Designer Diary: FIXER | BoardGameGeek News

Hi! My name is Takaaki Iida and I am a board game designer from Japan.

I wanted to share the design process for my upcoming game FIXER to help you better understand its mechanisms and where it comes from.

Overview

FIXER is a “must-follow” trick-taking game for 2-4 players. Like most trick takers, players choose a card to play each turn. However, FIXERThe unique element of the game is the arenas between each player. Players perform 1v1 tricks against everyone else at the table!

The winner scores the weaker card, but if a crucial win occurred (winning via suit matching), the winner scores bonus points! The player with the most points at the end of the game wins and becomes the shadow ruler of the land!

How 1v1 came to be

Our company was hosting an internal design contest for a trick-taking game, and I wanted to realize an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while. I wanted to make a trick-taking game similar to Battle linewhere only numbered cards are used with no additional effects. Before the 1v1 concept fully crystallized, the following points were important considerations during the design process:

• There are several places where cards can be played.
• The order of the card game should create interaction.

Especially for a trick-taker, these points proved crucial and led to the following rule:

Quote:

Since the obligation to follow would apply per area, a player could ignore the leading color from area A by playing another color in area B, and so on.

However, I felt that this concept alone was not enough to differentiate the game within the current trick-taking market. I was also concerned about the potential imbalance and advantage the main player might have over the sequel.

Back to the drawing board I thought, “If I were to play Battle line with more than one opponent, what would I do? Maybe I could divide the pawns into several separate groups and place them between each pair of players…” This inspired me to incorporate “battlefields” into my game where players would fight each other 1-on-1. The conflict tokens where players fighting about are directly inspired by the pawns from Battle line.

Another groundbreaking game that helped me enhance the playing experience was Challengers! because there are also several players who battle it out in 1-on-1 battles.

A four-player prototype test game

Implement type matches

Since it was now easy to play cards that did not follow the leading suit, it became clear that establishing a hierarchy of match-ups between the suits was necessary.

Furthermore, by providing bonuses for winning with favorable match-ups, players were encouraged to strategically aim for a “void” – a classic and entertaining element of trick-taking games. (A ‘void’ refers to a situation where a player no longer has cards of a certain suit in their hand.) I also like that when a card of a certain suit is played, cards of a suit that are weak to it , become relatively weak. more valuable, comparable to shares.

Artwork

Once the color matching system was determined, we could start thinking about the imagery and theme. I contacted Yamamori, an amazing artist and trusted friend, to create the artwork.

Together we decided to depict a variety of conflicts by drawing inspiration from real-life parallels and depicting the different forces operating behind the scenes of each country. Both the name “FIXER” and the mafia-like theme were suggestions from Yamamori. To match the tone of the game, the colors have been toned down to create a mysterious atmosphere.

I love the card illustrations! The four colors in the game are Capital, Regime, People and Media, and the weakness of each color is visually represented in the artwork – how cool is that!? (For example, the art of the Regime card shows the will of the people resisting the power of the government.)

Card art for the four suits in the game

Two player rules

Most trick-taking games, unless specifically designed for two players, require more than three players. I realized that many people want a game that can be played with only two players, so the two-player mode was planned from the beginning of development.

The two player mode of FIXER has multiple different winning conditions, similar to games like 7 Wonders duel And Beautiful duel. The game’s design focuses on winning tricks in specific “areas”, with a player immediately winning the two-player mode if they completely conquer two areas. While the game still places an emphasis on scoring big points through the match-up format, the thrill of cornering your opponent, like in Shogi, is unique to the two-player mode.

The two-player battlefields are placed in a straight line

Functional design

I would also like to mention our board design that made all these implementations and mechanisms possible. Despite different setups for two, three and four players, we managed to make it all work with just six boards! Likewise, the conflict tokens represent additional victory points, how a victory was achieved, and the remaining conflicts in each area. I love it when a single part has multiple uses!

•••

At SPIEL Essen 24, our JELLY JELLY GAMES stand is located in hall 2 at stand E-315.

This is the third time we exhibit at SPIEL! Although our booth is small, we operate more than ten board game cafes in Japan and have published more than sixty games! FIXER We also have other unique, cool, new Japanese games, so come visit us!

Thanks for reading!

Final sample for FIXER