Brandon the Game Dev

Board gaming has a long, storied history that goes back to ancient times. You can find old games of Ur, Senet, and Chess carved out of stone and buried in tombs. Indeed, the modern board game landscape that we know and love is only about as old as Catan, which came out in 1995. There were popular board games long before then, though.

I’m not too old myself – on the young end of the millennial generation – but I can remember a time of popular board games before the modern board gaming boom. Perhaps it’s Christmas Eve today that’s kindling my nostalgic impulses. I’d like to take a moment today and look back at the top-selling, most popular board games of all time. Some have aged beautifully, some have aged horribly, but in all cases we can talk about them and learn from them.

Honorable Mention: Life

Made in 1960, Life is one of the most popular board games of all time. The basic idea is that you want to end the game with more assets than anyone else. The rules are different in every version, but the concepts stay the same – you spin the spinner and make a handful of key decisions at intersections. It is in those moments that you influence which way your, well, life will go.

Life isn’t fair. It’s not a strategic masterwork nor is it a game that can be solved or analyzed. Honestly, it’s pretty luck-driven and messy.

Life does one thing exceptionally well, though, and we as gamers should be grateful. It lays the groundwork for modern, narrative-driven games. Life is, by definition, a game made on an epic scale. Players live out their entire lives on that board, with life-changing successes and failures coming at each step. Try to think of another game from before 1975 telling personal stories on a scale so vivid. I can’t think of one!

Honorable Mention: Chutes and Ladders (or Snakes and Ladders)

Chutes and Ladders is a lot older than you might think. Before being published by Milton Bradley in 1943, it was an ancient Indian board game that came from around the year 200 BC. The game is one of pure luck, and indeed, was used as a way to teach moral lessons. There is no strategic element to either the ancient or the modern version.

All you do to play Chutes and Ladders is spin a spinner and move the specified amount of spaces. Ladders move you up higher on the board and chutes drop you down to lower spaces. Modern versions still come with moral lessons.

With a derisive snort, some hardcore gamers may say “what did this game actually contribute to gaming?” As I see it, Chutes and Ladders gave us three gifts:

One: it was one of the few board games that had anything resembling a modern theme. Remember: in the 1940s, your popular board games were checkers, chess, backgammon, and Othello, all of which were abstract strategy. Yes, you had Monopoly, but that was a rare exception.

Two: along with Monopoly, it was one of the first appreciably “mass market” games. Without mass market games, you wouldn’t have hobby games. Period, point blank.

Three: strategically, the game is a snooze. Mathematically, it’s really interesting. Games like Chess, Go, Connect Four, and Chutes and Ladders are playgrounds for mathematicians. As they learn more, we as game designers absorb little bits and pieces of their wisdom and subconsciously incorporate them into our designs. Worth remembering!

10. Risk

Risk is a popular mass-market wargame that came to life in the late 1950s. The focus is on the oldest of human ambitions: to conquer the world. For most board gamers old enough to read this blog, Risk was the first game to introduce them to concepts like area control and influence – at least in a non-abstract way. Risk is a viscerally real game with success and failures spelled out upon the map for all to see.

This game laid the groundwork for other games of world domination, like Axis & Allies and Twilight Struggle. Yes, there are far better games out there today – including the two I just listed. But my takeaway? This is the game we owe gratitude to because it helped introduce the world to wargames.

9. Pictionary

Pictionary is super simple. Ultimately, it boils down to drawing a picture and others guess what it is. It’s like charades with drawings instead of actions.

The board is practically a vestigial organ to the game as a whole experience. The only thing that matters are the drawings and how people guess what they are. Anybody of any age can get into the game and have a good time – making it remarkably accessible and a fun way to pass the time. This game made Concept and Telestrations possible, and for that, we can be grateful.

8. Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a simple concept, and like Pictionary, the board doesn’t matter terribly much. The core engine of the game is fueled by answering questions about anything and everything. It’s basically every bar or restaurant’s trivia night boiled down into a single game.

It’s got a 5.2 on Board Game Geek, and to be honest, that’s not great. I think that’s a little harsh because it undersells just how much Trivial Pursuit brought to the hobby. Trivial Pursuit has over fifty special versions, which has laid the groundwork for games like Ticket to Ride to release multiple versions of a game based around the same engine. Trivial Pursuit swaps the questions and Ticket to Ride swaps the maps. The latter wouldn’t be possible without the former.

