Gandalf instead of insect wizards - Simone Romano on making board games

 

I talked with Simone Romano, one of the designers of the dungeon crawler Sword & Sorcery at 2024 Essen SPIEL. He created the game together with Nunzio Surace with their joint company, the Gremlin Project. In this epic-fantasy board game, you control legendary heroes summoned from the dead and, of course, slay monsters. Simonbe and Nunzio's first game was Galaxy Defenders, which, like Sword & Sorcery, is a co-operative game. Boardgamegeek lists 22pcs of accessories for the game. I spoke to Simone at the Ares Games booth at the 2024 Essen SPIEL fair.

-How did you start in the gaming industry?

-It was a very long time ago, I think about 15 years ago. Together with my friend and colleague Nunzio Surace, we heard about Kickstarter, which was news at that time. We said, OK, we have been playing games since we were children, so let's make it together on a small budget, asking to a dear friend of mine (Gianni La Rocca) to follow the graphic aspect. Then we started to get together the figures (Raffaele Stumpo) and another artist (Mario Barbati) to make the maps. Then, we asked Ares Games (Roberto Di Meglio) to co-produce the game. Kickstarter was a great help for the beginning, because otherwise, getting the right amount of money in advance to create games with miniatures can be very challenging. This game was Galaxy Defenders. It was a success, and there was a second, double season too! But our main scope, since the beginning, was to create a fantasy-themed boardgame, so… Sword and Sorcery was the third and biggest game we created, especially if we consider the two seasons and all the other expansions. In any of our game created, the passion for the board games was our main focus.

-What's the next step for the Sword and Sorcery?

-From then, and until now, Sword and Sorcery is a huge saga, with Abyssal Legends that is almost completed in terms of production. We hope to release this expansion in few months from now. There was a sliding delay for production stuff but nothing regarding the development. Regarding the S&S World, we created three main expansions for the first season (Arcane Portal, Darkness Falls and Vastaryous’Lair) and the same number of expansions the second season too (Myths of the Arena, Northwind Tales, Abyssal Legends). For us, it's like a TV series: where you start from the core set, and then the game and the story progress through the boxes until the end. Immortal Souls saga is the main plot, while Ancient Chronicles sage is focused on what is happened before the Immortal Souls events… and Abyssal Legends is a closing epilogue connected to both sagas.

-What do you like to play in your free time?

-Mainly American games, just like Sword and Sorcery, and mainly dungeon crawlers. I'm currently playing Terminator Genisys and Gears of War. That’s is one of my favorite games from Fantasy Flight. I'm also playing Oathsworn, a very good Boss Battler from Shadowboard. These are the main games at the moment, mainly dungeon crawlers and boss battlers.

-Can we say that Galaxy Defender is a dungeon crawler too? Do you put it in this category?

-Galaxy Defender is more like a skirmish game: players vs Enemies’ AI. There are some elements of the dungeon crawling, but they are few respects combat aspects. In fact, maps have hexes, and almost all powers and weapons are focused to apply strategies and tactics to prevail on the battlefield… avoiding positioning error is very important in GD. In contrast, Sword and Sorcery is a real dungeon crawler with a D-capital. It's less challenging than GD, but it is still enjoinable by expert players. So, to summarize, no, Galaxy Defender is more oriented to the skirmish game family than the DC one.

-If you were to create a new dungeon crawler, would you like to do something different from these two games?

-If, one day, I will create another dungeon crawler, it will be for an audience that is less expert. I would like to make a game with soft skills, occasional gamers, and novice gamers. Both our games, Galaxy Defender and Sword and Sorcery, require a lot of passion. The rulebooks are quite deep and you need to be focused to win. The next game should be something that can be played by anyone, considering that the previous two were games for expert players. I would like to create something for the medium audience also, something less deep. But to achieve that result, I know that something must be dropped on the table because it's not possible to bring all the elements and decrease the complexity of the rules at the same time. Fewer rules, less complexity, and a bit less strategy, some sacrifices in order to create something that can be enjoyed by anyone. If you want to create a pyramid based on complexity, Galaxy Defender is the most complex and challenging game. Then Sword and Sorcery is already more enjoyable. If you do something wrong in Sword and Sorcery, you can repair it most easily. Galaxy Defender is very punishing. So, the third game should be something even more easy than Sword and Sorcery. I have something on my table, but it's not a dungeon crawler. It's a totally different game, but it's a very raw prototype. It's too early now.

-What are the other differences between the two games?

-The main difference between Galaxy Defender and Sword and Sorcery is that Galaxy Defender is almost a combat-only games, the story is very thin. In Sword and Sorcery, there are two phases, an adventure phase and a combat phase. Also, the story's development is much more in-depth compared to the other game. In season 2: the Ancient Chronicles saga, Northwind Tales and Abyssal Legends offers a very deep interaction with the story, and players are free to to explore and modifying it with their decisions and quests outcomes. Because you can interact with the game just like a gamebook. So, you can influence and change many things while unveil the plot and the story.

