The game today

Premise

Become the Greedy Goblin Mining Co.’s Most Valuable Goblin (or “MVG”) by fetching the most wealth. Do you play it safe and frequently stash your cart’s minerals, or hang around to mine longer, despite:

• Coworkers that bump and steal from one another

• Explosions that cost time, minerals, and block movement

• A mine collapse that might, uh, “unemploy” workers?

Gameplay

• “Move!” or “Mine!” three times in any combination or order

• Shift ends when all the gold or silver is gone, or all the explosion tiles have been revealed, collapsing the mine.

• Coal is worth the least, but carrying more than a coworker lets you bump them a space to take the most valuable mineral they are carrying.

Feelings and moments

• I want that!

• They have it, get’em!

• I have a nice gem, but now I’m a target!

• Are they picking up coal defensively, or are they coming for me?

• I can safely leave now, but my cart is half full. hang around a bit longer…right?

• I have a lot of nice minerals, but obstructions and coworkers between here and exit.

• I just like revealing and blowing things up, forget the points!
  
  

variants

Family variant

• Pushing still requires more coal, but the pusher doesn’t steal from the target, nor do they burn a coal to do so.

• A mine collapse still ends the game but doesn’t penalize players on the hazardous spots.

• Warning: Foundation explosions still force a cube to drop and blow them from the mine, ending their turn. Looking at the number of gems vs tiles left, what are the odds?

Grizzled miner variant for competitive veterans

• 6 coal cubes replaced with 6 red TNT cubes. A more positional game where the mine is more likely to collapse as players defensively block corridors, blast themselves out of the mine for a quick exit, or blow their colleagues out of the mine.

• Repairing mine damage gives 1 coal per damage repaired. The extra coal helps ward off bumps and makes it easier for that goblin to do it themselves. This is in addition to any mineral that was dropped there.

• Pushing another goblin off the edge of the board steals a 2 cubes instead of 1.

Go for the gold

During setup: Have four gold in the center cube cover. Reserve a gem tile for that foundation before shuffling the other eight foundation tiles.

Game origins

• 1st outing as a game designer: I should do a lighter game. Family weight then.

• Could I do a game with only 2 actions per turn like ticket to ride?

• Moving “yourself” around a board more intuitive for people entering the hobby than “worker placement” for this market/user.

• Could I design a setup that could basically be lifted onto, or plopped onto the board and be ready to go? After lots of iterations, I think I got something close to that (see a 50 scond YouTube short of the solution) that doesn’t require a massive box.

• A friend shared a story about playing Battlemech with a person who would rattle dozens of dice in a plastic container for a missile salvo weapon, and how it grabbed the attention of everyone in the game store open play area. Wondered if randomizing a ton of cubes for an initial setup could be done that way.

• I wanted a disaffected or losing player to have a chance, or at least an outlet, if they were being left in the dust. Maybe they can’t win, but they could have a pyrrhic moment or even potentially win by crushing a leader who was too greedy or losing sight of their surroundings. This did mean, however, I’d want some “safer” spaces that wouldn’t be penalized as much. That became the outer ring of the board.

• At some point, “Tragedy of the commons” came to mind and I liked it even more. Sure we can “go for the gold” and be as greedy as we want, but at some point everyone acting like that might “collapse the mine.” Iowa’s nitrates-in-the-water situation due to Big Agriculture’s corporate capture of regulatory bodies may have been an influence here. I’m very aware this is a regressive theme. I want to believe I’m offering a fun and safe way to indulge in a single-minded greed that—in a real world context—would otherwise be environmentally, socially, and individually reprehensible. Or, as some friends might say…”Andrew, you’re overthinking things.”

Matt Leacock games

Pandemic and the “Forbidden…” series were some of my gateway games to the broader possibilities in board games. I like worker placement, but my first game exposure to it felt more abstract for a not-yet-hobby gamer than “Your turn move. Move yourself/your piece.” For a first outing, moving a character and having them literally pick things up onto their person felt more approachable and intuitive.

