Behind The Kickstarter: Orcs Must Die The Boardgame with Sandy Petersen

I had the pleasure of speaking with renowned game designer Sandy Petersen, whose career has run the gamut from working on classic franchises like Age of Empires, to his more recent original creation Cthulhu Wars. Currently he is working on Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame. The game has already generated $173,279 and has 9 days to go. Here is our conversation about the game, working with Robot Entertainment, Kickstarter, and the need for superhero costumes.

GeekTyrant: You are just about to reach $143,000 (as of this writing) and overall the campaign has been immensely successful. With that comes even more responsibility though, and with more funding comes more stretch goals, which adds an extra workload to your team to deliver by February 2016. Hitting $150,000 by the end of the campaign is a real possibility, and to some it can be pretty tempting to throw the kitchen sink in once you’ve raised this much, as far as stretch goals go, which has been the undoing of many a project. Is there pressure to keep adding and adding components the more money comes in? Or was the plan firmly in place at the beginning to the point that, whether it be 48 grand or 5 million, the plan and approach was not changing?

Sandy Petersen: We try to be as flexible and responsive to the flow of the campaign as possible. While I want to remain true to the vision of the game, the only reason to produce it is to please those who play it, and they are the people funding me so it makes sense to converse with them, listen to them, and understand their desires.

GT: You also had a very successful Kickstarter not too long ago with Cthulhu Wars. Did you and the team make any changes to how you handled this project as opposed to your process for Cthulhu Wars?

SP: Of course! Two obvious changes are that this campaign doesn’t have the much-hated Early Bird pledges, and that the game is split into two parts (each of which is a full game in itself) which means that we have a less-expensive version for people on a budget who still want the experience.  

GT: I can’t help but agree about the early bird pledges. Sometimes you don’t hear about a project right away, and by the time you get there sometimes it feels as if you’re missing out.

GT: You’ve commented on how much you’ve enjoyed working with Robot on this project, as you have a great deal of friends and students working at the company now. As a whole though, do you prefer working with an established IP and trying to create a new way to experience that brand, or would you rather shepherd your own creation?

SP: In general I am not a fan of IPs, except for those you create on your own. However, the Orcs Must Die! IP seemed like a natural, given my close relationship to Robot.

GT: While we are on the subject, is there another IP or universe that you have always wanted to work in or explore?

SP: There are several, but my general distaste of IPs has so far kept me well away from them all. I guess if I was able to pick and choose ANYTHING in the world to base a licensed property on, it would be Godzilla.

GT: I have a few friends who are going to read that and lose their collective minds, as they would love to see that Godzilla game happen, but I understand the appeal of creating your own world and seeing it to fruition.

Being that you are working with an IP this time around, what has been the most challenging aspect of the franchise to implement into board game form? While most things can transfer over quite well with some time and ingenuity, there must be some aspects of a video game that don’t lend themselves to the table top, or is that not true?

SP: I am in the fortunate position that I am trusted as a designer by Robot, so they have given me carte blanche to work with their license to build the best game possible based on the core ideas only. I think our experience with the Age of Empires III board game done by Eagle Games helped with this. It was only based on our computer game in the loosest possible manner. That said, the idea of doing a co-op game combining combat & tower defense seemed like it would be really fun for me, and also a genre not really exploited in the board game world. The hardest part has been to make it both a co-op AND a rivalry team game, in which one side fights the other. The balancing mechanisms for co-op and Player-vs-player are so different it has been a bit of a chore.

GT: Using an example from comics to movies, Wolverine's Yellow and Blue uniform (Astonishing) is my favorite Wolverine costume, but to me it would look absolutely dreadful on screen, so I begrudgingly accept that I won’t ever see it recreated there.

I love both of these. Maybe the yellow and blue can work in film after all?

SP: Spider-Man’s blue & red costume makes no sense in reality either, let’s face it. Of course, in general if there were real superheroes, why wear costumes at all? It’s part of the genre I suppose, but it seems highly artificial to me.

GT: Well, you do have a point in that. However, I will say that reading a comic about a bunch of people in their Old Navy shirts and cargo shorts just doesn’t have the same allure, haha.