In any case, the prodigious growth of Trivial Pursuit as a franchise raised interest in party games, giving us delights like Balderdash, Codenames, and Dixit in the future.

7. Othello

Backgammon. Chess. Checkers. Go. These are all really, really old games. As such, they are pure abstract strategy games unmarred by the ephemeral themes du jour of modern board games.

Othello is not an ancient game, but it feels like it could have been even though it came out as late as 1883. Othello packaged up abstract strategy qualities into a new package, laying the groundwork for Santorini, Patchwork, Azul, Onitama, and other modern hits.

6. Clue / Cluedo

Even the most purely intellectual games like Chess or Go have elements of bluffing and deduction. You’re always trying to analyze your opponents’ moves and react accordingly. Clue (or for those of you who spell colour with a “u” – Cluedo), was the first mass-market game to make bluffing and deduction an explicit part of the game.

It is out of the mansion, yes – the very one where Miss Scarlet committed a murder with a lead pipe in the billiards room – that more sophisticated tabletop games that receive critical acclaim today were born. I’m talking about Mysterium, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, and Mansions of Madness.

5. Monopoly

Nearly everybody I know has played Monopoly. Roll the dice, buy properties, pay rent to other players, and curse at the dice. It’s a well-known routine in the household of many people who grew up with board games.

Look, I’ll be honest. Monopoly is not a good game. It’s got a 4.4 on Board Game Geek and I’ve made my stance on it abundantly clear in the past. In fact, the game was created initially by socialists to show why unchecked capitalism sucks. Couldn’t make this up if I tried!

Yet it has served the hobby board game industry in two incredible and contradictory ways. First and foremost, it more or less made the market for mass market games. That, in turn, led to the hobby board games we know and love. We owe Monopoly our gratitude for this. In an alternate universe with no Monopoly, there is no Scythe or Rising Sun or Codenames.

Second, Monopoly managed to open the floodgates while being a decidedly broken game. It’s become the whipping boy of elitist hobby board gamers, so much so that it’s comical. In becoming a whipping boy, it’s shown game designers of our generation what not to do – helping many games avoid runaway leaders, an over-reliance on luck, non-judicious implementation of player elimination, and burdensome game length.

4. Scrabble

I’m going to stick my neck out for Scrabble. It’s got a 6.3 on Board Game Geek and I think that’s too low. It’s a smart, simple, and elegant game that uses the very elements of our language as components.

Scrabble is the foundation of just about every word-based tabletop game out there. That alone is an achievement for the ages, but I think there is something more important going on. In Scrabble, the pieces you work with are thrown into a bag and doled out by random chance. That’s the foundational quality of collectible card games like Magic. You can make maneuvers to benefit yourself and to block others – that’s an atypical form of area control and influence. Scrabble hasn’t so much created direct spiritual successors as it has burrowed its way into the psyche of game developers – coming out in subtle ways as they borrow mechanisms from this 1948 masterpiece.

3. Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest games in existence. It’s estimated to be around 5,000 years old and was mentioned in written history by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. King Tutankhamun was rumored to have played this game at one point.

Let that sink in.

Here we have this game, installed on just about every computer and available in every store, that was played in the Mesopotamian era. What’s more, it’s still a pretty good abstract strategy game and it stands the test of time. My takeaway here as that Backgammon is the great-great-great-great-etc. grandfather of every game we play.

2. Checkers

Checkers is a straightforward abstract strategy game for 2 players. Like a lot of games from antiquity or the medieval times, there is no theme per se, just a simple arrangement of pieces that follow some rules and allow for a battle of wits. These days it’s one of the first games that young children learn and it can be found outside of every Cracker Barrel restaurant sitting on wooden barrels. (It’s not as hard as the peg game, though…)

I’ve seen a lot of arguments online about whether checkers is a game of subtlety and nuance or a game of brutish simplicity. As for myself, I’ll readily admit its been many years since I’ve played the game. Whether you play all the time or remember the rules 40 years after you last played a game, you have to admit checkers has one astounding quality. It’s a tremendous game to teach children. If you want to start children out with a brainy game, checkers is a good place to start. Raise ’em up right!

