Preview copy provided by the publisher. Note that this is a prototype — artwork is near final, components are not final, final production quality will be even better!

2025 is here, and Reiner Knizia is back at it! …This time with publisher Allplay. Yet those who are familiar with Knizia know that we here at Bitewing Games also get along with him quite well. Take one glance at our 2025 release schedule and that’s all the information you need, haha. But why is that? 

Why does Knizia seem to have so many new and updated games releasing each year? Is it simply name recognition? Are publishers drawn to the name “Knizia” like moths to a flame? It’s is just because they need to fill their project schedule, and classic out-of-print Knizia Games are easy shoe-ins? Or is there something truly magical about Knizia’s dusty old games compared to other options? The answer is probably a mixture of all those reasons, and the ratio of reasons definitely varies by publisher. 

Personally, I love to find those fixer-uppers in Knizia’s catalogue. When one of the most experienced and brilliant game designers has been cranking out hundreds of ideas for decades, there are bound to be hidden gems that fall by the wayside. Some concepts have an intriguing premise, but don’t quite hit the spot with their initial version. Others only get an obscure version sold in a distant corner of the world. Many more have stumbled out of the gates with a poor production or unappealing artwork. There’s a reason I’ve now played over 200 of Reiner’s best designs — I’m hunting for untapped potential. 

Reprinting a stone-cold classic like Tigris & Euphrates is easy (well… it should be easy). Just don’t mess up the artwork and production, and it’ll sell itself. While I love such games, I’m less enthused about printing a new version of them. I got into publishing because of the creative and adventurous challenge of bringing a game to life and making it a success. Games like Tigris & Euphrates are already a major success, they just need somebody to keep them in print. On the other hand, injecting new life into 2000’s Merchants of Amsterdam and making that a success in the modern board game industry? Now there’s a proper challenge. But Bitewing wasn’t the publisher who chose to take a crack at it… instead it was Allplay.

Yet, the masses were not exactly clamoring for a new version of Merchants of Amsterdam. This game neither looked remarkable nor provided a notable experience outside of the Dutch auction clock. As the developer himself (Robert Hovakimyan) noted in his publisher diary: “Everything [surrounding the core mechanism] felt a bit dated. The game consisted of 3 flavors of area-majority: Vanilla, French Vanilla, and Vanilla Bean.” So why even bother trying to resurrect this design? The answer lies within the central idea of the game. On their turn, the player decides which card to discard, which to keep, and which to put up for a Dutch auction.

While there are thousands of auction games in existence, there are very few that utilize a Dutch auction. Out of the 125,600 games in its database, BoardGameGeek only lists 46 games that feature a Dutch auction. And most of those aren’t even true Dutch auctions. Here is the definition of Dutch auction provided by BGG:

“A simultaneous single-bid system in which the lot starts at a very high price, and then is gradually decreased by the auctioneer or other controlling mechanism, until someone agrees to claim the item at its current price, ending the auction. The first bidder to accept the current price is the winner, such that there are no ties. A Dutch Auction is sometimes also called a one-bid auction because of this feature that the first bid made is also the only bid in the auction.

“The purest implementation of this is Merchants of Amsterdam, which features a spring-load mechanism that gradually reduces the price until someone hits it, winning the bid.

“This category also includes the mechanism where items slide down a track, with the cost decreasing as it does so.”

Most of the 46 on the list fall into that latter category of a sliding market (Concordia, Pax Pamir, etc.). While this is a perfectly fine system for a card market, the thing that it misses out on is the real-time thrill of a countdown price. This is far and away the highlight of Merchants of Amsterdam for most fans — the rush of deciding when to smack the diminishing clock to secure the lot. It’s that temptation to bid early to secure the juicy reward for yourself clashing against your willpower to let the price drop down to a more reasonable level. Which kind of pain do you prefer: The regret of spending far too much on a measly action, or the regret of being too stingy with your money and not bidding just one dollar earlier so you could claim victory from your rivals? This is the beauty of Merchants of Amsterdam. This is why a crusty old Knizia game that is now 25 years old (80 years old, in board game years) deserves a second chance.

The only problem is that Merchants of Amsterdam hasn’t aged well. The physical clock is prone to breaking for many owners of the game. The game still tastes like three shades of vanilla, which is only more bland in contrast to the many wild and wacky area majority games and auction games that have been released in the ensuing decades. In order to be a modern success, this design clearly needed a full makeover. Enter Robert Hovakimyan. 

Merchants of Andromeda passed through three different development teams over the course of many months before it finally found its sweet spot. It’s a fascinating story that I was fortunate enough to hear about during a development discussion with Joe from Allplay and designer Robert Hovakimyan. Lucky for you, we recorded the conversation if you’re interested in the thoughts and processes that go into board game development (especially for this title). I’ll spare you the details here, but suffice to say that Merchants of Andromeda has had an absolute roller coaster of a development journey. Fortunately, the result was absolutely worth the trouble. After two plays with a preview copy, Merchants of Andromeda is a strong candidate for one of my favorite releases of 2025. Of course there are many more releases that I’m excited to play this year, but this game has set the bar very high. This is a design that, finally, lives up to its full potential.

While Andromeda has of course kept the Dutch auction mechanism, the card committing concept, the basic idea of events, and a couple of the most interesting area majority ideas (the resource tracks and the Andromeda board), everything else has been fully redesigned by Robert Hovakimyan. The vanilla area majorities of Amsterdam have been wildly diversified into thrilling mini games of voting and space defense and planet exploration. The deck of cards has been honed to produce tough decisions and exciting opportunities. The events are now spicier and invite political table talk. Even Allplay has fixed the problem of an expensive and breakable auction clock… 

We’ve been using a simple smartphone timer to countdown the current bid value where players can call out the current number to claim the lot (and if that is your preference, it’ll certainly work in the final version). But Allplay is developing an app where players hold their fingers on a central phone and the first person to remove their finger wins the auction at the current value. This also removes the unintended effect of the original clock where the game favored the player with the fastest limbs and everyone was at risk of getting smacked or scratched.

