It’s March 2013 and League of Geeks director and spokesperson Trent Kusters is on a plane to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Understandably anxious, he’s about to present a first look at Armello , a new game that he and a small team in Australia have been working on for the past two years. With work taking place outside of normal hours, Armello has been a passion project for the Melbourne-based League of Geeks; a studio made up of veteran developers from the local scene. The goal of the trip is to the sell the concept of a true digital board game for the iPad.

Evocative key art.

An early prototype.

Wait, What’s an Armello?

Concept art for the King.

Issue # 01 – The Origin Story

League of Geeks' four directors.

“ At that point in time you couldn’t really just go off and work on your own game. Just to license a tool like Unreal cost something like a million dollars.

Of Board Games and Coffee

Not that long ago, amazingly.

“ It was decided that League of Geeks would create a digital board game for the iPad. Something that could be put together by a small group of collaborators and ship in about six weeks.

Yeah, It Took a Lot Longer Than Six Weeks

Bear hero concept art from early 2012.

Tile concepts.

A Sense of Adventure

How the castle eventually looked in-game.

The hero characters became key.

A prototype with the castle at the centre.

But also, the vision of Armello.“I was having a panic attack at 10,000 feet,” Trent recalls. “No one externally had seen the build apart from a few close friends. And we hadn’t shown anything at this point, just an animated trailer.”At the time a digital board game for the popular Apple tablet was a static and all too cumbersome rendition of something like Monopoly. Armello would be different, it would take the concept of a fun multiplayer experience where friends battle each other in the name of conquest and inject it with a sense of adventure, purpose, and character. The world and setting wouldn’t be secondary, but instead, serve as the focal point for the pitch. A grand fantasy, it had the high stakes political manoeuvring of something like Game of Thrones but did so with a cast of characters that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Disney animation. Armello was a board game where the background of a character was as important as the rule set.Plus, selling the vision kind of had to be the focal point. At this point Armello was in a state best described as a tech demo. One where players could only really move around a rudimentary board and battle another character. Everything else was on the long list of things that still needed to be added to the game. Now, you may be wondering if League of Geeks was jumping the gun a little bit, and should have waited until it had more to show.“We had a tabletop prototype where everything worked and had all the systems and depth in place. But none of that was there in the demo,” Trent says. “This was more about proving that we could bring a board game to life. It had beautiful music, it had animated characters, and even had birds flying around the world.” That last bit in particular is telling - in a way, selling a vision is all about creating a specific type of atmosphere. Although a piece of background detail, the animated birds were one the first things added to the digital game.What was being shown, although basic, was also made almost entirely out of pocket. The team had implemented a profit-share system best described as points-driven, where someone’s percentage was relative to their input. But more on that later. Prior to this showing the only real funding that League of Geeks had applied for was for marketing purposes. More on that later too. Staying at the Handlery Hotel in San Francisco, Trent had booked back-to-back appointments with press for pretty much the entirety of the conference. So, armed with an animated trailer, a large banner, and some recently purchased Bluetooth speakers for his iPad, Trent would begin telling the world about Armello.Armello takes place in the land of, err, Armello. A vivid and colourful fantasy land where the King has been infected with something called the Rot. A sickness that is not only affecting his ability to govern properly, but one that also imbues him with the sort of unnatural abilities that wouldn’t feel out of place at an Evil Wizard Convention.Rot is the polar opposite of Wyld, the life-force that binds all living things together. The good stuff. So the King’s problems go well beyond a simple visit to the local Rot Clinic. In a way it’s kind of like the Dark Side of the Force versus the Light Side. So yeah, the stakes are pretty high.And it’s during this dark time in the Kingdom of Armello, a land where the anthropomorphic Bear, Rabbit, Rat, and Wolf Clans used to co-exist in a state of quasi-peace, where the game takes place. You see, it’s now up to the clans to sort out this whole mess. So what’s their big plan? Well, they each decide to send their bravest heroes to put an end to the Mad King, once and for all. Wait, so all the clans do this at the same time? Yep. Which naturally sets the scene for a competitive turn-based adventure full of adventure, questing, back-stabbery, and dice rolls. An adventure where players are in direct control over their own hero and try to become the one. The one to save Armello. Or succumb to the Rot themselves. Either way, an ending.Let’s jump back though. It’s sometime in 2008: a new Fallout game is on the horizon and cinema goers are excited about the return of a certain Lucasfilm franchise. Which, kind of sounds like 2015. So let’s try that again. It's 2008 and Myspace is a thing that exists. Better. Ty Carey, Trent Kusters, Blake Mizzi, and Jacek Tuschewski – the guys that would go on to form League of Geeks - are all working at Melbourne-based studio Torus Games. At Torus, this core group are working almost exclusively on licensed games. Big, kid-friendly stuff like Scooby-Doo!, Monster Jam, Zoo Hospital, and Sky Island Treasure Hunters. Stuff you probably don’t remember. So much so that Sky Island Treasure Hunters doesn’t actually exist. I made it up.Now in order to set the scene one could paint a picture of a black-and-white cubicle-factory, a place where employees are assigned numbers instead of job titles and then given a list of tasks to complete within strict timelines… or else face the grim reality of another week without rations. Of course this wasn't the case, that sort of environment doesn't exist outside of German expressionist cinema of the 1920s. In reality, the environment at Torus was one where strong bonds were forged, skills honed, and ideas began to grow.