1. Chess

Last but certainly not least, the best-selling game of all-time is Chess. It’s for great reasons, too. Chess has variable player powers, a sophisticated area control foundation, and endless possibilities of play. It’s captivated people from Humphrey Bogart to Joseph Stalin to the RZA. One could write volumes on the contribution of chess to the gaming community and to the world at large. I’ll keep it simple.

Chess has given us communities. It’s given us diehard fans who tweak their strategies, obsess, and seek ways to better themselves. Like no other game before it, chess has stoked passion and earned love. Chess has made livelihoods and Chess has caused deaths.

Try saying that about the latest CMON game 😛

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout. So often, when we’re balancing our designs, it’s because we’re trying to nail down board game pacing.

But how do you do that?

Many of you know that our Kickstarter campaign, Tasty Humans, has just debuted on Kickstarter! Both to celebrate the launch and to share knowledge, I’d like to share the thoughts of Ryan Langewisch, designer of Tasty Humans. After all, he created the pattern building game that we call Tasty Humans, so it makes for a great case study!

His unedited original post can be found here. Below, I have lightly edited the original work from his blog. In some cases, I have also replaced images with ones from the production copy of Tasty Humans. Enjoy!

In each of the design diaries that I have written so far, I have focused on a specific game mechanic or isolated portion of the game. Now I want to zoom out a bit and look at the design as a whole. I am putting more focus on the arch of the game of Tasty Humans and some of the decisions that were made. I made these decisions in an effort to improve game flow and the overall player experience. Early in development,  I realized that the game would be best if I could fit the experience into a 30-60 minute time frame.  This became a design beacon when making decisions around the flow of the game.

 

Game Progression and Board Game Pacing

The progression in a game of Tasty Humans comes from the gradual filling of each monster’s stomach. There is also an escalation in strategy as the players fill up their boards by acquiring more and more Leader tiles. Each Leader tile provides an additional goal for how to maximize the “satisfaction” of their monster. At the beginning of the game, a player’s objective is simple. They have just a single Leader tile and their monster’s unique “personal craving.” Acquiring more Leader tiles gives the player more to try to balance. I have found this gives a satisfying feeling of progression from the beginning of the game to the end.

However, there were several possible implementations that would maintain this sense of progression. An early design question became, “what should dictate the pacing of players receiving new Leader tiles?”

In my first prototype, I had special “Draft Leaders” cards shuffled into segments of the Adventurer deck. This led to uncertainty in when players would get their next Leader tile. This proved to be awkward because it caused sudden interruptions of the rounds. These interruptions required players to put their tactical planning on hold to make an unforeseen decision about their next Leader tile. Also, it caused me to lose control of my own design. The random nature of the cards could lead to suboptimal player experiences if the cards came up too early or too late. A simple solution turned out to be the most effective. Leader tiles are always drafted on the same cadence, after each round. This not only allows players to plan for it, but also gives the game a much better rhythm.

Leader Tiles & Board Game Pacing

The original design for the Leader tiles was to wait and reveal them right before the draft was going to start. I initially liked the idea of it being a surprise. However, in hindsight, the decision trivialized the “crown” mechanic that I had included to determine the drafting order. How can players evaluate taking crowns to improve their order in the draft if they have no idea what their options will be? This question led to the decision of revealing the upcoming Leader tiles at the beginning of the round. Thereby, giving players the opportunity to better estimate how important it will be for them to secure an early pick in the draft.

Because of the desired pacing for the game, I decided that a Leader tile draft should occur after each player has selected (and eaten) two adventurers. However, this ended up feeling a little clunky. It required players to remember if they were on their first time around the table, or their second. Rather than having a natural pattern to each round, it felt like the round was “repeat the same thing twice, but remember if it is the second time.”

Snake Draft & Board Game Pacing

Striving for a more elegant solution, I played with the idea of making it a snake draft; that is, going around the table, but then reversing the turn order back and finishing with the first player. Searching for a better solution, I played with the idea of making it a snake draft.  A snake draft goes around the table only to reverse the turn order back and finish with the first player.

