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Inventing Torres |
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Wolfgang
Kramer |
M. Kiesling and I so enjoyed
developing Tikal that we decided to immediately develop a similar game but
one that would be three-dimensional. This was the beginning of
Torres. The two games are similar
in many ways: limited action points to spend each turn, scoring during the
game and at the end, a scoring border to track players' scores, and a
board that is empty at the beginning and develops throughout the game,
eventually becoming quite complex and so developed that at the end it is
completely filled. Also like Tikal, players have few opportunities for
aggression against the other players, each player has several pieces, and
the game is dominated by strategy and tactics. We developed the game from
the middle of 1997 to the beginning of 1999, working on it almost
exclusively full time until the beginning of 1998, and then sporadically,
usually with the publishing house, to the beginning of
1999. Theme
The King Arthur legend did
not make much of an impression on the publishing house. So we looked for a
new topic and found Wales, specifically Gwynedd. After the time of the
Romans, a powerful prince came forward to free Wales from English rule.
King Edward I of England ended the independence of Wales in two campaigns.
In order to bind Wales to the English crown, the king built eight castles
in Gwynedd to preserve the peace (this is why Torres has eight castles).
The most famous are Caernarfon, Beaumaris, and Conwy Castles. Caernarfon
is the administrative seat. Since 1301, the English successors to the
throne have been given the title "Prince of Wales" in solemn ceremonies at
Caernarfon. Gwynedd has been designated
as one of the cultural monuments of mankind and is under the protection of
UNESCO. For a short time we called our game The Castles of Gwynedd, but
the publishing house decided to use Torres. Accordingly, the action moved
to the castles in Spain. Game system
The roots of Torres are
found in the game Terra Turrium (Kosmos/Kramer). Torres features the
following new game mechanisms: ? Scoring points by
calculating the value of knights in castles: height multiplied by surface
area.? The rapid movement of
knights through the castles: entering a castle through any door and
exiting through another door on the same level costs 1 action point.This allows high mobility, particularly
later in the game. ? Bringing in new pieces to
spaces adjacent to figures already in play instead of to specific
spaces.? In the master version,
there is a special scoring card, variable from game to game, which any
player can use to score bonus points by accomplishing the requirements
stated on the card. The castles. The basis for
the development of the game was scoring a knight as the height of the
knight times the surface area of the castle. In the early tests, each
player built his own castle and placed several of his knights
there. Therefore, we introduced
two new rules: 1.Each player may only score one knight on a
castle 2.The king's castle earns special
bonuses. In order to prevent a
castle from becoming very high with a small surface area, we also added
the rule that a castle may never be higher than its surface
area. At the beginning of game
development, the number of castles was highly variable, since players
could create new castles during the game. But this was not important for
the flow of the game, so to simplify the rules, we replaced the option of
added castles with eight fixed castles.
Number of players. For a
long time we planned the game for up to six players. With a 10x10 or a 9x9
board, this was not a problem. Although with an 8x8 board we could play
with six players, it was not optimal. A reduction to four players was
necessary for cost reasons. Action cards. Torres also
works well without the action cards. This shows that we developed the game
first without them. This is how we generally proceed when developing a
game. We first want to develop a simple basic game play that works well
and is fun and interesting to play. Only then do we consider adding to the
game to make it even more fun to play. Actually, we planned to use action
cards from the beginning, but they were not fully developed and added to
the game until the base game was finished. Master cards. These special
scoring cards were added at the end of the game
development. Game elements not used. We
built and tested but then rejected the following items for the
game: ? knight duels: this
allowed an attack and a defense system but did not work as well as we
wanted.? guards for the protection
of castles. ? building bridges to
connect the castles Variants
Now it is your turn to
discover which of the variants you like best! - Wolfgang Kramer (Translated from the German by Jay
Tummelson.) |
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All contents ? 2001-2003 the
respective authors or The Games Journal unless otherwise
noted.
すべての内容?2001-2003、それぞれの著者あるいはゲーム・ジャーナル、でないならば、そうでなければ注意しました。
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