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Over in the Flamme Rouge forums, I posted the expansion draft for a 5-6 player expansion for Flamme Rouge. The fantastic BGG community started commenting, and thus started me thinking. And then I thought I might as well share some of those thoughts with all of you.
The current rules for the expansion are found here.
I should add that the expansion has been played with all player counts. About 10 times total. It has been well received so far (tweaks have happened), but I can see the 'it feels like a scenario' concern, that was raised in the linked thread. And of course the test group has been my friends and I, so we aren't exactly objective.
It should also be said that this could end up being just an element of a bigger expansion, but it is the element I want to focus on here.
One 'problem' with doing expansions for Flamme Rouge is that the system is so flexible, that settling on a single simple and streamlined solution is hard. I'm sure that regardless of what we end up doing (most likely something like the above), there will be folks who wanted something else
Let me quickly explain what I see as the key design challenges in expanding the player count here. A) Congestion and B) Randomization.
CONGESTION
In Flamme Rouge the road is only 2 lanes wide. This means that any third rider trying to access a square, is blocked and loses movement. Each point of movement is important, so this is a big deal. Particularly because losing movement can become a self fulfilling prophecy, and can escalate. You start at the back, try to leapfrog ahead, get blocked and find yourself in the same position. The issue increases just at the foot of ascends, as that terrain feature further blocks your move. With 4 players and 8 riders (2 per player) this is already present, but at this player count it is a feature. Something occasional, that catches unaware riders out.
However with 12 riders on the track at the same point, it greatly increases. And the risk of chained blocks explodes; where you can't even fit on the next free space but end up losing 2-3 squares at once.
Solution?
The first solution to this problem is pretty straight forward. Widen the road with a 3rd lane, and the risk of blocking declines rapidly. Of course wanting to use the existing track pieces to keep costs down, replacing all tiles isn't feasible. In the suggestion I've linked below I've thus included 4 tiles that are 3 wide. It might end up being 5 or 6 tiles, I don't know, but with clever placement of said tiles on a stage, it hasn't been an issue so far.
RANDOMIZATION
I'll explain the main crux of this problem by exaggerating it first. If you roll a single die, there is a 1/6 chance any result will show up. If you roll 1000 die, the average will be very close to 3.5. Why is this important in Flamme Rouge you ask? It is important because Flamme Rouge needs random outliers, or break aways will never happen. Regardless of how wide we make the road, if we gather 100 riders in a pack, then breaking away will be almost impossible. Simply because somebody in that sample will play (or be forced to play) a card that catches you immediately.
The game lives off the tension created by chases. The chased trying to stay ahead, burning high cards to do so and knowing they thus can't compete in a sprint. And chasers trying to spend just enough energy to catch them, but save enough to beat the rest in the sprint. Tipping that balance one way or the other can quickly remove some of the key tension.
Solution?
The only idea I've been able to come up with so far, is to reduce the number of dice I roll. Or riders in the pack. And of course that goes counter to the stated goal of the expansion, which is to increase the riders in the pack... But if we split the pack from the start of the race! So we take 1-2 of the riders that would otherwise add to the congestion problem, and simply move them ahead of the pack. This needs balancing to ensure they have a shot at winning, but not too big a shot.
Regardless of whether or not you envision Flamme Rouge as only the last kilometer, or the last 100, the narrative holds. And all we've done is to speed forward a few turns from a normal race, where a break away succeeded.
Summary
I would love your thoughts on this, so please don't hesitate to comment. It is far from done yet, and listening to you guys is of course important because it is likely that you will be some of the people that have to make up your mind if you want to buy it eventually.
The tests we have played so far, has me hopeful though. It solves the key problems of adding extra riders to the track, without replacing all tiles. And it does so creating a new challenge in the game, by shoehorning in asymmetry, from before the first card is played. The chased have two distinctly different tasks with their split riders, and the chasers have to start working together to get the job done.
I hope it didn't become too messy
Happy racing
Asger Harding Granerud
Asger & Daniel are two boardgame designers from Copenhagen. Neither of them are superheroes, yet both of them are sidekicks...
On this blog they catalogue their designer diaries. There will be overall process oriented diaries, and there will be nitty gritty game design component fetischist focussed diaries. If any of this sounds interesting to you, subscribe.
