Mario Sacchi
What an incredible success!
At Modena Play, the most important board games fair in Italy, our new game, 21 Giochi Minuti, sold out in only two days, selling hundreds of copies.
After a series of gloomy news (have you read our latest post on our blog?) this blast of enthusiasm has made us proud and is pushing us to keep going towards new horizons. For whoever follows us from abroad, 21 Giochi Minuti (the temporary English title is 21 Games from Microgamesia) is the latest of a series of lighter games that we have published in our Country, and we hope to export to the rest of the world soon.
21 Giochi Minuti, by Matteo Boca and P.S. Martensen, is the peak of our growth path in family games: it is a collection of high-quality micro games, of any kind and for any type of gamer, that range from party games to miniature worker placement. It is a game that couldn’t exist without our experience in game development, both in complex games such as Florenza and Wendake and light games such as Fun Farm and Brick Party.
To be honest, our publishing career started with a children game: BauSquitMiao. It was an unnecessarily complicated game, so much so, that we used to tune the rules a bit during its promotion events.
After years of work, we think we have acquired a certain degree of experience in these light-hearted games, and a proof of it is the success of Fun Farm and Brick Party, that have become best sellers all over the world.
What is the difference between developing a complex game and a light, family or a children game?
There is a small but substantial difference between the two types, i.e. the materials.
When we develop a game for the most demanding gamers, especially if launched on kickstarter, we can get creative with the components. Of course we always try to avoid adding unnecessary elements, but if we believe that rules would work better if we added some cards, or tiles, or tokens, we don’t think twice: rules and setting come first, and we’re not afraid of a (small) increase of material.
The market placement of light games has some specific prices, which are lower than hardcore games, and this implies that, from the beginning, we have to study what can fit in the box.
For instance, for Brick Party, we asked the author, Luca Bellini, to design the shape cards with a maximum of 9 bricks per colour, and we chose the rule cards thinking about their ergonomics, discarding some that looked fun but were too uncomfortable to play.
For 21 Giochi Minuti we made a further leap, setting strict boundaries in regards to materials. For some of them we had to design some very clever ideas to avoid adding more components that were needed only for one of the 21 games.
Dear aspiring family games authors, keep in mind this information: when you are developing a game think about what materials you’ll need to express your idea as well as you can, and try to limit yourself to them. It doesn’t matter how many materials you add (there are some family games with some nice, hefty boxes) but try to eliminate all the useless or redundant elements which are not fundamental for the rules or the ergonomics of the game. It is good for the sake of the game, not only to cut costs.
For everything else, the development of a simple game is not too different from the development of a complex, rules-riddled Eurogame, except that, for the latter, we need to make more parts of the same game work seamlessly together and make them communicate properly.
For family games, obviously, we put a lot of effort into eliminating elements that can interrupt the game flow, and we focus on what is the real core of the game.
Due to the pandemics and all the issues arisen in the last couple of years, our most recent family games have been published only in Italy, but we are sure you will see them soon on boardgames shops shelves all over the world.
About that… we have a big announcement: soon you’ll get the chance to try our latest game of this kind, which will be ready for Essen 2022.
We proudly present Legend Raiders!
Legend Raiders is a family game created by Dario Massarenti and Francesco Testini, exquisitely illustrated by Mateusz Mizak. We loved developing it, and we’re sure it will be a good surprised even for the most skilled gamers, thanks to the many strategies that can be applied in a simple and fluid game system.
Moreover, it includes a dieless version for who is looking for a more strategic experience!
Are you curious to find out more details about Legend Raiders? Follow us on our social media and keep up to date with the blog articles subscribing to our Telegram channel!