-You mentioned that the next expansion for Sword and Sorcery is already in production.

-Yes, it's called Abyssal Legends. The last expansion, the climax battle of the ancient chronicle saga, the season 2. And it's based on Cthulhu mythos, so you will find a lot of references to Lovecraft's creatures. And it's very deep as an expansion because it's basically based on a main cathedral and characters of all S&S game. The events and the characters will change day by day when you visit the different locations of the Church. So, if you visit some room on day one, you will find some things and events. If you return to the same room, in the days later, the people and the facts may be changed.

-Will there be a third season of Sword and Sorcery?

-Not a third season, but we would like to create a sort of deluxe edition of the first season of Immortal Souls, just to adequate the rules. In Ancient Chronicle Saga-season 2, we have made several changes to the rules. And most likely, we want to bring these changes to the Immortal Souls saga.

There are also additional side quests already in development, not written by me directly but by additional talented people. Nunzio and I work as supervisors of the story, making some changes. So, completely different stories but using the most of components that already exist… with few new ones! These campaigns are at a very good point of development. I don't know if they will be a Kickstarter; it depends on Ares Games decision.

-How are the tasks divided between you and Nunzio?

-Starting from the beginning, from Galaxy Defender till now, my work is to write the rules, quests and text. But I also act as artwork director. So, all the images, tokens and 3D models you see in the games start from my ideas and then are developed by several artists. Nunzio is more in charge of beta testing the game and, most important the graphical layout of all contents, but we also share the initial ideas of course. By the way he has created all manuals and cards of our games.

-What trends do you see in the dungeon crawling games today?

-The trend is to create each time even bigger box with too much stuff, to be honest. I think there is a threshold that should not be surpassed, but we are far beyond this threshold. Now, if you want a dungeon crawler, you must spend 300, 400, 500 Euros or even more. I would appreciate it if someone would bring back this threshold to something that can be more affordable for people. When Galaxy Defender came out, it was considered quite “expensive”, about 60 or 70 Euros. Now, 99 Euros is almost a cheaper game in respect to the big boxes that I see around.

-And what about the theme of the games?

-I see that companies are creating dungeon crawlers with any kind of environment and theme. The funny and “strange” fact is that sword and sorcery were designed to be the most classical-Archetypes fantasy game, so one of the many “classical fantasy” games let me say. But now, by looking at the market, we are more or less the only ones using standard roles like mage or paladin… surrounded by many strange and original “new” characters and classes. Now, the new games made by other companies are more oriented to completely different themes and/or environments. All these variations look a bit strange to my eyes, to be honest and I’m not really attracted, but it's also a good thing, because it means that there are more original contents and more choices for the players! In my designs, I’m very glad to use archetype figures of the past, because as a child I grew up by looking at Conan the Barbarian, Gandalf and He-man and Skeletor! So…. I would like to “attempt” to transmit this “old-style fashion” passion to new generations. Under some aspect, using these kind of figures work as gateway from parents to children, making easily the transmission of the passion for this kind of things… I mean, for a Father, it is more easily describing with emphasis Gandalf compared to semi-insect-humanoid with strange magic powers. So, this and many other reasons, I prefer to continue creating games with archetypes, even if I respect so much who is trying to innovate the fantasy themes.

-What else was the inspiration for you?

-Video games play an important part in our design. I meet Nunzio many years ago because we both played an online-game called “Ultima Online” in 1999, to be precise. And then, we continued play together to Dark Age of Camelot, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and so on. Those games are very important to us, and we take a lot of inspiration from them, especially for the aspect of the team gameplay. If you look Sworld & Sorcery, in order to beat the game, you have to act as a Party. And this means that there is a tank, a healer, a damage dealer… all these roles can usually be found in MMORPG games such the ones played by us. Even the cool-down of the powers can be familiar from video games. In fact, when you use a power, you flip the card and, based on how much power you have used from that card, you need to set the time needed to refresh that card. This is a feature that you usually find in video games. In board games, it's not so common, or at least in board games prior to S&S at least.

-What's your plans for the future?

-One day, I would like to see Sword and Sorcery in a hybrid form, a digital and tabletop game. I'm dreaming of an application that can guide the players and moves the enemies automatically. For now, what we already created is a dungeon randomizer. In the future, we may also add a sort of AI to randomize the storyline, who knows! What it is assured, it that I will continue to overview the Sword and Sorcery line, but I will no longer involved in written quests or storilines… my next game will be a completely different game.

-What message would you like to send to the readers?

-Play a lot. Play as much as you can with your games because what I usually see is that people purchase a game, play it one or two times, and then pass to another game. For me, it's weird. If you spend money and like the game, you should at least try to complete it. It's better to go deep into the game you have purchased, if you like it of course, and then look elsewhere, than jumping around without never go in-depth with what you already have in hands. In addition, once completely achieved, you can resell your games to purchase a new ones!

Sword & Sorcery’s own webpage: https://www.sword-and-sorcery.com/. 

The opening image is from the Sword & Sorcery webpage.