As of October 2017 the following games are either released, or to be released very soon: A Tale of Pirates, Panic Mansion, Iron Curtain, Gold Fever, Flamme Rouge, Frogriders, 13 Days, 13 Minutes and Ramasjang Rally. And then there are all the 2018 and 2019 titles we are forgetting or cannot disclose... :P
Archive for Flamme Rouge
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Hi all,
Instead of spamming new solo play rules for Flamme Rouge, or updating them all the time I think I'll try to collect my thoughts here, and then update them once and for all, when 100% happy with them.
The current rules have two small design flaws I'm not 100% happy with. Firstly, the +1 move to each card for Muscle Teams isn't as elegant and streamlined as it should be. It changes the patterns you're looking for and reacting to, instead of training you for the actual rules of the real game. Hence I would like to get rid of that.
Secondly the +1 Muscle Teams are very hard to beat. I wanted something more modular, that allows solo players to adjust to their personal skill level, and even play around with the system and setup. I suspect solo players enjoy such fiddling The added benefit is that the system I've come up with below (but haven't tried yet myself!) allows for that AND allows for a highscore. Hence you can keep aiming higher for personal reasons, but maybe you can even also end up sharing your solo experiences with other gamers!
If you DO test the below rules, please help me get it right by providing your highscore. Even if it was zero!
Happy racing
Asger GranerudQuote:FIXED SETUP: Your riders always start on the backmost spaces. The two AI teams (4 riders) start Sprinters on the front most and Rouleurs just behind.
GAMEPLAY: You play your riders as normal. AI just flips top card, and never gets exhaustion.
HANDICAP: Before starting, remove a 7 from your rouleur and a 9 from your sprinter. You MAY remove more cards, but a 7 & 9 are the minimum.
HIGHSCORE: Your score equals the number of spaces you've removed from the game (7 & 9 minimum), multiplied by a factor in accordance to the rider's place in top 3. First place multiplies by 3, second by 2 and third by 1. You can score for both riders, but only top 3 placings score (E.g. If your Sprinter finished 1st then he would score 3*9=27 points. If he had also removed all three of his 2s from the deck, he would score 3*(9+2+2+2)=45 points).
TWO PLAYER VARIANT: You may add a single AI team to your 2p game. If so both real players remove a 7 & 9. Also AI starts on the frontmost spaces, players on the backmost. No highscores or further handicap.
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Hi folks,
As I've also tried to chronicle the design process here, I thought it would be worthwhile to share the recent Session Report I wrote on a Grand Tour of Flamme Rouge!
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1620403/fanatic-grand-tour-...
The bad news is that the production has been delayed again. We will make it for Essen, but I was hoping we would have had it months ago.
Regards
Asger
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Hi all,
For anyone that followed the ongoing 13 Day Designer Diary, you will know that we went through the game component by component. I think it is a good way to dissect a game, as it allows us to look into each and every little corner of the design.
The core gameplay of Flamme Rouge revolves around the Energy Cards. Each player controls a team of two riders, and each rider has 15 Energy Cards to start the game with. Once an Energy Card has been used, it is removed from the game. Hence as the game progresses you get fewer and fewer cards in your deck (deck thinning). The only means to get new cards in your deck, is to add exhaustion, which is basically just an Energy Card with a value of two. The lowest possible value.
After the first test night, it was apparent that the 20 or so cards I had tested with were too many. I knew I wanted the game to last less than an hour, and with 20 cards it simply took too long for reshuffling too happen. The core concept of deck building/thinning games revolves around your deck of cards changing over time, and you only experience that change if you go through said deck multiple times.
My gut feeling said that I wanted around 15 cards, and having tried a number of different values that first evening I also knew I didn't want too many values within a deck. This meant that each rider ended up with 5 different values, and 3 of each value in the deck.
Having a set system/distribution was advantageous for a number of reasons. New players first need to grog the game play, but once they do get it the next step of card distribution isn't much of a barrier. I'm not a card counter myself (too tedious) but I will keep track of how many 9s your sprinter has played, and most anyone can keep track of that if they put their mind to it. And remembering how many of each card players have to start with, is pretty straightforward as it is always... three!
Secondly each round you draw 4 cards and play 1. Just enough to make it impossible to draw a hand of identical cards. Four cards is low enough to keep some luck of the draw in the game, and doesn't overload you with potential (or identical) choices when you only need to pick 1. Plus everyone can keep track of four cards in their hand.