With this approach, each player would still pick two adventurers. However, the end of the round would be more clearly defined when play moved back to the start player.  I found this to work well in testing. While making the rounds feel much more natural, it also had some interesting side effects. The player that gets back-to-back turns in a round has some opportunities to be clever in how they manipulate the adventurer grid to their advantage. Even so, the decision wasn’t without its downsides.  The main one being that the first player has to wait twice as long for it to be their turn again. While not ideal (especially if some of the players are struggling with analysis paralysis), I deemed that the advantages tipped the scale in favor of the snake draft. In playtesting, the time between turns has rarely been an issue.

The Race to the Finish

From the beginning, it was clear to me that filling the monster’s stomach should trigger the end of the game. It is not only satisfying for the players to completely fill their grid, but it is also thematic for monsters that are appeasing their hunger. Yet, I quickly learned that it was not a good approach for the game to end immediately after a player fills their board. Technically, other players should have the awareness to see what is about to happen.

Nonetheless, this approach almost always left the other players disgruntled at not being able to finish what they were planning. In a game like Tasty Humans, each player is primarily lost in their own world of puzzle-solving. As a result, I found that I needed to let players follow through on their plans without any sudden interruptions. The simple solution was to always finish out the current round (i.e. snake draft) once one monster filled their stomach. It is funny how often the simple solution is the best one.

Simplicity Sometimes Leaves Questions Unanswered

I still had one unanswered question. Should the player that filled their stomach first receive any kind of reward? Initially, I was a little hesitant to give the fastest player points.  I did not want a “rush” strategy to be the most effective way to play.  Ultimately, I wanted winning to come down to who best maximized their scoring conditions.  This was accomplished by how they had arranged the tiles in their monster’s stomach.

However, there was another design incentive in rewarding a player for triggering the end of the game. That incentive was shortening the play time. The design goal of keeping the game length within the 30-60 minute range was important. Basically, my end game condition meant that the fastest player would determine the game length.  I encourage players to push to the finish instead of stalling for more points. This aligns their goal of winning with my design goal of keeping the game from running too long.

In the end, I made filling your monster’s stomach first worth a modest (but not insignificant) 2 points. I then ran some specific tests to ensure that a “rush” strategy was not dominant. Fortunately, due to how points are scored and how detrimental damage can be, the “rush” strategy wasn’t dominant.  In fact, the strategy proved to be far inferior to a slower and more precise approach.

Board Game Pacing for Different Player Counts

Another hindrance to a consistent 30-60 minute playtime was scaling based on the number of players. Obviously, if it takes two players a certain amount of time for one of them to fill their board, it is going to take even longer with four players. To achieve my design goal, I needed something to change that would compensate for the slower filling of the board in games with more players.

The only obvious solution scared me a bit.  That option was using a smaller grid with higher player counts. I was concerned because much of the satisfaction of the game comes from filling your board.  That satisfaction meant having a lot of space to work with and score points. I was afraid that if I reduced the rows in the grid, players would feel stunted. I did not want them to feel as though they were just getting a teaser of the “full game”.

This is an example of how simple playtesting of a change can trump what you, as the designer, “thinks” will be the effect. Despite my skepticism, scaling the number of rows in the grid based on player count worked flawlessly. Even at the highest player count (4 players), every game still felt like players had the full experience. Players have left frequent feedback stating their surprise at how much they felt like they accomplished in such a short playing time.  This is one of the best indicators that the game pacing is on the right track.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into Ryan’s creative process. By sharing our experiences in the development of Tasty Humans, we hope to help you create games that you are proud of, too 

One of the hallmarks of good board game design is being able to create hard choices. Particularly when hard choices come from simple mechanics.

Sounds easy enough to do, but it’s actually really tough from the designer’s perspective! Let’s talk about how you can create hard choices in your board game.

Many of you know that our Kickstarter campaign, Tasty Humans, has just debuted on Kickstarter! Both to celebrate the launch and to share knowledge, I’d like to share the thoughts of Ryan Langewisch, designer of Tasty Humans. He, after all, created the pattern building game that we call Tasty Humans, so it makes for a great case study!

His unedited original post can be found here. Below, I have lightly edited the original work from his blog and – in some cases – replaced images with ones from the production copy of Tasty Humans. Enjoy!