While the Dutch auctions of Andromeda are plenty thrilling, the entire game surrounding those auctions is now packed with drama as well. Take the defense board, for example. Here you grab the five dice, chuck ‘em, and decide how to split them up. The group of three dice will determine which enemy ships advance down their tracks — potentially gobbling up player tokens or entering within reach of your own counter attack (both are great options for you, as long as your opponents are taking the hit from the invaders). The group of two dice will determine where you add your tokens — this can often earn you resources or trophies or a lead on that column… all of which improve your standing. The invaders always move before you add your tokens, so this timing can matter a lot too. It’s common to hear players praying to the cosmic gods that a certain number does or does not get rolled any time a defense action is taken.

You’ll also get a lot of laughs and groans from the exploration board which has a very push-your-luck vibe. There are three planets plastered with hidden tiles that you can choose to explore. Pick any one tile and start flipping them face up one-by-one until you decide to stop or you find a curse (which forces you to stop). If you manage to conclude your exploration without stumbling upon a disastrous curse, then you may claim any two of the tiles that you revealed. Hitting a curse means that you get only one tile instead of two. Then all the unclaimed tiles are flipped face down again and players have to hope they remember where the seen traps and treasures are. Even if you are supremely unlucky and the first tile you flip is a curse, it’s not soul crushing (despite your neighbors’ cackling), because you get to keep flipping tiles until you find a non-curse to take.

Even the most “vanilla” of the boards have some compelling nuances to them. The Andromeda board consists of four sectors where players compete to have the largest cluster of tiles. The twist is that the sector with the most tiles will become the most valuable sector (I.e. score out the most points for first and second place players there). So while you want to pile more tiles in your best sector, you’ll also find yourself tempted to spread out into new sectors when your tile is next to a bridge. If you place your tile on both sides of the bridge, then you immediately earn three bonus dollars (and money is your score, baby!). 

Meanwhile, the production board looks like your standard bundle of generic Eurogame resource tracks. But this one is far more interactive than what modern Eurogames tend to do with tracks. Each time you earn a resource, you advance up the matching track. If you are in first or second place on those tracks, then you’ll score points each time this board scores out. But here’s the real kicker: The track with the furthest player token will score the most points, the second furthest track will score less, and so on. Not only do you want to be ahead of your opponents on the same track, but you also want to be ahead of the leading players on other tracks.

Merchants of Andromeda isn’t just content to let you pick and choose your battles among all these interesting mini-game boards. It also asks you to manipulate the way these boards score out when their scoring does trigger (which happens three times per board per game). This manipulation of course comes from the Galactic Senate — those oily political snakes who keep meddling in your merchant business. On the senate board, you’ll see three charming vote boxes, each with a candidate card in front of it that randomly came out of the deck. During the game, you will resolve three elections. Each time a candidate wins, their policy enters play and affects players’ standings or scores. Usually, these candidates will boost the next scoring of a specific board. If Major Bang-Bang wins, then he’ll heavily incentivize attacking invaders. If Search McGee takes office, then you’ll score even more points for finding those precious relics on the exploration board. Other candidates support communism or socialism by tearing down the richest players or boosting up the resource-poor, respectively. 

If these candidates randomly forced themselves upon you Merchants of Andromeda, then it would make the game feel too unfair and random. But this is a democracy, dang it, and thus you players will vote to influence government policies. By the time an election has closed, each player will have inserted three or more votes into one or more of the boxes. Certain action cards grant you bonus votes which can swing the election in your favor.

But we haven’t even talked about the action cards yet! What a treat these are. On your turn, you’ll draw one action card at a time and decide where to assign it: Discard, Keep, or Auction (in the final version of this game, these options will likely be retitled to the more intuitive “Resource, Action, Auction”). Once you commit a card to an option it is locked in… no changing your mind after you see the next card from the deck (this is much like Biblios, which is one of my favorite aspects of that classic game). Each card has two elements: an action on top and a resource on bottom. Whatever card you “discard” will grant you its resource. Whatever card you “keep” will grant you its action. And whatever card you “auction” will grant both the action and the resource to the winner of the auction (which could even be you, the active player). It’s always a thrill to take your turn and decide which resource to claim, which action to take, and which card to auction off. While you don’t earn the money from the auction (it goes back to the bank), it is vital to not give your opponents the chance at a card that is supremely helpful for them. Even when it’s not your turn, you’ll be very involved in the regular cadence of auctions and events.

As you work your way through the action card deck, you’ll reveal event cards which move the marker along the event track. These events usually trigger the scoring of a specific board. As I alluded to, each mini-game scores out twice during the game and once more at the end. Each of the mini games I described has some kind of area majority underlying it — even the vote board scores out majority points for the players who best supported the losing candidates! Because the order of the event scoring is visible and unchanging, it is wise to time your actions accordingly. It’s obviously much better to get in on space exploration right before it scores versus right after. That kind of timing will influence how high players are willing to bid on an action card, which allows for a nice fluctuation of bid values during the game. But even the event board has variability in the form of hidden special events. These face-down tiles will eventually be revealed as they are reached, and they force players to make tough but interesting decisions.

With so much going on across these boards, it’s hard to believe that this game comes from Allplay who is famously known for their simple and compact games. It’s a minor miracle that they fit such a big experience into their standard $39 box. Some folks might even worry whether this one is too complex for their group. But I’ve had the chance to teach this game to six different people so far, and after roughly a 10-minute rules teach they have all caught on right away and loved it. A newcomer even won my last play of it by claiming the most important auctions for his strategy while letting us bid our fortunes away on everything else.