Almost 8-9 months later, I now realize the tactile satisfaction of picking up and dropping cubes every turn might have come from Pandemic.

But in this game it’s not the relief of removing them, it’s the collecting and hoarding them in your personal stash that feels good. Even when you’re down on points you probably have a nice pile of points you can poke at or arrange. Meanwhile, on the board, there’s a worry someone will take a nice one from you.

Theme: graves to gold

No joke, didn’t think of Minecraft until someone brought it up at the first playtest with local design group. Glad I didn’t let it dissuade me, but it gave me pause.

Originally, was going to be about mad scientist helpers digging and tossing soil on each other in other graves as they looked for the… materials their employer needed. Hijinks would ensue as everyone tosses dirt from one grave to another, and top of one another, as they looking for high quality parts, avoid the grave keeper, trade limbs a la Catan, etc.

In the sketching phase, I simplified from multiple locations (cemetary with upper class graves and paupers section, patrolling gaurd, back alley, scientist lab, etc.) to a single grid.

• What else includes the act of digging & tossing undesirable materials, potentially at others doing the same thing? Maybe mining? That’s certainly less icky/problematic.

• I don’t want player-on-player violence in a family game, so I’ll make them coworkers.

• Goblins are self-centered and naughty, so that can explain competitive hijinks and worrisome workplace practices. Bad things can still orchestrated, but plausibly deniable as an “accidents”.

On the way to cubes

When I moved away from rectangular graves, I started thinking about moving away from cards. I realized cubes are

• More table presence because they’re stackable.

• In a cluster, actually resemble minerals and rocks. This is when the geometric movement and mining really clicked.

• Could more easily be stashed in or on a figure, which makes sense for the theme.

  • I didn’t yet know “pick up and deliver” as a genre, but this seemed, again, like a way to make the game more intuitive and less abstract for newer gamers.

• Could also be the shape of the collector. Like the game Cubitos (haven’t played), but a mining game instead of a racing game.

• After the first playtest with the other designers at the Dealt Hand designer hangout in Des Moines, IA, they suggested a board with recesses or covers to hide what the second layer of cubes were, to dissuade camping.

Points, points, no set collection

Minerals are inherently worth something. The “judge” of your worth, the mining company, doesn’t want conversions or crafting or recipes, just raw stuff. In a lower complexity game about behaving greedily and basely, the straight-forward nature of “more stuff = more points = recognition” instead of set collection, achievements, etc. felt appropriate.

I almost experimented with “contracts”. E.g. “Most ___ get +x points at the end” ; “Never collect ___” ; etc.. Once it was clear that scores were consistently tight and gratifying I decided not to mess with this and err towards the simple.

Tried and discarded

• No messing with each other

  • The earliest game was pacifist. No bumping, stealing, etc. Playtesters repeatedly asked for more player interaction and thought “hip-checks” and goblins warranted some naughtiness without crossing the “no violence” line. At Protospiel MN, Jeff Grisenthwaite made the point that kids really enjoy being able to mess with their parents in an acceptable way, so let them do that. I later heard this point in another podcast (Ludology, maybe?).

• All edges are an exit tiles

  • Players wanted to interact with each other more. Adding common “out” created more of a threat and bottleneck for players with a nice “haul”. This makes leaving a little harder and opportunities to stash cubes, even with a pitiful haul, a bit more tempting.

• Grid with 5x5 movement & 4x4 mineral grid

  • Playtesting showed players were not interacting enough on this big a board, even with , 5 and 6 players.

  • 3x3 movement with 2x2 nodes might work in a 2-player game if players have 2 AP, but I think it already plays fine at 2 where it’s much more focused and intense game, especially when I’ve tested with Min-Max’ers. I don’t think it needs this variant but could be explored.

  • If players shared an entrance, maybe any size board would be OK, but I’m wary of “spawn camping”. The risk should be for people who have been in the mine longer, not empty handed players who are just arriving, so I’ve avoided a shared or forced entrance spot.