In my Tasty Humans Designer Diary posts so far, I have focused on the puzzle aspect of the game.  That aspect being players dropping pieces into the monsters’ stomachs and strategically arranging them to maximize their overall “satisfaction”. Monsters are eating adventurers with their stomachs being some kind of puzzle that you drop the adventurers into was the initial concept. The design process really started with the puzzle. Later, I tackled the question of how players select which adventurers they will eat.  In this post, I will explain the approach I used for that part of the design.  I will also address whether my eventual approach met the necessary criteria.

Hard Choices: Picking from a Selection of Delicious Adventurers

I knew I needed a mechanic that gave players a choice of one adventurer from several options. I already touched on how there is decent variety in how a single piece can be dropped into a monster’s stomach, but a key part of providing interesting decisions was going to depend on asking the player to determine the best piece for their situation. Immediately this pushed me into “drafting” territory. Drafting is probably the most common solution for having players pick from an array of options.

Drafting can come in a variety of forms. At the level of individual player choices, it simply requires the player to pick from several different options.  This usually results with their pick then being removed from consideration by other players. When selecting a game mechanic, it is the most familiar solution. That was the case here, as I visualized what a “7 Wonders/Sushi Go!” style drafting process might look like. In other words, each player has a hand of adventurers. After picking one, he then passes the rest clockwise around the table. There were really two reasons why I wasn’t a big fan of this solution:

1. It felt really derivative. The fact that it came to mind so easily was a little bit of a red flag. This was a warning that I might be taking the path of least resistance when picking a mechanic. Even when your first idea is great, it is always worth your time to brainstorm some alternatives. You may still end up going with the original idea. However, at least you make it earn its selection instead of defaulting its way into your design.
2. It didn’t feel right thematically. I liked the theme of adventurers coming to try and slay monsters, only to provide a nice buffet delivered straight to their doorstep. I wanted to lean into that wherever possible. Each player having a selection of adventurers and then passing them was purely a mechanical construct. This would force the theme even further into the background.

Fixing the Derivative Issue

As for the first point, I felt I had an opportunity to come up with a “twist” on drafting that might add some interest and differentiation from other games.  A simple drafting mechanic used by Bruno Cathala in Kingdomino inspired me. Cathala leveraged a simple twist. Players weren’t just drafting which tile they wanted most; they were also picking their turn order for the next round.

Is it worth taking that better tile at the expense of picking last next round? That is an interesting decision. It is much more interesting than if it was simply “which tile do you want most?” Not to mention it organically balances the game by attaching a cost to tiles that are strictly better. I wanted to try to come up with some ideas like that, where picking the “best” option was more nuanced than the inherent value of the adventurer.  (In this case, the piece that would be dropped into the monster’s stomach.)

Fixing the Thematic Mismatch

As for the second point, I tried to visualize it from the thematic standpoint of a group of adventurers marching towards the monsters. What if instead of hands of cards getting drafted, there was a grid of adventurers face-up in the middle of the table? The grid representing the “mob” making its way towards the players? Certainly not any breakthrough innovation in terms of mechanics, but it moved me back to the theme. It also pushed the mechanics into a different space that I could use as a starting point for additional brainstorming. At this point, I was picturing a 3 x 3 grid of adventurers. This concept would end up remaining true into the final design.

Hard Choices from the Player’s Perspective

I am looking at a 3 x 3 grid of adventurers, what will determine which one I should pick? The big opportunity I saw with drafting from a grid, was that there was now a spatial relationship among the cards. When drafting cards from a hand, there is no ordering or relationships based on position. (Although I may have just come up with a new game idea… Bohnanza meets Sushi Go?). I wanted the positioning of the cards in the grid to actually matter. I wanted it to influence which cards make sense to select on any given turn. The primary way I approached this was through the addition of damage.

At its most basic level, the idea for damage was to have certain cards that would hurt you if you picked other cards in the grid. For example, a swordsman might deal damage if you pick one of the cards that is orthogonally adjacent to it.  I definitely liked the thematic idea of the selected adventurer not dealing any damage. The nearby adventurers swiping at the monster emphasizes the helplessness of the adventurers. It was also a mechanics-driven decision.

By having the damage associated with a specific adventurer dictated by its surrounding cards, there are a lot of interesting combinations that can emerge based on how the cards are arranged in the grid. A specific adventurer could be eaten with no damage in one game; yet be positioned to come with three damage in another game.