But that’s what I love most about Merchants of Andromeda. It’s a far cry from the exacting calculations of auction games like Modern Art or Medici. You can’t math your way to victory. For one thing, you don’t always know how good a defense or exploration or election will turn out for you. Andromeda is a wacky game full of surprising and dramatic moments, and you have to roll with the punches. For another thing, you simply don’t have time to math out the best single bid value because that timer is ticking down and if you don’t bid now then somebody else might claim it! Andromeda is about shooting from the hip, playing from the gut, and embracing the crazy chaos.

Combine the refreshingly unique Dutch auction system cooked up by Reiner Knizia, the wonderfully flavorful ideas injected by Robert Hovakimyan, the hilariously charming sci-fi artwork by Torben Bökemeyer, and the blessedly compact production by Allplay, and you have an absolute winner in Merchants of Andromeda. I’ve played and ranked hundreds of Knizia games at this point, and already it appears that Andromeda ranks among the absolute best.

Merchants of Andromeda is available on Kickstarter until February 13. Check it out here.

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the critically acclaimed titles Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney and Zoo Vadis by Reiner Knizia. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share classy board games with a bite.

Disclaimer: When Bitewing Games finds a designer or artist or publisher that we like, we sometimes try to collaborate with these creators on our own publishing projects. We work with these folks because we like their work, and it is natural and predictable that we will continue to praise and enjoy their work. Any opinions shared are subject to biases including business relationships, personal acquaintances, gaming preferences, and more. That said, our intent is to help grow the hobby, share our gaming experiences, and find folks with similar tastes. Please take any and all of our opinions with a hearty grain of salt as you partake in this tabletop hobby feast.

The post Merchants of Andromeda Preview — The Biggest Allplay Game Ever? appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Note: A preview copy was provided by the publisher. I have 4 Total Plays at 2, 3, and 4 Players. This is a prototype, meaning the rules and components are not final. For example, the score track has changed since this prototype was printed and the basic wood pieces will be replaced by lavish minis.

Recently, I shared my 1st impressions of Galactic Renaissance where I mostly compared it to Inis, the other design in this Political Trilogy from designer Christian Martinez and publisher Matagot. In this preview, I intend to spend less time comparing to the two games and more time focusing on Galactic Renaissance itself. Let’s see where this takes us…

Long ago, the galactic empire fell into ruin. Peoples and their planets lost contact with each other, and the galaxy entered a period not unlike the dark ages. Intergalactic progress and cooperation was stymied and, for better or worse, aliens were no longer able to meddle in each other’s business. But from the ashes of a space dynasty eventually arises a renaissance. Portals are rediscovered. Secrets and knowledge are uncovered. Political relationships are reforged. And a new Galactic Senate is born — not one of compulsory conquest, but of peaceful and voluntary coalition.

Each player represents a unique planet and controls aspirational emissaries. These emissaries are sent throughout the galaxy to gain allies, establish institutes, discover foundations, and reawaken specialists — the ancient ones from the now dead empire who remain frozen in stasis to preserve wisdom and knowledge. While the shared vision is to peacefully rebuild an interstellar civilization, each player wants to come out as top dog in the Senate, and sometimes you need to step on some alien toes to get there.

Players are racing to 30 points by striving to fulfill the Senate Policies (scoring objective cards), which notably expand and change a bit during the game. The deck of these cards is fairly large (16 total) and you only ever play with a combination of 5, so you’ll encounter a fair amount of variety here from one play to the next. It’s not too unpredictable, though, as these cards generally encourage you to spread out across more planets with your emissaries and institutes. Sometimes your mere presence on a planet will suffice, other times the scoring requirements get more specific (e.g. have majority or minority on a planet, build an institute on a planet, be on planets with specific features like foundations or portals, etc.).

The manner in which you score points and win the game is refreshingly unique on multiple facets:

• You not only need to reach 30 points first to win, but you also need to score 10 points in a single final turn to seal the deal. So although you may have a lead on everyone else on the score track, they can catch up by weakening your single turn scoring potential. It’s a bit reminiscent of Inis’s pretender token, but notably much more mild in its king making / bash-the-leader potential.
• As the leading player races up the score track, they will unlock or transform the scoring objective cards for everyone. At 6 points, the third scoring card is revealed. At 13 points, the first scoring card is swapped out for a new one. At 20 points, the second scoring card is swapped out for a new one. Until they are revealed, nobody knows what objective cards will come out next, so it helps to put yourself in a flexible position during these transitions.
• The main way you trigger scoring is by playing your Senator card, and each time you play it you’ll have to cycle through your entire deck to reach it again. So players who can manage to accelerate their deck cycling while adapting to the scoring cards will have the best chance of crossing the finish line.

Your turns start out quite simple:

1. Play a card and perform one of its actions
2. Resolve any disorder
3. Discard your played card to the bottom of your draw pile (plus one more from your hand, if you wish)
4. Draw back up to your hand limit

That said, early decisions can have a huge impact on your strategy. The game actually starts with an interesting draft where you lay out a bunch of unique home worlds, powerful specialist cards, and starting emissary quantities. Players take turns claiming an option until they possess one of each category. If my two opponents lunge for home worlds before me (thanks to some tempting planet abilities), I can now ignore that category until the end because the remaining two options are exclusively for me to choose from. If I can manage to select a specialist card that combos well with one of those planets (or strengthens my ability to milk a score card on display), then that’ll be my first choice. This starting phase certainly favors more experienced players who understand the hidden nuances, but it absolutely doesn’t determine the winner.

Play begins with your most basic single-action turns: recruit more emissaries from your supply, explore a new planet, spread your emissaries around, claim planet ability tokens by having majority pieces there, build an institute, gain another specialist card into your deck… those kinds of things. Emissaries and institutes give you vital presence throughout the galaxy, which is what you’ll need to earn points from the objective cards. While emissaries are mobile and flexible, institutes are stationary buildings which increase your hand size and allow you to recruit directly to more planets than your home world. Gaining allies (claiming planet ability tiles) will open up your options (assuming you have a card to play that lets you activate a planet ability). And awakening specialists is like injecting alien steroids into your deck. To be honest, all of these actions feel satisfyingly powerful — that of gaining specialists, increasing your hand size, and growing your planet tableau.

