by Chris Fanchi
Greetings readers! We know it’s been a long time since our last post, but rest assured Fanfare Games has been hard at work on new and inventive games. Over the next couple weeks leading up to BGG.Con, we will be discussing the preparations that we are making to attend the event and start shopping some of our designs to publishers. We hope you’ll read along and share your thoughts, and of course let us know if you’d like to meet up with us at the Con!For most of this year we have been focused on developing a game we have tentatively titled “Massachusetts Bay.” If you follow us on Twitter, you would have seen us call this game “the Colonial game.” This is a classic Euro-style worker placement game with an economic engine for up to 4 players. The concept is that you are a trading company in pre-Revolutionary War America that is acquiring raw goods within the New World and converting them to finished goods that you can then ship back to Europe for a profit. In addition, there is a wide variety of buildings that are available during the game that can allow you to do other things with your finished goods, such as sell them locally within the colonies, trade them for other goods, or even use them to support the burgeoning rebellion. The game has a limited number of turns for you to maximize your profits and victory point collection (don’t worry, your money automatically converts to points at the end) before your colonial friends and neighbors decide to declare independence and the American Revolution begins! We will use this blog to go into even more detail about how the game works, so stay tuned!
Most recently we have begun serious testing of a game tentatively titled “Energy in the 21st Century - The Game.” This is a Carcassonne-style tile-laying game for 2-4 players that requires players to connect energy resources such as oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar power to cities and towns in order to produce electricity. Each tile represents either an energy resource, an energy production facility (i.e. power plant, or manufacturing plant for wind turbines/solar panels), or a city or town. The cities and towns have a fixed number of slots for electricity that they want to have filled before the game ends. Players score points for the energy they deliver to the cities and towns, as well as bonus points for providing the majority of electricity to each city or town. This game is very easy to learn and plays in 45 minutes or less. It has some interesting educational aspects to it as it demonstrates the complexity of organizing our electrical infrastructure, and demonstrates a true “all of the above” energy philosophy. Hydropower is represented in the first expansion for the game, which we expect to be included with the base game when the game is published.
A third game that we have been developing for nearly a year is titled “Intruder Alert!” This game is a sci-fi cooperative game for 1-4 players in which the players are isolated on separate parts of a space station that is being overrun by enemy invaders. The players must move from the outer edge of the station, where they start, to the interior Escape Pod in order to win. The players must also complete each corridor that they pass through, using hand management and set collection to close off the corridors, destroying the sensitive information that the Intruders are seeking to pillage. Once all players reach the Escape Pod and complete all of their corridors, the team launches to safety as the station self-destructs. But don’t go thinking this is a piece of cake! The Intruders get stronger as the game goes on, so the players must use the cards in their hand wisely in order for the team to survive. If just one team member dies, the mission fails and the team loses.
The first (Massachusetts Bay) and third (Intruder Alert!) games we will be shopping to publishers at BGG.Con. The second we may do so as well, although we are looking closely at the possibility of making Energy in the 21st Century - The Game into our first full-scale publication. You all know what that means - Kickstarter! Hopefully you will get a chance to see a Fanfare game on Kickstarter in the next few months.
Speaking of Kickstarter, Fanfare Games would greatly appreciate your support on an upcoming project from us that will be going on Kickstarter. In August, we traveled across the Western US taking photos of various energy-related locations. We have compiled those photos into an educational picture book on energy titled Exploring Energy that we will be Kickstarting very soon. We feel this book and the Energy in the 21st Century game will work well together for educating students about energy. We hope you’ll contribute and tell your friends, especially educators seeking a way to introduce young students to the topic of energy, one of the most important issues of our time.
Thanks for reading! Check back soon for more of our lead-up to BGG.Con.