Unforgiven Developer Diary
/Taking the Handoff from Tom
Tom Butler, designer and publisher of Unforgiven, asked me to come on board as a developer based on our earlier work together on Paradise Lost (recently released by Green Feet Games). This was my first major project as a developer, and after hearing the basic pitch of the game I knew I had to be involved.
Tom presented Unforgiven to me as a two-player duel game along the lines of 7 Wonders Duel or Duelosaur Island. What made his game stand out to me was the use of dice, both as an input-randomness source of resources but also as a bit of push-your-luck, and the incorporation of history. Given his focus on historical gaming, I knew Tom would demand, and deliver, a historically sound game. Given my love of two-player gaming, dice drafting, and tableau building, I had to deliver a strategically sound game. Together, I think we’ve achieved these goals, and this is the story of how we got there.
When I received the first version of the game, I could see Tom was trying to do some unique things with the dice and with the juror cards (jurors provide bonus abilities when you recruit them, and you can instantly win the game if you recruit enough of them). My initial playthroughs, however, were a bit clunky: resources were tight, we couldn’t ever seem to reach certain thresholds, or activate certain abilities, and some abilities were too convoluted for their ultimate payoff. I saw what he was going for, though, so it became my job as developer to highlight those key elements of gameplay and strip away the rest.
I approached the development process as a problem solver. What issues does the designer have with the game? What does he want me to fix? The more specific the questions were, the more focused my work could be. We settled on streamlining the card and dice acquisition methods, increasing the strategic depth of the cards themselves, incorporating aspects of a trial into gameplay, and ultimately ensuring balance among both the obvious strategies and the hybrids.
The Development of Unforgiven
My plan was to step back and think about what the game wants to be. It is obviously inspired by 7 Wonders Duel (7WD), using a similar mechanism for card drafting. Starting here made sense because, like 7WD, a legal trial has a lot of back-and-forth, push-and-pull, and is filled with tension and the possibility of surprise instant victories. We began with this stable foundation, and took it in our own directions.
The primary mechanism of both games is drafting cards out of a randomized, structured display. Rather than three different displays I settled on one for the whole game, one that had an entry point on each side. To me, this best represents the nature of presenting evidence in a legal trial, and supports a prosecution/defense duality that appears throughout the game. Being able to see what your opponent could draft next turn (and, potentially, risking that they get lucky with a previously face-down card) captured the tension we are looking to produce in our players. The cards you acquire represent the argument that you are making to the jury: the evidence you rely on and the argumentative strategies used to establish your conclusion.
I wanted to make the cards more interesting, so I looked at my favourite tableau building games for combo potential. This is how we ended up with the ‘rhetoric’ cards, which give you special abilities after drafting them. Some give you discounts, others let you use one resource as another, while a handful interact with the trial dice. I also wanted to include ‘plan b’ cards, which would be useful if your main plan didn’t work. For example, cards that turn resources into points, or let you easily convert one resource to another; these cards give players options to pursue hybrid strategies and still be effective.
One challenge that came with these abilities was how to present a complex ability in purely iconic language. Icons are great, they make your game language-independent and also serve as a quick reminder from either side of the table as to what a card does. I had to take our special abilities and translate them into Euroglyphics which conveyed what the card’s ability is. In doing so, I stumbled across cards who couldn’t naturally be translated into icons; that was a sign to refine those abilities rather than stumble further over icons. We ended up with a nice, clean set of icons, and included an appendix in the rules for the more complex abilities.
Card Costs
A key aspect of balancing a game like this is making sure the costs are fair. You generally don’t want two cards with equal effects having different costs… unless you do. I began with a flat and fair costing structure: this effect costs this much, one of these resources is equal to two of these, and three of these turn into so many points. This gives a nice foundation, but it could lead to an overall flat, same-y game. If you know the conversion then the game devolves into simple math: which action gives the best return? Well, this one gets me 2 points, and this one gets 1.5, so it’s obvious.