Those who enjoy a meaty engine builder or snowballing combotastic turns will find much to love here. Where early turns often see players throwing down one card for a single action and an occasional handful of pitiful points, late turns will see them executing a half dozen actions across multiple cards and planet tiles as they rocket up the score track. That’s because some actions, if chosen, will grant you the ability to take another action (I.e. play another card). These are mainly found across the specialist cards and planet tokens, which players gain more of over time. You’ll get a taste of the vastness of outer space as growing planet tiles consume your table and single turn combos stretch on into eternity.

Inevitably, downtime noticeably increases as the game nears its completion or when more players are at the table. Where two experienced players can certainly knock a game out in roughly 90 minutes, at three and four players it seems more likely that you’ll cross two hours and even approach three. Where many games can buckle under the weight of slow downtimes or long play sessions, Galactic Renaissance handles it fairly well. I believe I prefer it most at 3 players, which strikes a nice balance between player competition and game length, but I certainly enjoyed it at 2 and 4 as well. Those who want to bask in maximum conflict will surely find it in the epic 4 player game.

Conflict itself is another standout feature of the Galactic Renaissance experience. Each planet displays a stability threshold represented by a number of spaces. These spaces do not limit how many emissaries, institutes, and foundations are allowed on a planet; rather, they simply indicate the planet’s tolerance for interstellar interlopers. If you ever end your turn with a planet’s stability threshold exceeded, then a disorder phase is triggered. Starting with the active player, every player must take a disorder action (even if the planet becomes stable again during the disorder phase). That means that somebody (usually multiple somebodies) is getting kicked off the planet, unless you happen to have a disorder card in your hand to play and avoid your mandatory evacuation. Usually, you’ll either have to remove an emissary, remove an institute, or retreat to an allied planet. If a player only has one piece on a planet, you can do a lot of damage by getting them kicked off (often costing them the chance to score 1-3 points from that planet). What’s even crazier is that you can retreat to an allied planet with too many emissaries and cause that planet to become unstable. It’s possible to trigger a cascade of disorder if you are so inclined for such chaos.

Notably, disorder is not only more common with more players, but it is also more worthwhile. Where many of the scoring objective cards require you to be on a shared planet (meaning more than one player has pieces on it), it often feels like a waste to crowd out an opponent if their departure means the planet is no longer shared. The only reason to do something like that is if this rival could potentially win the game on their next turn and you are forced to sacrifice your own scoring potential to keep your hope of a comeback alive. In a 3 or 4 player game, you are more frequently incentivized to sow chaos across the galaxy because planets often possess 3 or more player colors, and nobody cares if that 3rd or 4th player gets booted (except for them, of course ;).

Even after spending many hours with the game across several plays, I’m still finding myself learning and improving. There are plenty of strategies and tactics to dig up in this galactic sandbox. You’ll discover and gleefully spam tricks that allow you to cycle through your deck faster to get back to that Senator card ASAP. You’ll meddle in the business of others and spread disorder across planets where opponents are weakly clinging on in desperation. You’ll seek to undermine their scoring potential while carefully planting seeds for your next scoring harvest. It’s not as blatant or brutal as Inis, but the interaction here can still be very effective.

While Galactic Renaissance preserves much of the political and positional spirit of Inis, it manages to carve out its own legacy. If Inis is a knife fight in a Celtic phone booth between prospective kings atop a hill, Galactic Renaissance is a space race between growing snowballs as they roll down that hill. Both games serve as loud and clear evidence that Christian Martinez is a designer to keep an eye on and that Matagot knows how to make an epic board game. I, for one, am excited to see and experience this game further, especially in its final form.

Galactic Renaissance launches on Kickstarter on March 21st. Check it out here.

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing excellent board games, including the upcoming Zoo Vadis by Reiner Knizia. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share classy board games that bite.

The post Galactic Renaissance Preview — Should You Back this Spiritual Cousin to Inis? appeared first on Bitewing Games.

If an old game has a user rating of 6.5 on BGG, is it even worth reprinting?  

Many publishers would likely (and justifiably) say no.  Why bother fighting an uphill battle of convincing today’s gamers that such a design is fresh and exciting when there are higher-rated classics or entirely new concepts that don’t come with potential baggage?  On the other hand, some publishers have built their entire company on this challenge and been very successful at it.  Just look at Restoration Games who has taken Top Race (6.8, 1996) and turned it into Downforce (7.2, 2017) or Buried Treasure (6.0, 1992) and turned it into Berried Treasure (7.0, 2021) or Dark Tower (6.9. 1981) and turned it into Return to Dark Tower (8.6, 2022).  Of course, Restoration seems to have a keen eye for selecting nostalgic titles of the past and preserving that nostalgia as they work their development magic to modernize the mechanisms.

But the thing is that these nostalgic games are generally highly thematic.  Do dry, old-school, German style euro’s carry the same level of nostalgia?  Probably not.  To me, marketable nostalgia requires a combination of vivid memories, settings, and sensations, and thus pure mechanisms are a tough sell from the sentimental approach.

On top of that, there are some hobbyists who won’t even bother touching games that are rated below a 7 on BGG.  Why should they when there are so many other options that are statistically all the more likely to satisfy their gaming groups?  Of course, those of us who are willing and able to put in the extra research, time, and risk will often find “hidden gems” that become favorites in our collection.  For me, these include games such as Stephenson’s Rocket (6.9, 1999), Condottiere (6.9, 1995), Orongo (6.7, 2014), Municipium (6.7, 2008), and more.