“Looking back, it was a lot of fun working at Torus,” Ty says. “In that sort of environment you could get in and learn invaluable skills as a developer. The only big issue was that we were always working with other people’s licenses. At that particular time, getting an original idea off the ground was very difficult.” In terms of roles, Ty was an Art Director, both Blake and Trent Lead Designers, and Jacek an Audio Director. With the culture at Torus these roles meant that all four would at various points run entire projects, manage teams, and schedules. Basically everything outside of controlling where the money went. Or came from for that matter. This sort of environment, where individuals within teams were given free reign, has led to Torus employees going off to work in prominent roles at studios like Ubisoft Montreal and Crytek.So all four founding members of League of Geeks agree that Torus was a great place to work; it just wasn’t all that conducive to being able to create and nurture your own ideas. And not for a lack of trying. One of Blake’s original ideas was for a co-operative game where two players shared the same health bar, instilling a sense of teamwork. A twist on an adventure game in the vein of Zelda, it was a cool concept that never took off. At the same time, Blake was also putting together the first draft of the design document for a second Scooby-Doo title. And when work was completed on that, Blake made the decision to leave Torus.In order to set up this scene, one could paint the picture of a Jerry Maguire-like resignation. One where Blake is walking out of Torus for the last time with his belongings spilling out of a cardboard box held precariously under one arm. Yelling out to his fellow employees to join him. Perhaps incentivising the prospect with offers of free auditing at the local Sciencemology Centre. Of course this wasn't the case, that sort of environment doesn't exist outside of a mid-90s romantic comedy. He was simply frustrated with the prospect of continuously working on licensed titles where core mechanics could be transposed from one game to the next with little effort.“At that point in time you couldn’t really just go off and work on your own game,” Trent explains. “Just to license a tool like Unreal cost something like a million dollars. Today with tools like Unity and even Unreal you can put something together, get a demo working, and pitch a much larger project. It just wasn’t possible then." After leaving Torus, Trent went overseas and began applying for positions at larger studios. For a number of years this was his dream, to work at Ubisoft Montreal and one day become a Design or Game Director.And so League of Geeks parted ways, all or a portion of the four founders would continue to meet up regularly for role playing and every now and then bring up the prospect of working together. Somehow.And then suddenly - it appeared on the horizon! A small rectangular computer-thing that would take the world by storm… and unite our intrepid heroes to forge a coalition. Or league as it were. That small rectangular computer-thing? The Apple iPad.Trying to picture what a mobile phone looked like before the advent of the iPhone (or cell phone for those of you north of the equator) and the image is one of a handheld metallic object with a lot of buttons. It made phone calls. The idea of a device that could do more was less a cool idea and more a thing requiring a leather case, stylus pen, and pants holster. Something for the business people who worked in the nearest financial district. The ease of use, simple interface, and platform that turned software and programs into apps was a milestone for smart phones. In fact, the only thing holding the iPhone back in terms of productivity was its size. So even though prior to its release the iPad was viewed by some as a large iPhone, in a way that was kind of high praise. And like the smart phone revolution, it marked the beginning of a computer revolution. Of the tablet variety.“This is actually the first point that I’m conscious of League of Geeks becoming an actual thing,” Ty says. “Before it was Polymath and a project that had essentially fallen through. So we met for a coffee in Camberwell, and began asking ourselves if we could make anything we want for the iPad, what it would be. It wasn’t a question of could we work together, but what could we create.”It clicked that they could make a game with very little money, the tools were available, there were online communities, and collaboration with people on the other side of the world was easier than ever before. Kind of like what Jim Carrey was talking about in the final moments of the 1996 film The Cable Guy. But back then it was more about surfing the information superhighway and being able to play Mortal Kombat with a friend in Vietnam. As opposed to, you know, working with an affordable development platform like Unity and a stable of artists and programmers from across the globe.Prior to this point in our story, Ty and Jacek would spend their lunches at Torus talking about a simple card game they could make, a small project that would take maybe six months to complete and release on iPad and iPhone. Blake had shifted career paths and was working in real estate. But even so, he had created a successful real estate app for the iPhone and was actively looking at other smaller projects. As for Trent, back in Australia, he was consulting when an opportunity to create an online games portal sort of just fell into his lap. Investors were lined up, and by the time the project fell through he was already talking to the others about potentially coming on board.As they loved board games and role-playing, some of the first games they would seek on the new tablet were digital renditions