• Some of the randomness

  • For the longest time “bumping and stealing” and explosions both took a random mineral— not the one with the highest value. I still really enjoy the anticipation and reveal of someone shaking a nearly full cart of cubes and dropping one from their fists, followed by someone’s collective groan…but enough playtesters commented on the difficulty of dropping just 1 cube. Also, young players have small hands, older players might be less dextrous. Ultimately, gameplay is smoother and incentives are higher doing away with the drop’s randomization.

  • Also, this streamlined and sped up gameplay a fair bit.

  • That being said, there are still randomness when someone pushes their luck to mine a foundation, and odds aren’t too hard to compute (5 good, 4 bad at the start).

• Shop & items

  • Some fancier, some more straight forward… all consistently ignored for the core gameplay on the main board. One thing I’ve found that’s nice about carrying cubes in the cart instead of on a mat is that it keeps most attention on the board.

• Player upgrades

  • Player mats w/ mine cart abilities and upgrades seemed obvious and was in an early version or two, but sidelined it until I got core movement and mining to feel “right” because I thought these might distract from getting a strong core minimum viable product. Once I did settle on those mechanics and tried keeping mined minerals on the player pieces, the simplicity of it and fast uniform turns won me over a relatively simple tech tree.

• Player stash cards to hide safely acquired minerals/point totals

  • Didn’t find people using particularly hiding their stash of cubes with card stock when it was avialable, or studying others’ point totals beyond “They have a lot of gold/ ≥1 gem. Hmmm” . This could be a cute thematic touchpoint, however. E.g. Freddy Goblin keeps his gold under a worn-out sock, Jill keeps her stash under a cot, Jinx keeps hers inside a not-cuddly-anymore teddy.

• Chaining (explosions/bumps).

  • These were an early inclusion, but also an early removal until foundation explosions were streamlined because it was a nightmare to write the rules out. In their first pass, explosions could cause chain effects of goblins bouncing into one another. It was a real headache to decide and communicate who and how 2nd and third bumps worked. An early playtester ID’d that a ripple effect like that would likely slam the brakes on what is otherwise a fast and tactical game.

  • Later on, being able to merge gas explosions and TNT explosions to have the same effect, if different causes, felt like a really scaffolding of an existing mechanic

• Other foundation tile effects I’ve tried and done away with

  • Mine rafters that didn’t do anything for the first two, but the third would collapse the mine. People generally never got to the third one and didn’t care about the first 1-2.

  • An “all clear” tile: This was always a letdown compared to the more dramatic outcomes, even the negative ones, so I took it out.

  • Explosions only affected the luck-pushing miner, but nobody else around them. This was deemed unthematic/counterintuitive.

  • Mine rafters that blocked paths but not the spots they connected.

    • After combining explosion rules (they booted goblins, closed mining spots, and could shutter the mine), keeping the additional outcome type felt inelegant.

  • Mine collapse that eliminated players in certain spots.

    • After numerous playtests, I came around on the idea of having a penalty that fell short of eliminating someone from the game entirely. The solution was to a penalty that would probably prevent a win, feel more severe than the regular explosions, and not take all the points collected over the course of the game, make thematic sense.

      • “Posthumous Employee of the shift” reinforced the cynical and silly tone.

      • Charging the estate the funeral/retirement party and retrieving the worker from the mine felt awful…ly appropriate. Because of course a goblin mining company would be that terrible.

      • 2 most valuable cubes can easily be 5-10 points, and with pretty tight point spreads, that and losing what’s in the cart during the collapse is major hinderance to winning…but doesn’t seem like it.

  • Collapsing/removing entire chunks of the board

    • I never tried taking whole chunks away wholesale because it honestly felt like rejiggering the board was more complex than shuttering spots, but briefly considered it. Once I was able to tie destruction of movement spaces to over mined spots felt more appropriate, dynamic, replayable, and easier to incorporate with the other movement.