The way I look at games that are rated below 7 on BGG is not so much that these titles are “sub-par” or “ok at best.”  Rather, this tells me that a game really works for a lot of folks (fans who rate it 7, 8, 9 or 10), yet for one or more reasons there is a decent chance that it may not work for everyone (those who rate it 5 or lower).  But if a sub-7 title presents a mechanism or theme from a creator I love, then perhaps it’ll be right up my alley!

So as a publisher, when analyzing and reimplementing a game that falls in this range, this presents an opportunity for evolution.  As we’ve seen recently, a legendary and universally acclaimed game like Ra (7.5, 1999) merely needs a great new coat of paint and some thoughtful production decisions to soar in today’s tabletop crowdfunding landscape.  On the other hand, a cult-classic such as Quo Vadis (6.5, 1991) probably needs a little something more.

A couple years back, I found that my appreciation for tabletop gaming was growing exponentially.  Part of this was thanks to the fact that I was honing my tastes and preferences and finding plenty of thrilling designs (new and old) to feed my focused appetite.  Two key preferences included Reiner Knizia’s design style — that of simple rules, elegant gameplay, layered strategies, tense decisions, and emergent interactions — as well as negotiation games.  So it was only natural that I soon sought out a used copy of the out-of-print game Quo Vadis, the design that fans point to as Knizia’s preeminent take on negotiation.

Despite it appearing as perhaps the world’s driest board game, my first play of Quo Vadis was everything I could have hoped for.  The competing incentives of racing to the inner sanctum (so your points actually matter) before you are blocked out versus hanging back to wheel and deal with your opponents to earn laurels (points) presented a dramatic, tense urgency within a satisfyingly quick (45-minute) romp.  

In this game of Roman elections, players are aiming to advance their Senator pawns up through political committees of various sizes by convincing their opponents to vote them onward through the use of bribes, deals, and promises.  The winner will be the player who gets at least one of their Senators into the inner sanctum and earns the most laurels along the way.  In classic Knizian fashion, the challenge here is about playing your opponents just as much as you are playing the board.  It was obvious that when this little box hit the table, it would consistently pack a punch.  But that was perhaps the hardest part—getting something so beige to the table when so many vivid boxes on my shelf could excite my gaming groups more easily.

On top of that, this 30-year-old design seemed to have developed a bit of an identity crisis over the course of its several reprintings.  Variants within the rulebook and online were like an overwhelming — even paralyzing — sprawl of menu options.  All I wanted to know is what is the best way to play Quo Vadis?  With public points or secret points?  As a three-act game or one quick round?  With a laurel supply quantity tailored to the player count, or with everything always available?  With or without the special disks from the Mayfair Edition?

That last variant in particular, the special disks, is especially notable because I included it in my second play of Quo Vadis when I introduced the design to a different group of gaming friends.  Fortunately, they all seemed to enjoy the game.  As for me, I found that I strongly disliked this variant.  While the special disks appear to add excitement — presenting players with an additional action option of drawing an exciting ability such as gaining a bonus vote or canceling an opponent’s vote or more — I found that they actually detracted from what made Quo Vadis shine — the reliance on your opponents and the negotiations that naturally emerge from this reliance.

Quo Vadis is not the only victim of such decades-long tinkering and dilution.  On the one hand, these many variants represent a legacy of ideas, creativity, and passion from fans and publishers alike.  On the other, they can be off-putting to newcomers who don’t want to invest so much energy in eliciting the “ideal” way to play.  So as a publisher who desired to shepherd Quo Vadis into the modern tabletop gaming industry, the main challenge was in seeing through the weeds and truly understanding Quo Vadis — What makes this design special?  What do raving fans love about it?  Where and why doesn’t it click for those who played it and rated it below 7?  How can we adapt it to a modern audience and help it to reach its full potential?

To answer these questions, I turned to a fundamental tool that is used within the world of business.  Although I don’t remember everything I was taught while pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, at least one principle that has stuck with me is the SWOT Analysis.  It’s funny… I always thought that I’d primarily be applying my business education to managing a dental practice (yes, our publishing company is called Bitewing Games because it was started by two dentists — myself and Kyle), but I’ve actually found myself putting this experience to use far more frequently as a designer, publisher, and developer of board games.

The SWOT Analysis is typically used by companies to evaluate their brand or a specific product within its market.  It’s a way to analyze and understand the internal Strengths and Weaknesses of the subject as well as the external Opportunities and Threats in its industry.  For Bitewing Games, I’ve found that it is perhaps our best tool in evaluating, developing, and marketing our games.  This is a topic that I discussed more thoroughly on the Board Game Design Lab Podcast. https://boardgamedesignlab.com/community-spotlight-evaluating-your-game-with-swot-analysis-with-nick-murray/ 

While it works for every project we’ve taken on, the nice thing about doing a SWOT Analysis on a game like Quo Vadis is that we have over 30 years of data (primarily from Board Game Geek’s database) to study and learn from.  So I did what any sane person would do and consumed it — all of it.  I combed through the 800 comments, clicked through the 106 forums, soaked in the dozens of reviews, explored the countless ideas and discussions, collected the numerical data, and presented my findings to the legend himself, Dr. Reiner Knizia.  By using the SWOT Analysis, we were able to maintain a focused perspective and condense all of this information into something more clear and actionable.  Importantly, I restricted this analysis summary to a single slide:

This slide gave us an overhead view of where Quo Vadis was at as well as where we should take it.  Naturally, our main focus was on the weaknesses and opportunities of the game which we dove into further…

Let’s skip to the second bullet point and start with the “Dry” Look & Theme.  One pattern that stood out to me while perusing the comments on Quo Vadis was that many players (including myself) found the presentation to be bone-dry.  This is even considering the fact that Roman Senatorial Politicking is in many ways the perfect fit for the mechanisms of Quo Vadis.  The problem is not within the pairing of the design and theme, rather it is within the presentation and crowdfunding appeal of such a game.