After the first three rounds, player will thus have drawn 12 of their 15 cards. This puts everyone in the same boat, having to reshuffle at the same time and needing to draw the 3 leftover cards plus one new one. In general new players will often ask how it works, and since it is the same for everyone the first time they have to do it, explaining it becomes easier.
The Rouleur has 3 of each of the following values: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
The Sprinteur has 3 of each of the following values: 2, 3, 4, 5, 9
Thus the Rouleur on average travels faster than the Sprinteur, but the later has the higher top speed. This asymmetry in card distribution leads to surprisingly realistic real life similarities. The Rouleur is affected less by exhaustion, and the Sprinteur prefers to hide in the pack. If trying to break away, then the Sprinter can punch a hole, but is extremely unlikely to stay ahead.:strip_icc()/pic3072110.jpg)
A Rouleur trying to break away!
I can feel that the directions I want to digress into are how these card distributions matters in relation to the stage, its layout and the length of the race. However, that is another component and will have to wait for next weekend
Regards
Asger Granerud
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Inspiration
Personally one of the great joys of designing games, is seeing it come to fruition and becoming a product on a shelf, all over the world. What starts as a thought inside my head, through a long and arduous journey becomes a physical thing! Not all games have a clear Eureka moment of inspiration. And even when they do, the actual seed of original thought is often radically altered immediately after. Once in a while it does feel like a eureka 'lightbulb' moment is exactly what happens, and Flamme Rouge is the clearest case for me! Lets dig into it
It all started on a cold weekday in December 2012. My apartment had been invaded by a horde of carpenters and plumbers, and thus I found myself exiled to my childhood home for some weeks.
There was no one else at home that particular evening, thus I found myself sitting in the dark on a bench just outside the front door, having a smoke. As happens so often in those situations my mind drifted to boardgames, and on that occasion it drifted to Dominion. What made Dominion such a success? Why had everyone gone crazy over the innovation of deck-building, when years ago I (and thousands others) had clearly been doing it in Magic: the Gathering?
I don't want to detract from the success of dominion (or MtG), but the thought stuck in my head: Dominion isolated a single aspect of MtG, and subsequently expanded it to become a fully fledged game in its own right. That formula should be possible to apply to other games: isolating one aspect and creating a game around it. My mind still circling on Dominion; which single element of that game could be expanded into a game on its own? The element I personally enjoyed the most was the feeling of optimization involved in deck-thinning. Seeing as the deck 'cycles', having few cards means you get to see each of them more often. Thus if you remove cards from your deck, ensuring only the best cards remain, it eventually creates a lean, mean, VP-buying machine. Why were there no games (that I was aware of!) built based on this deck-thinning mechanism!?
The idea for Flamme Rouge had popped into existence just there. Still in the same sitting I pondered on what would thematically fit a deck-thinning concept. What would fit a game where you started with a deck of cards and gradually depleted it, while striving to have the leanest-meanest machine at the end? In my mind the analogy came to mind was spending energy, while also preserving key doses of that energy for the sprint (having the leanest deck).
Energy consumption and preservation. Energy consumption and preservation. Energy consumption and preservation. Cycling! Racing!/pic3060242.jpg)
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Once that connection had formed in my mind, it felt as if everything fell into place in short order. Cards would have numbers, and represent how far you moved. Each rider in your team would have a distribution of different numbers, and his entire deck (15 cards eventually) would be his total energy reserves for the whole race. In cycling you don't want to be leading the race throughout, as the wind resistance exhausts you in short order. Two simple rules were introduced to simulate it: slipstreaming & exhaustion. Exhaustion added cards with a low average to any rider ending a turn leading a group, effectively diluting his energy reserves. Slipstreaming provided bonus moves primarily to well positioned riders hanging back in the groups. This created interaction 'en route' to the finish line. You want to hang back, but not too far back, and want to lead, but not all the way up front.
Cycling being a team sport, I decided to include two riders per player, with different characteristics defined by their distribution of energy cards. The Sprinter has a low average but a high top speed, which was reversed for the Rouleur (tempo rider). The other advantage of two riders is that you could now use one to screen the other from the wind.:strip_icc()/pic3060240.jpg)
The whole process had taken 30-45 minutes, and I vividly remember thinking I had a concept that “I couldn't see not working”. My gut feeling was that strong. Whether or not there would be interesting choices, should in theory - I reasoned - simply be a matter of adjusting the total energy per rider in relation to the total distance needed to cover, while tuning the specific distribution of energy cards in each deck. Make the balance tight enough to force meaningful decisions, and I should be good to go. I also decided to try and make it a family friendly game (my two first designs - still unpublished - only have 4 pages of rules, but the gameplay depth made them hard for non-gamers to 'grog').
