Sometimes I feel like the character Tannhäuser in Wagner’s opera. I live an ordinary life like a good citizen with my family, then suddenly inspiration strikes and I work day and night to channel the flow of creativity into a game, paying little attention to anything else around me. This happened again recently.
Inspired by a picture in a book, I created a board game over the last week or so. Together with my son this time, that was fun.
Last year we visited Visby on the Swedish island Gotland and we want to go back and explore more this year. So I picked up a book about Medieval Gotland at the local library. One page shows a picture of Gotland, divided into 20 smaller regions and six larger regions. That looks like a board game, I thought. And wheels in my brain set in motion and created Gotlandia, a game about families on Medieval Gotland competing for power and prestige through trade, piracy, and highly decorated churches.
Game design
I played Dune Imperial Uprising recently, so the mechanics is inspired by that. But I love boardgames where the theme and setting are strongly embedded in the game play. So even when you play the game for the first time, you can intuitively guess how the rules work from a general understanding of the theme or setting. In Gotlandia you grow grain on fields, raise sheep and horses on pasture, and you trade goods for gold that you then bury in your backyard to keep them safe from pirates. Or you sink them into fancy decorations for your oversized churches.
The game mechanics are deck building, worker placement and area control. Players compete indirectly to be the first to deliver the goods in high demand to markets near and far. You must specialise to succeed, but there are many paths to victory. Like any good board game, you need to pursue a strategy but also be ready to exploit tactical opportunities. Oh, and just as you think you are getting ahead, the Black Plague wipes out half your population.
Print and play the game
To not be completely devoured by my creative muse, I decided to create the game as print-and-play for free download. So this is the stage of the project now. If you want to check out or play the game, go to the Gotlandia page here on Thoughtful Dane. I would love to hear your feedback.
Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting remain. It would be cool to see the finished game for sale in shops in Visby. But maybe later. Not now, brain. I have other things to do.