So how do we moisten up this good old game in a way that attracts newcomers yet doesn’t ruffle the feathers of longtime fans?  Well, the answer is simple: That’s not possible 😆.  As we’ve seen in recent examples such as Libertalia -> Winds of Galecrest or Colossal Arena -> Equinox and so many more, a change in theme or presentation is always going to lead to polarizing opinions.  While I wish we could satisfy everyone, we ultimately have to follow the most logical branches on the decision tree.  And as we all know, that naturally leads to one crowning answer… indeed, this is the answer to the great mysteries of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The answer?… Anthropomorphic Animals.

😂 Alright, I apologize for trolling the naysayers.  To you fine folks, please give me these following paragraphs to explain our decision.  Our priorities as a publisher are the following:

1. To publish a game with a theme and presentation that offers the most hooks to the largest number of backers (so the game can successfully fund and actually reach your table with the best quality possible).  I’m sorry, but plain old Roman Senators just don’t typically stand out in the crowded field of crowdfunding.
2. To design the box and components in a way that lowers the barriers to entry and increases your likelihood of getting it to the table.  I’d say there’s roughly a 99% chance that if I pull Quo Vadis and any other game off my shelf and let newcomers pick one to play based on their boxes, they will choose the other game.  So next time you pull a gorgeous box with a vivid theme off your shelf and players go “Oooooo!” don’t forget how easy it was to get people excited about playing it.

Now to be clear, I was being cheeky earlier.  I’m absolutely not saying that all themes should be anthropomorphized, and I can empathize with the exhaustion that comes from too many animals or too many zombies or too much Cthulhu in our hobby.  But I can assure you that Zoo Vadis wasn’t born from the desire to shoehorn animals into the art.  Rather, the solution to my above priorities (while maintaining a theme that was true to the gameplay) was in essence a Zoo where the Zoo Animals ran the zoo like a civilized Roman government.  You have exhibits where species coexist and campaign their way up to the star exhibit.  You have laurels being earned from raving fans (visitors) and envious rivals.  You have a zoo keeper (the Caesar token in the original game) who lets animals advance freely.  You have glorious political zoo artwork by Kwanchai Moriya and Brigette Indelicato.  It even fits the other gameplay changes better than the original Roman Senator theme would have (more on that later).

The next issue was blatantly obvious from an analysis of the data.  Quo Vadis has the capacity for 3-5 players, which is a narrow count to begin with, yet most players felt like it was essentially a 4-5 player game.  If you want your publication to have legs, then you need to make it easy for players to get it to the table and have an enjoyable session.  This narrow player count is an even bigger issue when comparable negotiation games such as Bohnanza will satisfy its participants from 3 all the way up to 7 players. 

So how do you address that in a pure design like Quo Vadis?  I certainly had some ideas…

Credit where credit is due: The idea of a neutral figure to improve the 3-player game came to me as a result of my recent plays of the then newly released Renature by Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer.  One of my favorite aspects of Renature is the neutral plant color that players can use in absolute savage ways to negate the area influence of opponents.  And if neutral figures can help improve the lower player count experience of an area majority game, perhaps it could do the same for a negotiation game…

As for the 6-7 player possibility of Quo Vadis, my thinking was as follows… If you look at the recommended player count stats like a bell curve, Quo Vadis is less of a curve and more of a ramp up toward higher player counts that drops off a cliff after 5 (because that’s all the game supports).  If this is (currently) the kind of game that has a “more the merrier” vibe to it, then perhaps a game board that supports 6-7 players could work just as well (if not better).

My ideas sounded great in theory, but ideas are worth nothing in game design if they aren’t properly implemented.  Fortunately I had one of the world’s greatest problem solvers ready and eager to conjure an answer.  The heavy lifting of these changes came from the design, development, and playtesting all done by Knizia and his testers.  What he eventually came back with was even better than I had expected (note: this pattern of Reiner, Kwanchai, and Brigette exceeding expectations continues through every aspect of their work on Zoo Vadis).  

Here is what Reiner wrote to me via email when he first introduced me to the changed rules (Note: While this communication was meant to be a private conversation between designer and publisher, Reiner has granted me permission to share these quotes in this Publisher Diary):

“The development was not as straight forward as I expected. It took a lot of testing and exploring until we were finally happy with the current [rules]:

“1. We now have a second board for 6 and 7 players. This plays very well!

We decided to stay as close to the original design as possible, which helps the orientation when playing with varying player numbers.

“2. I wanted to enhance the 3-player-game (and the 4-player-game) in a natural way, without the introduction of awkward special rules. We finally found the solution in the [neutral] figures which we now use for all player numbers. By varying the number of [neutral figures] in the game, the tightness of the board can nicely be adjusted to the different player numbers.

“In addition to bribing the ‘neutral’ [figures] for votes, the [neutral figures] also introduce a nice play option: you may move a [neutral] figure instead of an own figure, even into the [Star Exhibit], to obstruct other players.”

Reiner Knizia

I can’t help but laugh in noticing that Reiner calls the opportunity to “obstruct other players” (I.e. brutally blocking someone from even qualifying for victory) a “nice play option” 😂.  It warms my heart to see him stay true to his cold-blooded design tendencies.

Anyway, you’ll notice that this modified prototype from Reiner features a double-sided board (depending on player count) that elegantly keeps a similar structure (as he noted) while displaying start spaces for the neutral figures to be placed (also depending on player count).  Thrilling changes, indeed!  

The neutral figures are introduced in Zoo Vadis as a fourth action option where you can choose to advance one to the next enclosure (no majority votes needed!) and earn 1 laurel in doing so.  Furthermore, you can bribe these figures with a single laurel token (worth 2 points or better) to gain a vote if they are in your enclosure and you desperately need the majority support.  Perhaps my favorite aspect is that they can also be used savagely to clog an exhibit or even block a player from entering the Star Exhibit!

