The following article is a guest post written by Michal Oracz, Polish board game designer, creator of Neuroshima Hex, Theseus: The Dark Orbit, Witchcraft, De Profundis and co-creator of the Monastyr RPG and Neuroshima RPG systems, who works with us on Earthcore: Shattered Elements as a designer and writer.

In April 2014 I was working on several projects: new board games scheduled for 2015 and 2016 releases, small parts of a survival horror video game and new add-ons for my previous games - Mississippi faction for Neuroshima Hex and Bots faction for Theseus.

I didnt have any free time left in my calendar with other projects waiting in line.

Then I got an email. It was the worst kind.

“Would you like to join our team and help us in making a game that…”.

No, of course I wouldn’t!

But I checked the game for my own peace of my mind.

The game was called Earthcore: Shattered Elements and one thing instantly caught my attention: it was a digital collectible card game. Although I’m a board game designer I always looked upon video and mobile games with a little bit of envy. I also heard about Earthcore’s adventure with Kickstarter which we in Portal Games (where I spend most of my time and work) never decided to try.

Together with interest, some doubts started to arise.

I asked the team on what stage of development they were and what room for maneuver I would have.

They were almost finished.

My hopes were almost gone.

I’d gotten used to meeting developers with games that are almost finished and actually nothing can be changed. It’s a special kind of schizophrenia usual on the final stage of the development: the team want to improve things but at the same time doesn’t want to change the game in any way. After a year or even more spent on the project, people are tired of it - which is completely natural. Designers still search for something new, new ideas and new people to join while the core team prays that these novelties don’ throw months of their work in the garbage and send them back to square one. Not everyone like to be Sisyphus and roll their stone to the top of the mountain again and again.

I didn’t know Lukasz (CEO of Tequila Games) or Radek (Producer of Earthcore: Shattered Elements), so I thought this will be another of these cases described above.

I also got used to designers protecting their work like their own child. They tend to fight with all the new ideas and change suggestions. In the world of board games it’s often the attitude of the designer that determines whether the publisher decides to work on a prototype or discard someones “precious”. I didn’t know Mateusz, Lead Designer of Earthcore, so I prepared for the worst.

I went to visit Tequila Games in Wroclaw only to confirm my assumptions and politely limit my involvement in the project. You know, life is short and you need to choose only the best options for yourself….

I expected to meet developers looking like zombies and tired of their project. People who would answer with “it’s too late”, “we don’t have time for that” and “it can’t be done” to all of my ideas- but I was wrong.

I was VERY WRONG!

They were ready and willing to tear the game to pieces and build the best possible product out of it. They were ready to let the genie out of the bottle and they would let me be the one to uncork it. I didn’t expect that.

Earthcore CCG already had huge potential, otherwise I wouldn’t start talking with the team because I never work on generic clones. It had some fresh game mechanics, a world full of potential stories to tell (I really don’t like games without one), explicit target audience and solid/common sense goals for the release and future of the game.

As it turned out, it also had a development team of devoted gamers open for new ideas and the support of an established company that believes in them.

I felt like I was in a fairy tale.

After meeting people in Tequila Games I joined them instantly. What’s more, Earthcore became my main focus for many months to come!

What started off as consultation changed into a full time job on designing the rules of the game, writing the story and creating lore. I can actually say it became a passion of mine and now gives me a lot of personal satisfaction because I was also able to interest and even involve some of my board gaming friends in the project.

For over a decade now I’ve worked on dozens of books describing worlds and adventures in the universes of Neuroshima, Monastyr and others however, creating and seeing a living world of a mobile game like Earthcore: Shattered Elements is a completely new experience for me.

It’s a terrifying but extremely exciting experience.

In my next post I’ll go into more details about how the game looked and played back in April 2014 and how we’ve changed it since then. I’ll also try to show some differences between working in a smaller team on designing a board or card game and with a much bigger team on a mobile game. I’ve gathered some vivid examples during the past few months which I think you’ll enjoy reading about.

Until next time!

Click here to read the second part of Michal’s guest post.