Games like that are too smooth. Unforgiven has several different kinds of resources, and I wanted them to be actually different. Each resource is tilted in a certain direction: one makes it easier to acquire jurors, for example, while another helps you acquire cards with special powers. I set the price on cards with this in mind, knowing the general paths that players wanted to go down. I had to be sure not to funnel them in a certain direction, but I did want to ensure that you couldn’t do everything equally well.
This balancing process went beyond the simple cost calculation, and relied on playtest experience to get a feel for the major strategies. Then I could say “what should a resource cost for this strategy?” If you’re committed to a certain path, you tend to have a certain setup, which makes certain cards more valuable to you and makes others cost more to you than they do to other players. The cost of cards reflects that, but it means that there isn’t a flat exchange anymore. The costs have some rough edges, if you will.
Another factor that influences costs is the three phase structure of the game. Players will naturally accumulate resource production abilities as the game goes on, so cards in phase III should cost more than they do in phase I. Otherwise, you lose the tension. Some of these increased costs were intentional: a resource in phase III will cost more than it did in phase I as a way of saying “you should have bought these while they were cheaper; now you’re going to have to pay more to catch up.” Again, these rough edges enhanced the tension of the game, making each decision more than a simple, flat calculation.
I also threw in some truly rough edges: two comparable cards in the same phase that have slightly different costs (one cheaper than the other). Nothing too drastic, but I found in playtesting that these rough edges really brought something interesting to the table. Sure, there will be times where luck of the draw favours one player over another, but if the effects are minor it will add some character without disrupting the whole game. This is made safer by the way cards are drafted, so if you see an advantageous card you can plan around it.
Trial Dice
Trial dice are the second main component of Unforgiven. Capturing the vagaries of evidence and public opinion in a high profile trial, we wanted the dice to provide a bit of input randomness as well as a few other strategic options for players.
In terms of input randomness, trial dice are a source of resources that can be used to acquire new trial cards. There are different kinds of dice, each with different faces. Most faces provide resources, but there are other faces too. For example, there’s a face that provides victory points at the end of the game. If you have one, it’s worth 3 points, but if you have two they’re collectively worth 7 points, and three such dice are worth 11 points. If you have one or two of these, do you sit on them to the end of the game or take a chance and pay to re-roll them, hoping for resources that you could use right now?
Having the dice work like this (resource providers with the potential for other actions) led to some tense decisions during the game. The dice also gave rise to an alternate strategy for card acquisition: if one player drafts all of the resource generating cards, the other can develop a dice-based strategy, complete with bonus re-rolls, extra dice per turn, and the flexibility to use some faces as others.
We also included the ability to perform a powerful action, an Objection!, by slamming three dice down on the table like a gavel and yelling “Objection!” in your best Phoenix Wright impersonation. Not only does this little flair add historical and thematic immersion, it also created a tense dilemma: do I save my dice for a useful action, or burn three of them to stop my opponent from making a key move? It’s a little element of unpredictability and player interaction that can really change up the drafting decisions.
Dice Drafting
We also worked to develop a way to acquire these dice. Originally the dice were just pulled out of the bag, rolled, and added to your collection. Not only was this random, it didn’t facilitate any tense player interaction. Getting to the final state is a good lesson in game development: you will strike upon dozens of ideas that you will not use before arriving at the one you will use, and the reason for using this last idea comes from why you rejected the others.
Here’s what I mean. One option on the table had players selecting a dice from a track that had both positive and negative abilities on it, and you got the ability corresponding to the die you chose. The intentions were good: make players decide if the die they want is worth the price they’ll pay. We even had negative dice faces (e.g. lose a point) to get the same tension: is the printed ability worth taking the dice hit?