An Example of Hard Choices

Consider the following grid of attacking adventurers:

When choosing to take a card, you must check for Swordsman and Archers to see if you take any damage. For example, taking the top left card in the grid would result in two damage. One damage comes from the Swordsman to the right (which hits adjacent cards).  The other one damages comes from the Archer two spaces below it (which hits cards two spaces away in a straight line). However, you could take the bottom-left Archer without taking any damage. This is because there are no other Swordsman or Archers that affect it. For each damage taken, you must drop a damage tile into your monster’s stomach. Damage tiles take up room where you could have been scoring points. They actually bring negative points if they end up adjacent to each other.

Adventurer Types to Create Hard Choices

In addition to the Swordsman and Archers that dictate damage, there are a few other special adventurer types:

1. General (banner with arrow) – When taken, the other adventurers in the same row or column (based on the arrow) flee, and are discarded. For example, taking the General in the top-right corner would cause the Archer and the Swordsman in that column to be discarded.
2. Wizard (magic wand) – After dropping the shape of the Wizard into your monster’s stomach, it causes a “magical burp”. This allows you to swap any two adjacent tiles in your monster’s stomach.
3. Cleric (heart bottle) – After selecting the Cleric and taking any damage (2 in the case of the Cleric shown above), you can remove one damage from your monster’s stomach.

Each of these abilities adds opportunities and variability to the decision of picking an adventurer from the grid. Additionally, you will notice that some of the cards have either one or two crown icons at the top. This connects back to the Kingdomino inspiration that I mentioned earlier.  Selecting a tile in that game also affects your turn order for the next round. In Tasty Humans, each player is going to end up selecting two adventurer cards each round. At the end of the round, the number of cumulative crowns from each player’s adventurers dictate the order in which they get to draft the available Leader Tiles. Seeing as Leader Tiles are the primary scoring mechanism in the game, the draft order for this phase could be crucial. This makes crowns very valuable depending on the situation.

Tough Questions for the Player

All of this comes together to provide the kind of “adventurer selection” decisions that I was hoping to achieve. I wanted each turn to present interesting tradeoffs and unique situations based on the arrangement of the “Attacking Adventurers” grid. Here is a list that summarizes the common considerations that a player must make before selecting a card:

Which shape do I want the most?

The tiles that you drop into your stomach are typically the most important factor. Arranging tiles to maximize the scoring from your Leader Tiles and monster’s “personal craving” are what will ultimately win you the game.

How much damage will I take?

You may see the perfect piece, only to find that you would receive two or three damage from selecting it. This then becomes an interesting decision, as you must decide whether the piece is worth it. Or, perhaps, you simply can’t afford to take that much damage.

How many crowns will I get?

The Leader Tiles for the upcoming draft are revealed before the round begins. Players will have to evaluate how important it is for them to choose before the other players. If it is crucial for you to get a specific Leader Tile, then choosing cards with crowns may trump picking adventurers that give you more desirable tiles. Additionally, you will need to pay attention to how many crowns other players have taken this round. This will help you to know where you stand in the draft order and the implications of taking cards with or without crowns.

Are there any attractive General/Wizard/Cleric opportunities?

Sometimes you will find yourself in a position where one of these special abilities is exactly what you need. Maybe you took a damage that was really bad for you, and a Cleric would be perfect to remove it. Perhaps swapping two tiles in your stomach would perfectly align them with your Leader Tiles. A Wizard would allow you to make it happen. Or maybe you are taking back-to-back turns (play moves in a snake draft, with the last player taking two turns in a row), and you want to select the General to clear out cards so that you can see more options for your second turn. You would need to weigh each of these scenarios against the other consideration that have been mentioned.

Final Thoughts

At this point, I have playtested Tasty Humans over fifty times. I still find myself intrigued at the decisions and tradeoffs that arise based on the arrangement of the adventurer cards in the grid. The considerations listed above combine to achieve my design goal of having interesting and meaningful decisions whenever picking an adventurer card. It is also an example of the power of grouping several elements into a single option in a draft. The player is constantly being asked to rank their priorities. Evaluating which combination of those factors is best for them at that moment. This is accomplished by grouping shape/tiles, damage, Leader Tile draft order and adventurer abilities into each possible card that can be taken.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into Ryan’s creative process. By sharing our experiences in the development of Tasty Humans, we hope to help you create games that you are proud of, too