PROTECT YOUR CASTLE GAME TRIAL

Right away David came up with the perfect way to make the village feel alive: The witches were members of family groups, and when family members enter play together, their powers combine and magnify one another. How do we make a game that is a standalone follow-up to Resist! different enough to appeal to both returning and new players? We made several small changes but two big changes. Now that we had the setting and tone well established, it was time to focus on gameplay. Children in particular got sick and often died. People knew very little about why they got sick. Again, these are often explained by malevolent forces.ģ) Fear of illness. Crop failures, food spoilage, unclean water, dearth of game animals, harsh winters, destruction of dwellings by fire. Forests were impenetrable, beasts were real (often killing dozens), unexplainable events were common and attributed to the devil.Ģ) Fear of privation. We left the location vague so that we could include monsters from many cultures, and identified the core fears:ġ) Fear of the unknown, particularly in the wilderness, with creatures and spirits that come from the 'outside'. Real monsters and magic gave us a lot of creative space, and we decided we wanted the world to feel like a historical version of our world, so we built our monsters, setting, and characters around the fears of an isolated village in 17th-18th century Europe or North America.

PROTECT YOUR CASTLE GAME TRIAL

We discussed this with close friends and partners and decided that, following those guidelines, we could proceed with the witch trial theme. When we put that together - witches battling evil on behalf of a village that will put them on trial - we had a good framework for the core Resist! gameplay of remaining hidden or revealing: witches who take actions that are either 'normal' or 'magical'.Īnd Albert said, 'I'd love to illustrate a horror game!' We all really like 19th century folk-horror like 'The Headless Horseman', then we hit on one of the core gameplay changes: an endgame trial rather than an open-ended measure of victory.which led us to a coven of witches. We had several thematic ideas (which we'll keep secret for now) but quickly settled on 'horror' as a general theme. And we knew that we had to deliver gameplay that felt similar to Resist! for returning players who wanted more, while making it more than a simple re-theming. When Gonzalo Maldonado from Salt & Pepper Games asked the Resist! design team - Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson, and me - whether we would like to do a follow-up, we first thought, 'What theme would we like to see Albert Monteys illustrate?!' We also wanted to share the core gameplay of Resist! with a larger audience that wouldn't necessarily play a war-themed game. This is the story of how Witchcraft! came to be. Even if you defeat the missions, you still face the trial, and you are sure of your fate only when you reveal the conviction of the jurors and see whether you have done enough to persuade them. If you fail two missions or lose five villagers, you lose the game. Is it the Headless Horseman, Baba Yaga, the Scarecrow, or some other fiend?ĭuring set-up, you choose three jurors, their missions, and their unique challenges, providing 56 possible combinations with great variety in the types of challenges and monsters you will face. The fight is real, and each of the eight jurors face a different villain. Each family is focused on different tasks in the game: revealing challenges, increasing attack power, uncovering the conviction of the jurors, or capturing familiars to help you in your fight.

Selecting multiple witches from a family makes that family more powerful. In Witchcraft!, you assemble a coven of witches from families of women represented by a deck of cards. Witchcraft! is a standalone sequel to and reimplementation of Resist!

(Note: Although posted by David Thompson, this designer diary was written by co-designer Roger Tankersley.)

Protect your castle game