It all sounded so good in theory, but it quickly became complicated. Complexity is fine, though you don’t want too much of it, but what ultimately emerged through development is that this setup would often produce really undesirable game states. It was easy to get stuck with an overly negative selection, while your opponent lucked out and got a positive die face on a positive ability. These negative dice faces also impacted a dice-and-rhetoric strategy because it was possible for such a strategy to not only fail to get what it needed, but get hit with negative penalties instead. This was not our intention. Similar flaws emerged with the next dozen or so mechanisms we drew up, and we ultimately ended up with something simple and clean that gives the tension we want.
The way dice acquisition goes is that it still uses a track of dice, but players choose from a lineup starting on the left and moving to the right. For every die you skip, you put a piece of sway (the game’s currency) on that die. Whoever takes that die gains the sway on it. The tension became: is this die worth paying resources that could ultimately end up with my opponent? And also: I don’t really want this die, but it has lots of resources on it; is it worth forgoing a more useful die for these resources (which I also deny my opponent)?
At this point, card and dice acquisition facilitated the head-to-head tension we wanted in a two-player duelling game. I wanted to add more in this vein, so I got to work. One aspect of a trial I wanted to capture was reaching your conclusion (guilt or innocence) “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Structurally this is very similar to the military victory that 7WD uses: at a certain point in a conflict, the ending is a foregone conclusion. Likewise, at a certain point in a trial, the ending is a foregone conclusion. Thus it made sense to incorporate the track of 7WD, but instead of pushing your troops into the enemy’s territory, you are swaying the jurors to your side. We even added a little bonus reward for a player who is able to recover from an opponent’s strong position -- this kept a strategic door open late into the game.
Another aspect of a trial I wanted to capture was convincing jurors to your side. Unforgiven represents the trial’s 9 jurors as characters that provide special abilities to whoever convinces them (representing the overall convincing power of your argument). Some jurors begin the game sympathetic to either side, while others are up for grabs. I put these jurors on a similar head-to-head track: you can pay resources to move them closer to you, but your opponent can sway them back. Sway them far enough and they become convinced, providing you with their bonuses as well as the possibility of an instant victory if you convince enough of them.
After all of this tweaking, the game was ready for public playtesting to really polish out the last details: ensure that costs are appropriate, that cards and abilities work the way we intend, that the game has the right amount of tension, etc.
Learning Some History
Green Feet Games has always sought to include historical content in their games, from Patriots and Redcoats to The Pirate Republic; even Paradise Lost is based on historical fables. With Unforgiven, we wanted the history to be just as important as the gameplay. Each of the 84 unique cards is based on an actual person, place or thing surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln. We included the big names you’d expect, like John Wilkes Booth, but also those you might not know about, like the other conspirators who were tried. This includes David Herold, Lewis Powell, and of course Mary Surratt, who’s fate takes centre stage.
What we didn’t want to do was bog down the game or the rulebook with lengthy expositions. We wanted a game, not a textbook. By putting players in the shoes of competing legal teams, each using actual historical evidence to support their cases, players will have direct experience with the historical figures, items and events. Rather than presenting an historical narrative to them, we let players craft their own narrative (including the ability to change the course of history, should the defense player win). I’ve always felt that when you let players take control of the narrative as it develops, they are much more engaged than if everything is on rails.
The other way that history is a focus in Unforgiven is the art. All of the art on the cards comes from historical photos that have been colourized, many for the first time. Players will see the real life images of the historical figures surrounding this trial. We find the art absolutely engaging, from the deep blues of the Civil War-era uniforms to the actual words written in John Wilkes Booth’s diary, and we’re confident that players will as well.
The pinnacle of our historical efforts, however, is the only known photograph taken of President Lincoln lying in state in New York City, April 24, 1865. Discovered in his childhood by Dr. Ron Rietveld (who would later go on to become a professor of history at CSU Fullerton), the photo was thought to have been destroyed... until Dr. Rietveld found a copy tucked in an envelope in some historical records. Our team dutifully colourized the photo, paying utmost respects to the solemnity and gravity of the scene portrayed. We think that the historical importance of this image makes Unforgiven not just a fun and engaging game, but a genuine work of history.