of some of their favourites. What they found though, was not at all impressive. In fact, it somewhat angered them that a quality digital board game – surely a perfect fit for the device, was nowhere to be found. Based on their collective experience there was immediate confidence that they could come together and just about be best in genre. With minimal effort.So the basic foundation of what would slowly morph into Armello was set. It was decided that League of Geeks would create a digital board game for the iPad. Something that could be put together by a small group of collaborators and ship in about six weeks. The consensus was to meet back at the same coffee shop in six weeks’ time, but with a board game for the iPad that they could play, have fun, make each other laugh, and weave an adventure-filled story with.The original idea for a game where you got to control an animal character in a fantasy realm began while Blake was exiting Torus. The core concept though, was more along the lines of an adventure, and intended for the Wii. It was both imaginative and evocative, and the idea of an animal-based fantasy kingdom remained in the back of their minds for a number of years. So when the decision was being made about the setting for this new digital board game, Armello felt like the perfect fit.So with the setting, general idea, and direction now firmly set, Ty, Trent, Blake and Jacek would continue to meet up each week where they would live, breathe, and discuss everything Armello. All work would be carried out after hours, and each of them would take turns to work on different revisions. As the four founding members of League of Geeks weren’t programmers they all felt that the best way to move forward would be to prototype the concept using pen and paper. For the physical board they would take screenshots from a Google Earth view of a forest, draw some grid lines, and thanks to Blake’s day job in the real estate industry, be in the position to print out large full-colour maps for the low cost of nothing.More importantly, working with a physical prototype proved to be a great way to figure out what worked and what didn’t. The first version of Armello didn’t have heroes, instead it had units. It was more along the lines of chess, with wolf packs in place of cavalry. The grid nature of the early board design even meant that there was a king on either end. Meeting up each week they would play through the latest version of the prototype and discuss it as they played. “It was great because we got to spend a lot of time getting to talk about what was fun and what wasn’t,” Blake reflects. “What was strategic, what was tactical, and what was co-operative. And we could also bring in other board games, play those, and see what worked. And then try to figure out why.”At this stage in the design, virtually anything went. Anything they wanted to put in the game, they could. But during this time they also had to figure out what Armello was, what it meant. And this extended thematically.Trying to capture a certain feeling, something unquantifiable, is not an easy task. Nor something that can happen all at once. There’s no single rule that dictates an overall sense or feeling. But by the same token, it’s something where you kind of know if it’s there or not. “You know when you’re playing a great game or watching a Studio Ghibli film,” says Trent, “that it has that magic. That sense of adventure. And we spent a lot of time trying to find that feeling with Armello.” For Armello, in order to reach those heights, it was hitting a series of design and development milestones. Points during the prototype phase that could be seen as moments where the project shifted and changed direction, getting one step closer to that elusive goal. To that feeling and sense of adventure.One of those moments was a simple yet profound addition, positioning a palace at the centre of the board. “I always had a notion of a game where a big battle took place around a central castle, with lots of units and everyone trying to get in,” explains Ty. “So I thought I’d take that general idea and put it in Armello.”Another key moment was switching to unique characters and heroes as opposed to units. First introduced as specific hero units with additional abilities and traits, these new characters initially sat alongside other nondescript units. At some point, however, the team realised that the story of the hero unit was a lot more interesting than anything else going on. To the point where they ceased to care about the other units.And so the game instantly morphed to focus on a single hero unit for each player; one that they could help shape and define through their quest to save the kingdom of Armello from the Mad King. Actually, that’s an overly dramatic simplification. The reality is that the focus shifted to players being in control of multiple heroes at once and at one point even managing their own fort defences. In other words making the game they’ve always wanted to make required time to ensure everything worked as well as it should. This resulted in a continuous evolution that saw numerous versions of Armello.In its own way, an adventure. This process took about a year.Once the physical prototype of Armello began taking shape in 2012, the difficulty of making adjustments and continuously refining the game was beginning to take its toll. At this point, if a single rule was changed then they would need to reprint a vast number of cards and carefully consider the flow-on effect. Being designed as a digital board game also meant that they began to add a number of non-playable characters and systems to the game, stuff which would ultimately be automated once Armello went digital. The only problem with this though was that without the power of a CPU, the most efficient games of Armello were taking up to two hours to complete. Plus, they required at least two game masters to run.“There was never a question about whether or not Armello would work digitally,” Blake tells me. “From our experience making games in the past, it was just a matter of getting it done.” Continuing to work with the prototype made little sense: Armello was ready to go digital. And League of Geeks needed a programmer.