Game Designer Interview: Cédrick Chaboussit Cédrick Chaboussit is a brand new board game designer. His debut game, Lewis & Clark, is hitting stores in America this month thanks to publishers ludo naute and Game Salute. I had the great pleasure of playing Lewis & Clark at Gen Con 2013 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here’s what else Cédrick had to say about the game!: Since you are a brand new designer, tell us about yourself: your day job, other hobbies, how you got into board gaming, your favorite games, and what made you want to design games (and anything else you want to say). I’m almost 40 and live in a small town in the West of France with my wife and our three young daughters. I’m currently working as a business engineer in a company that manufactures stainless steel equipment for the food and health industries. I love travels, reading, music, and basketball which I used to play a lot. I’ve always had a huge interest for games starting in the mid-80’s with Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! RPG books, then D&D, DSA and later Warhammer RPG with friends. My first board games were Bloodbowl, Cry Havoc and Supremacy and as an only child, I naturally designed some games, probably to fight boredom. Then I played Magic : the Gathering a lot and also tried other CCGs like Star Wars by Decipher which was my favorite. I naturally discovered The Settlers of Catan and met my wife who liked gaming (yippee!) and we discovered together lots of wonderful German games like Bohnanza, Knizia’s LotR co-op, and the Kosmos 2-players games. I was fascinated by these short, simple mechanics that could provide such gaming depth! My favorite games are Le Havre, The Castles of Burgundy but also lighter games like Saint Petersburg or Coloretto. I follow with attention the work of Uwe Rosenberg, Martin Wallace, Stefan Feld and Reiner Knizia: it’s fascinating to feel the presence of a designer in a game and to witness the evolution of his work. I don’t really know why I design games, actually I think it comes from my strong interest for understanding concepts, I love gaming and foremost analyzing why. I constantly try to create new game mechanics, at least some I’ve never seen which is not that easy but very challenging indeed. My first “modern” design dates back in 2005: a little card game called Butterfly Hunting which I did for my first daughter during holidays in Brittany. But it was in 2010, when my body urged me to, that I stopped basketball competitions, and started spending my spare time on something else: game design. I met some local gaming folks and we started to gather every week, some of them were designing games: Patrick Braud, who self-published Le Grand Marais, and Xavier Lardy who got published later by Ludonaute with Phantom. I discovered that the game sector was not much professional and that designing game could be done as a hobby. So I jumped into it. For you, do the mechanisms always come first, or the theme? Did the game become complex because of how you wanted to make sure to include the theme, or did you come up with the game systems and then pick a theme? Of course, I know that the game’s theme was originally set in a French village, but which came first? Mechanics almost always come first in my designs, the hard stuff being for me to find a good theme to fit in. In Le Village 1900, the main mechanics were already there and the game as complex as Lewis & Clark. Ludonaute is a publishing company very concerned by the themes of its games, therefore they absolutely wanted to change the theme, which did not really surprise me ! Can you tell us what inspired you and the publishers to pick the theme of Lewis & Clark? How do you think this topic comes across to Europeans vs. Americans (who see it as part of their national history)? Is it a common story of interest in France? After the theme changed to Lewis & Clark, was there emphasis placed on using characters from the story for the action cards and them having matching abilities? After signing the publishing contract, we started searching for an original and appealing theme and ended up with the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Despite the disadvantage of being almost unknown in Europe (and often mixed up with the Superman TV series !), it was a unique opportunity to bring something new. After reading history books about this amazing expedition, we adapted the existing game to it: we examined all the historic characters and their roles, the resources, etc… and we even changed the mechanics to fit more precisely: the Victory Points race became a real race with 2 types of VPs (river and mountain), Camp token appeared… Finally, you will see that playing Lewis & Clark will teach you that to be efficient, you need to carefully recruit the Indians met during the journey which is a wonderful lesson regarding what happened! The mechanisms of Lewis & Clark are actually quite unique and complex. I guess you could call the game “handbuilding”? Was this inspired by deckbuilding games like Dominion, or any other certain game? How did you balance the idea of both playing and purchasing cards but also worker placement, in the game? Also, how did you come up with the idea of using both sides of the cards? Actually, the initial idea has nothing to do with Dominion but was inspired by Le Havre which could be surprising. In Le Havre, you place “worker” tokens on cards coming up during the game, which brings an exceptional dynamism and richness. The card gives the action effect and the “worker” triggers it. As I love card games, I thought about a “card triggers card” mechanic in which the cards could be used in two ways, either as an action, or as a trigger. The dilemma created by this choice immediately seemed very interesting.

Then I pulled the thread and added a smooth mechanic of card retrieval: an optional action penalized by various parameters, including the cards still in hands. This introduced a deadline as in classical strategy games, but without any turn counter, for a very elegant design. Naturally, the players can improve their hand with new cards, and that led us to use the term of “handbuilding” which fits very well. The player who builds the most efficient hand, i.e. which allows to move his camp fast on the river and on the mountain, may win the game. The (Indian) worker placement mechanic is not the core of the game but adds versatility to the players and some interaction. The artwork by Vincent Dutrait is very gorgeous and indeed is reminiscent of the game Stone Age in the graphic design. Were you involved with the graphic design? Was that homage to Stone Age the publisher’s idea or yours? The decision to work with Vincent Dutrait was made by Ludonaute who knew the high quality of his work since Shitenno. I was so happy to have my first game illustrated by one of the best game artists! Vincent had already worked on this expedition, which helped a lot to respect History. I haven’t been involved in the artwork itself (hopefully) but we’ve had continuous discussions with Ludonaute about the ergonomy. The board game is clearly inspired by Stone Age not only because we all love the work of Michael Menzel, but foremost because it was the best way for our game board to be beautiful AND functional. But apart from that, Lewis & Clark is very different from Stone Age. What has been the most satisfying part of creating Lewis & Clark? I’m a newcomer in the sector and I signed the contract with Ludonaute only one year after my first attempt to contact publishers. I had worked on Le Village for only three months and Ludonaute tried it by pure coincidence, so I had an enormous luck which is more than satisfying. I am so happy I’ve been able to see what’s behind the curtain, how a board game comes to life starting from ideas. But above all I am so proud of this game; I still enjoy playing Lewis & Clark a lot today despite the number of times I played it. What have you been reading/watching/playing/ enjoying lately? I’ve just finished an incredible comic book about the birth of Australia called Terra Australis by Bolée & Nicloux. It describes the situation of GB at that time and the condition of the first British immigrants, their contact with the aborigines and the difficulties they faced to settle there. It’s an epic 1000 pages book and I don’t know if it will ever be translated into English, but I wish it were. The last board game I recently really enjoyed was Terra Mystica, in which the asymmetry gives a very refreshing strategy game. What’s next for you in game design? Le Village was my fourth prototype and I’m currently working on number 8. Most of my other creations are not as complex as Lewis & Clark. I participated twice to a local design contest in Parthenay and met the agent ForgeNext there who took some of my games, which is very convenient for me. So, as I’m not known by publishers, and hadn’t had a lot of time left during the development of Lewis & Clark, there is not much in the pipe right now. Anything else you’d like to add? I’d like to add that the development of Lewis & Clark was a real team work. It would not be what it is without Anne-Cécile and Cédric Lefebvre (Ludonaute). I thank them for having allowed me to take part of each step of the development, and for their friendship. Finally, I really thank MeepleTown for its interest and hope that the gamers will enjoy playing Lewis & Clark as much as we enjoyed designing it! Review: Eclipse Ship Pack One Your Guide to Ticket to Ride, Part 8: Ticket to Ride Nederland »