolver. The game was nice. I – naturally – said that I could do it better. But this time I decided to prove it. I sat down and in one weekend designed 70 cards and rules. I brought it to office on Monday.

„I’ve designed a game.” I said.

„Whole game?! When?”, guys asked.

„Yesterday.” I said. Ignacy “Cocky” Trzewiczek.

We played it and it worked just great, right from the beginning. The base idea of moving through five cards from left to right and fighting battles combined with new skills and few different rules worked awesome.

About three weeks later another edition of Pionek (Pawn), board game convention I organize, took place in Gliwice. I brought the prototype with me and presented it. People liked it very much. They said it reminds them Revolver but is different and really interesting.

‘When will it be released?’, they asked.

‘In June’, I said. It was December and in a fact the game worked very well. I could’ve send it to print right away but I needed it to be ready for holidays. So I said that we need to test it a lot and it will be ready for June. Everyone was surprised.

‘It works great. What do you need to test anyway?’

‘Stuff, you know. Look for any surprises in game play.’ I tried to come up with answer that makes any sense.

I didn’t know that I was so close to the truth.

Few weeks after Pionek one of testers came to the office and said that he was thinking in the night about the Convoy and he came up with a winning strategy. ‘You don’t play any cards till last city. And you win.’

‘I have 5 robots in last city. You will not be able to crush them. Can you really kill 5 robots in one round?’ I said.

‘I believe I can kill seven’

Aha, you wish, I thought.

‘Let’s play.’ I said.

He killed all 5 of my robots. If I had 4 more, he would kill them too. He proved that when he doesn’t play for the whole game and he keeps his cards till the last round, he can kill 9 robots. Damn, you.

I had to change the rules…

Three weeks later guys went to Zjava convention in Warsaw to do demo games of Convoy. When they got back, they showed me a nice trick.

‘You know, there was a player who managed to have unlimited strength.’ they said.

‘Oh, yeah? Interesting. How?’

‘He enters the city, he receive bonus, he moves back, receives bonus, moves back, receives bonus…’

OK, I see.

I needed to change the rules. Again.

Few weeks later, convention again. Piechu found another hole in the rules. He showed me a nice trick with one of the modules from Moloch. If you play this module in the last city, you win. Just like that.

That was it. I took the card and literally torn it to pieces.

I was so damn proud when I designed Convoy in one weekend. I thought this is piece of cake. Simple card game, designed in two evenings. Few beta testing games and will be ready to release.

Well, it wasn’t.

It took me five months of hard testing and balancing. Four times I was terrified when testers found hole in the rules and found winning strategy. We played more than 200 games in our office.

It wasn’t a piece of cake at all. Definitely not. It seems simple but card games are just as difficult to work on as any other.

So my friends, mark my words – when you say: ‘I could do it better’ don’t even think about designing a game in a one weekend. It’s not so easy…