Orcs Must Die (the original game and its sequel) is very easy to get into after a few tries. It had plenty of depth, but also a very gradual pace and pick up speed, even to newer players. Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame is made up of several decks, miniatures, traps, tiles, etc, and looks like a blast, but how welcoming is it for newer board game players?

SP: The rules are pretty easy to play. I am a big fan of being able to get into games quickly. While I own and enjoy a lot of games with complex rules, I don’t design games that way. If you are familiar at all with Cthulhu Wars you know what I mean. It’s about a 10-15 minute rules explanation and you’re ready to go. With Orcs Must Die, it’s even shorter and you’re in. The depth comes from having a variety of heroes, maps, monsters, bosses, items, traps, and other interactions, not from the core rules being onerous to parse.

GT: The reason I ask is over the last few years I have had the opportunity to play with a bevy of newcomers to these more involved (and let's not forget rewarding) types of board games. When in the design phase, how much emphasis is put on keeping the game approachable to new players, or is that even something that concerns you? There are many people who believe that if you build something to be fun and deep, people will eventually give it a try regardless of its learning curve.

SP: And I agree with those people. But that’s not the way I design my games. I think part of it is my video game background. You want someone playing it and having fun in the first 5 minutes. Another part is that while I like 5-6 hour games like Arkham Horror, I don’t feel I need to compete with them. We already HAVE Arkham Horror, so Cthulhu Wars didn’t have to be another one. Similarly, Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame doesn’t have to be another Warhammer. It can be a fun, fast-moving co-op game with plenty of moving parts that can be fitted together in different ways to produce an ever-new experience which is always easy to get into.

GT: Apologies, almost slipped in a Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come” reference, but guess now it's out of the bag.

The second Playtest video for Orcs Must Die! The Board Game! This game features a mix of new and experienced players.

GT: While we are talking about the industry as a whole, Table Top Gaming has seen a resurgence over the last few years. Why do you think that is? Is it just the cycle of things coming in and out of fashion? Or just a fading stereotype that board games of this ilk are for basement dwellers with Doritos and Mountain Dew?

SP: I think that the re-invention of board games in (mainly) Germany during the 1980s is what has driven this. Before Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico, board games were overlong, too complicated, and often tedious. Remember Risk, Stratego, and Monopoly? Those are actually pretty poor excuses for games. With the advent of stuff like Carcassone, we have games which are quick to play, the whole family can enjoy, and they are over in 1-2 hours tops. I think board games are definitely here to stay – they have been swelling in interest since 1990 and shown no signs of stopping.

GT: I love how there are two different games to back, The Order and Unchained Respectively, and how they can work together for fans who want a totally different experience. You even went as far as to have different stats on a good portion of the units (25% is a pretty good ratio). You could have left them the same and I don’t think anyone would have seriously wailed, but it illustrates an attention to detail and general feeling of going above and beyond in delivering a polished product, which, let's face it, is something that not all Kickstarters have excelled in.

One of two new heroes added via new Stretch Goals

GT: In fact, let's talk about that for a minute. Even just over the last 2 years, Kickstarter as a whole has undergone changes a plenty, and along with that come changes in what consumers expect from the final product. Over the course of your campaign, you can see how you all have tried to keep an open rapport with your backers, and I love Sandy’s Corner. It helps backers not feel like an afterthought, and when it comes to projects like these, it really does end up being a community of gamers by the end of the process. How has the process been in regards to implementing fan feedback into your games, and how has the interaction with the community been overall?

SP: Thanks! Really I consider my backers to be both partners and friends. I’ve tried to make it clear that I am part of their community. As just one note: obviously with anything related to the internet, you can come across unreasoning hatred, hostility, and trolling. My fans have been so supportive that I never have to respond to attacks. I know for sure that some fan will leap to my defense and make a case on my behalf better than I would have done myself. Of course, they catch me up when I get too sanguine or say something stupid, but that is valuable too.

GT: Well I truly thank you for taking time out of your hectic schedule to talk to me, and I wish you nothing but success on Orcs Must Die as well as your future projects. Thanks for your time!

All right, there you have it. I've gotta say I really enjoyed that, and if you’re interested in backing Orcs Must Die! The Boardgame, it's still not too late, and they have added 6 new stretch goals. You can also find Sandy Peterson’s other work here.

GeekTyrant Homepage