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As a final note, I think the idea of finding something you like in a more complex game, and then distilling the mechanic/concept into something cleaner, has wider merit. If the core mechanic has the magic 'fun' in a larger game, chances are it will also have it in a smaller game. And of course you can then add novelties after having deconstructed it, if needed. I also think it is a good design exercise as it immediately gives a clear path to explore.
As always, please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or comments!
Regards
Asger
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Introduction
Flamme Rouge is the 1st game I signed with a publisher (Lautapelit.fi of Eclipse/Nations fame). It is a streamlined and accessible racing game for the whole family (ages 8+) inspired by ruminations concerning the relationship between Magic the Gathering & Dominion. And when I say streamlined and accessible I mean it; at its core the gameplay is drawing and playing cards with numbers.:strip_icc()/pic3012277.jpg)
Pure racing games are in my opinion hard to design. There are no frills to hide things behind; simply put 1st across the finish line wins! Moreover, design challenges such as runaway leaders and/or catch up mechanics are front and center. If you mess any of these up, you basically don't have an interesting game. On top of that a good game flow is needed, or any tenuous claim to represent a race disappears. Finally, racing is mainly repeating the same thing over and over, with minor tweaks. Making those decisions interesting, requires a solid core system that functions without complexity.
Cycling provides a fantastic setting for a racing game! It has high speeds, but retains the human endurance factor. Wind resistance and high speeds turns endurance into exhaustion, and provides a perfect check on runaway leaders. And thus the same physics provides slipstreaming/drafting which addresses two issues 1) the catch-up mechanic, and 2) the constant battle for relative positioning. Fighting for position is thus a matter of anticipating and reacting to your opponent's moves in a timely manner, between the constant flow of fast moving bodies. To make it even better cycling is a team sport, so coordinating your own team to reduce risk and maximise benefits, provides a puzzly challenge that elevates the sport/game from pure endurance and second guessing by adding the need for constant optimization and gradual improvements.
Before I gush more about cycling, I must add that I'm not a hardcore cycling enthusiast by any measure. Nor has the mass of countless playtesters been. Flamme Rouge is first and foremost an accessible and streamlined family racing game, with modern euro mechanics. However, I'll happily wager that for the mechanics you will be more than hard pressed to find a better match for theme!
Flamme Rouge is today, even three years after the core design was finished, the most played game in my regular gaming group. For my own gaming history, only chess still logs more yearly plays (Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Magic the Gathering have probably logged more historical plays too). I've played it well over 3-400 times and I still enjoy it immensely. Every. Single. Time! We've included 6 pre suggested stage setups in the final game (made by guest designers!) but the puzzle pieces means you can create more variants than I've cared to count.
I guess it is apparent from the above comments, but I'm very proud of Flamme Rouge. The quality of the game that Lautapelit.fi has insisted on, is truly great with custom made large plastic riders, player-boards and thick cardboard tiles. The artwork from Ossi Hiekkala is outstanding, I can't look at the box cover without smiling Finally, the graphic design done by Jere Kasanen truly makes the game easier to play. At times there are 5 separate small cues all integrated to communicate the same thing, without forcing any of them unto you.
The game will really debut at Essen 2016, but there might appear copies in trade as early as August.
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I hope I've whetted your appetite to a point where you would consider trying Flamme Rouge. If you've got outstanding questions, please don't hesitate to write them here!
Or you can hang on for the ride (subscribe to this blog), and I'll follow up with a series of much more detailed Mini Designer Diaries over the next weeks & months. These will dig deeper into the design of not just a game, but also a product, plus of course some more nitty gritty mechanical aspects.
Sat Jun 11, 2016 3:00 pm
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Hi all,
I'm sitting here writing on the Designer Diary for my next game Flamme Rouge. It is a tactical euro racing game (based off deck-thinning), and all the rules are already available on the BGG page for anyone interested
However, is there anything that I should repeat from the 13 Days Designer Diaries, or anything we should avoid? Or do you basically just have any questions you would like to see me address if I can
Please don't hesitate to let me know, and the sooner the better!
Regards
Asger Granerud:strip_icc()/pic3013655.jpg)
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