While deciding what animal the neutral figures should be, my wife, Camille, brilliantly suggested peacocks as an option.  If you’ve been to a few zoos, then you’ve likely encountered roaming peacocks who strut up and down visitor paths or in and out of various enclosures as if they own the place.  The fact that peacocks can be your greatest ally or your worst nightmare according to the bribes and wims of players is a concept that delights me to no end.

After playing and witnessing 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7-player games of Zoo Vadis, I’m ecstatic to find that all counts are a blast.  While I’m generally very sensitive to “optimal” player counts in games I play (I’ll actively avoid playing games I love if it’s not within my preferred player count), Zoo Vadis is one that I would happily at the entire range of 3-7 players thanks to the new game boards, roaming peacocks, and asymmetric animal abilities…

But before we get into the the animal abilities, let’s look at what led us to them.  Of all the 800 comments of user reviews that I read on the Quo Vadis BGG page, there was one that stood out to me the most:

Now many Kniziaphiles (myself included) tend to roll our eyes when anyone suggests that a Knizia design is too simple or needs more depth or complexity.  More often than not, these types of comments are born from a person’s single play (i.e. superficial experience) with a game where they never uncovered the subtle strategic layers lurking underneath.  Yet, whether Chg21012 played Quo Vadis only once or dozens of times doesn’t matter, because in this case his comment struck a chord.

The important thing is that they came into a “pure negotiation” game with expectations, and Quo Vadis didn’t quite meet those expectations.  As a fan of the genre, I totally get what they mean.  For me, the highest highs of negotiation come from designs like Chinatown or Sidereal Confluence which offer delicious flexibility in what you can trade and how those deals are made.  You get exciting moments like 3 or 4-way trades between several players at once.  With more experience, you realize that future promises can be even more valuable and interesting than immediate exchanges.  And you’re not simply bribing somebody else with a couple points or a bit of cash, but you’re actually exchanging favors.  These games are dynamic enough to allow players to creatively conjure value out of nothing for everyone involved in the deal.

Contrast this to something like Bohnanza or Quo Vadis and you’re more likely to disappoint folks who have tasted the forbidden fruit of more dynamic negotiation games.  Don’t get me wrong, I think both of these games are great, but the opportunity for strategic negotiations here are much more limited when all you can do is basically trade some beans or offer some votes or points.  

So how do we keep the purity of Quo Vadis while breaking through that negotiation ceiling?  Here was my idea:

Those who have tried the Special Disks from Quo Vadis will recognize a few of the ideas made it into my proposal.  But the key point here was the possibility of turning special abilities into tradable items.  If players had rule-breaking powers that could be added to their negotiation utility belt, then perhaps the game could reach the highs that Chg21012 was looking for.

This feels like a good time to get back to Reiner’s email to me about the new rules:

“3. The asymmetric player powers turned out to be the most difficult part. Originally, they brought the opposite effect to what was desired. They gave the players more powers and tempted them to do their own thing, diminishing negotiations and co-operation rather than boosting them…

“The solution was to make the player powers only applicable to other players but not to yourself. This also led to making the player powers non-tradable. They are truly your personal ability – and we really love the variety and interaction they bring into the game! 

“This will go nicely with the individual animal characteristics in Zoo Vadis 😊!

“The player powers make the game more dynamic and even more dramatic. Due to the increased urgency, it turns out that we never entered more than 5 senators during the games. Reducing their numbers from 8 to 6 will be safe even for other play styles and will save a lot of components while widening the player range 😊.

“Finally, we have used the new features ([peacocks] and powers) as an opportunity to introduce some special laurel tokens, similar to those allowing an additional [Zoo Keeper] movement.

“After a rather long and time-consuming process, we are now very happy with the results. The [additions] are elegant enhancements of Quo Vadis and introduce exciting new features without overloading the play. The features are well tested, and we love them.”

Reiner Knizia

As the man so often loves to do, Reiner took this interesting idea and flipped it on its head.  Yes, he added asymmetric ability tokens, BUT you can’t use your powers on yourself and you can’t even trade them to other players!  No, Zoo Vadis is a negotiation game.  And the best way to elicit negotiation is to force reliance and interdependence upon the players.  So all you can do with your powerful ability tokens is offer to spend your power on another player during their turn. 🤯🤯🤯🤯

And rather than give a player more power tokens to spend to compensate for a weaker power, players are instead awarded laurel tokens (points) for spending their abilities on opponents.  Thus players are incentivized to use their abilities on each other, yet stronger abilities (that can earn you more lucrative deals) reward you with less automatic laurels.

From a gameplay standpoint, these abilities are perhaps the most exciting new feature in Zoo Vadis for how they absolutely blow open the doors of negotiation possibilities.  You have the armadillo faction which allows opponents to use their underground tunnels as free shortcuts into higher exhibits.  You have the marmoset faction that, like any good monkey, helps opponents retrieve any laurel token of their choice from the board rather than the weaker token they are advancing over.  You have the rhino faction with the strength to transport two figures at once during a movement.  And that’s only 3 of the 7 powers!

I’ve seen some truly transcendent deals made between players such as the following:

Crocodile needs a vote from Rhino in order to advance into the next exhibit, but Rhino is reluctant to offer their support because then Crocodile would advance into the last open space of the next exhibit and block Rhino from entering that exhibit until another animal vacates.  

In the original version of Quo Vadis, that would often be the end of the story, because the voting player would demand too steep of a payment from the advancing player, so no deal would take place.  

Fortunately, this is Zoo Vadis, and so the crafty Crocodile sees a mutually beneficial opportunity thanks to the animal abilities.  You see, Ibis is also in that next exhibit that Crocodile and Rhino both wish to enter, and Ibis desperately needs two votes to advance onward (which the three neighboring Hyenas have thus far stubbornly refused to offer).  So here is Crocodile’s proposal to these fellow animals in need:
“Rhino, if you vote me through then you can also spend your ability token on me and I’ll use your power to bring you along with me.  Since there is only room for one of us, we also need you, Ibis, to spend your ability token on us which allows an extra animal to enter a full exhibit.  Then, because you helped us both fit into the exhibit, we’ll vote you through on your turn.”  All three parties are happy with this agreement and the deal goes through.

