I’m almost always looking for cool ideas for a game. I’m always thinking about stories and themes or certain mechanics that would make a good game. A lot of people ask which comes first: the theme or the mechanics ? As I’ve thought about that question with Hagoth, I would have to say that the theme came first. In September or October of 2008 Hagoth and his ship building exploits (Book of Mormon, Alma 63:5-8) entered my mind and I immediately thought, “Hey, you could lay out cards on the table that would fit together to form the plans for ships.” Okay, both theme and mechanism happened almost simultaneously, but the theme came first (by five seconds or so). I spent the rest of the day working the design out in my mind, trying to figure out what the goal of the game would be and how exactly to accomplish it.

The next day I sat down with a piece of printer paper and started writing the game play and game objectives based on what I had worked out in my mind up to that point. I decided that the object was to get so many people to the Land Northward. Each ship, depending on size, would be able to carry so many people. That’s not exactly how the game worked out in the end, but the idea is still included.

It was fantastic how it all just fell out on the paper. As I wrote it all down things came up in my mind that I hadn’t worked through the previous day, but the resolution to each of those things came just as quickly. Now, I’m not saying that the single piece of paper I was left with that day was perfect and that no changes were made to it, but as I look back on it, I had pretty much the entire game down that day (a copy of that piece of paper is included below).

The major goal in the game is to design, build, and sail ships from Bountiful to the Land Northward. Designs are made up of cards that are laid on the table in front of the players. Once a design is complete, it must be built using wood (one piece of wood per card). Once the ship is built, the player scores points and places a ship of his color on the board. Once that ship sails to the Land Northward, the player again scores points. The first player to score 25 points – down from my initial target of 30 as the game took way too long – wins the game.

Here’s a quick summary about how to play the game: Players hold five cards in hand. On their turn, they play two cards (with discarding also being an option), then draw back to five cards. Types of cards include: pieces of ship designs, “Go Wooding” (used to gather wood), Build, Sail, and some that let you attack other ship builders.

A couple of things influenced me as I worked on the design:

1. I wanted a “family friendly” game. This is the goal with most of my designs. I want a family to be able to sit down together and enjoy the game. That means two things: children need to be able to compete with their parents, and parents need to be able to enjoy playing the game. Some may say, “Hey, if you’re spending time with your kids, then you should be enjoying it.” But I can stand to play CandyLand only so much. I need something that holds my attention, that keeps me interested. Even better, if I can see myself playing the game with my wife and perhaps other adults, without our kids, then that is a good thing as well. I think I’ve been able to accomplish that with Hagoth.
2. I was looking to keep the number of components down. My experience up to that point with any publisher of LDS/Mormon-themed games, and there aren’t many out there, was that they focused mainly on card games. Having too many components would make them uninterested in looking at my designs. This was important to me because I wanted to try to get a new, original LDS-themed game published as what is mainly available now are just re-themes of previously published games.

With both of these goals in mind, the playtesting started. My first, very quick prototype consisted of 3” x 5” cards cut in half with my pencil scratches on them.

Don’t these just scream, “hey let’s play!”?

This part of the game – designing and building the ships – changed little during development. A few additional cards were added, such as the cards used to attack opponents. Also, the numbers of each card in the deck changed quite a bit during playtesting.

The part of the game that saw the most changes was the sailing of the ships. The way this was executed in the game changed several times. For example, a board with spaces was used at the very beginning. Ships were sailed through the spaces from ports in Bountiful to ports in the Land Northward. Ships could be placed to block the paths of other ships. Also, once reaching the Land Northward, ships could be sailed back to Bountiful for more passengers and return once again to the Land Northward.

Another idea that was used were small tiles, representing the ships. Players would place a die on the tiles once the ship was built, starting on a lower number for the smaller ships. Each time the ships sailed the number on the die was lowered until it reached zero. This represented the ship reaching the Land Northward. This didn’t last too long as it wasn’t very “family friendly” with younger kids finding it hard to follow exactly what was happening.

Here’s an image of the finalized board!

Eventually we arrived at the board design as it is now. The smaller ships still sail faster to the Land Northward, as shown by those tracks having fewer spots to sail through. And the smaller ships carry fewer passengers, as represented by a player scoring fewer points upon arrival in the Land Northward.

Now, having a well-designed game is all fine and dandy; I mean, you can pull the protoype out whenever you like and play it with family and friends, but for me – and I’m sure most designers feel the same – that’s not good enough. I wanted to get it published! It’s a good thing I’m a member of the Board Game Designers Guild of Utah.

In May 2009, one of the members of the Guild set up a meeting with Seth Hiatt of Mayday Games. All Guild members were invited to come with prototypes in tote (I took Hagoth) to show Seth. There were no promises made that Seth would publish any games, but I was hopeful (as I’m sure the other members who attended were as well). The six of us – five members of the Guild and Seth – sat together playing games for almost five hours. Later, after it was all over, Seth told me that he was interested in publishing Hagoth, but not just as an LDS-themed game. (There are no references to the Book of Mormon in the game, but those familiar with the Book of Mormon will know where the name Hagoth comes from.) For Seth, it was a good game, and anyone and everyone could play and enjoy it. Needless to say, I was ecstatic! Even though it’s been about a year since then, I’m still riding that wave of excitement.

It’s been a lot of fun to get my hands on the finished game. We held a release party in Salt Lake at Game Night Games (here is a write up about the party). The Deseret News also did a really nice article on the game (here). And as always, I’ve been posting about the whole experience on my blog: www.mormongamedesign.blogspot.com.

This has been an exciting experience and I hope to have similar experiences with more games in the future!

Hagoth has finally been released!! You can pick it up at select Deseret Book stores and on their website (www.deseretbook.com). You can also find it around the web at various vendors, including Mayday Games (www.maydaygames.com).

I’m offering a free copy of Hagoth to the winner of my logo design contest: check it out here. Basically, I’m looking for a nice logo for my blog and will take submissions until September 6th. The person who submits the logo I like the best will be sent a copy of Hagoth (once it’s available)!!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to contact me: mikedrys@gmail.com

Thanks

Mike