Zoo Vadis is the endless discovery and thrilling execution of creative negotiations — in a more vibrant setting and for a wider range of group sizes.  This kind of experience is exactly what instills in me (and hopefully many fans) an insatiable hunger to play and enjoy many games of Zoo Vadis.  Rather than dilute or detract from what made Quo Vadis special, these changes amplify the strengths of the design and help it evolve into its fullest potential.  Just like the starry-eyed animals who are aiming to reach the Star Exhibit and become the Zoo Mascot, it seems that Quo Vadis was always aspiring to be Zoo Vadis.

The Kickstarter pre-launch page for Zoo Vadis is now live! Be sure to subscribe here so you don’t miss out on the January 24th launch.

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the upcoming Zoo Vadis by Reiner Knizia. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share classy board games with a bite.

The post Publisher Diary: Reiner Knizia’s Zoo Vadis appeared first on Bitewing Games.

“If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me!“

There is something weirdly satisfying about this phrase. Odds are you’ve heard it said before. If you’re like me, then you heard it many a time after saving the Lylat System from the schemes of Andross. Or perhaps you heard it from the mouth of Chandler on an episode of Friends. It is certainly a common phrase, although I’ve found that enforcing the phrase is even more satiating than hearing it.

Enter Bristol 1350…. In this delightful romp of deduction and deception, a few players secretly start with the Black Death. Meanwhile, everyone else is eager to escape the doomed town of Bristol and evade the clutches of this dreaded disease. While three apple carts are racing to the finish line, only the first cart of fully healthy passengers will be crowned victorious. As those select few passengers who start with the plague are doomed to fail from the very beginning, they instead seek to take down everyone with them. Misery loves company, after all; and that company can be a riot.

A Two-Year Journey

My first experience with what is now Bristol 1350 was nearly two years ago. I was an eager-eyed aspiring designer in Columbus, Ohio, and I had the opportunity to meet the family behind Facade Games. They graciously took the time to playtest some of my first designs, and I got the chance to try their latest prototype. Their game involved a clever chariot race around a colosseum track. Players were invested in specific colors winning the race; they competed and collaborated to help further their own objectives, but there was always the possibility of a secret traitor lurking among their own team…. It was engaging, it was fun, and I never saw this game again.

Over the past two years, I’ve learned that the Hancocks are not afraid to completely destroy and reassemble their projects. At first, I couldn’t believe that Travis was so consistently comfortable with taking a hammer to the very thing that was going to pay the bills and feed his family. Every few months I got the chance to try the latest version of the fourth game in the Dark Cities Series, and each version was always wildly different from the last. The only thing that stayed consistent through all the versions was the core racing mechanism of the game and the Facade Games’ special ingredient of deceptive deduction.

The Sweet Spot

When the later sequential versions suddenly stopped transforming so dramatically, I knew that this game was finding its sweet spot. Of course, I also knew that fact when my criticisms were progressively erased into oblivion and replaced entirely by complements.

I’ve had the fortune of playing a near final version of Bristol 1350 with as few as 4 players and as many as 9. The best compliment I can give is that this game of social deduction with a hidden traitor mechanism is incredibly engaging within that entire player range. At 4 players, Bristol is methodical and piercing; at 9 players, it remains zippy yet becomes bombastic. I’m certainly intrigued to see how the dynamics change at 1-3 players with automated “ghost” pawns.

Fun Across the Spectrum

Those who are falling prey to the black death gleefully seek to fan the flames of transmission, while those who remain unscathed must stay alert and agile to suspicious passengers. In many sessions, some infected players shamelessly embrace their symptoms and wear them as a badge of pride through their words and actions. These obvious villains serve as the decoys while their cursed comrades sneak their way into the trusted company of the healthy humans. Meanwhile, these healthy individuals must form shaky alliances and remain vigilant as they seek to be among the first to escape Bristol unmarked.

The options on your turn include re-rolling to hopefully speed up your cart and slow down others, abandoning your cart for a better prospect, or acquiring a Remedy card to have a powerful influence on the game when used wisely.

I’ve found myself having a blast on both ends of this infectious spectrum. As an infected passenger, I love the thrill of spreading my symptoms to my fellow cart riders (while wielding plausible deniability), forcing cart mingles by rolling rats, or stealthing my diseased self onto a cart that crosses the finish line to ensure the doom of my fellow passengers.

Likewise, the tension of navigating and escaping Bristol healthy and unharmed is a roller coaster of a journey. The key is to unite with persons who seem least suspicious, form a shaky alliance, and work together to keep your cart clean of the plague and ahead of the pack. Bristol contains that right balance of incentives and clues to give both sides a chance of deducing secret diagnoses and attaining objectives.

A Bright Future for a Dark Game

Even when the maturing Bristol prototype was still a jumble of cheap paper and plastic, my fellow playtesters and I were having a fantastic time together. Seeing the final result of Facade Game’s vision, beautiful production and all, is tantalizing frosting on a cake that I was already hungry for. As social distancing eventually evaporates and groups of any size can finally gather together once more, Bristol 1350 will frequently hit our table and have us eager to retread its infectious fun.

This unsolicited preview was written by a fan of Bristol 1350 and a friend of the Hancock family. Amid the coincidental timing of their historical Black Death game project launching in a COVID-19 world, the Hancocks plan to donate $3,000 from their own pockets to Action Against Hunger. This preview is written as a kudos to their great game and generous hearts. You can check out the Kickstarter page for Bristol 1350 by clicking HERE.

The post Bristol 1350 Preview appeared first on Bitewing Games.