Welcome back to The Solo Saturday Post. Each week, I sit down with a different solo game designer . In our chats, we cover their design process, get their thoughts on topics of importance in solo gaming, and share some stories behind your favorite games.
This week, I welcome Artem Safarov from Altema Games. Artem is most well-known as being the creator of Unbroken. Before we dive into our discussion, I should preface this interview by saying that we did not focus on any of the controversy surrounding the Unbroken Kickstarter. That is by design. The Solo Saturday Post is all about game design and solo topics of interest. The Kickstarter and how it has been ran/fulfilled is not the topic at hand and has nothing to do with Artem.
Ok, now that introductions and ground rules have been set, Artem. Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.
Hi everyone! I’m Artem Safarov – I grew up in Uzbekistan, a Central Asian republic of the former Soviet Union and now I live in Toronto, Canada with my endlessly patient wife and our two boys. I love the creative process and have been involved for a while with writing of poetry, songs, RPG campaigns and most recently have applied it to board game design. I have two designs under my belt – in 2015 I have designed, Kickstarted and self-published Cauldron– a board game of competitive alchemy. My real claim to fame (or infamy, your mileage may vary) is Unbroken – a solo game that I designed in 2017 and Kickstarted in 2018 that got to be one of the most controversial, polarizing and toxic things to happen in the gaming community in 2019 because of the ongoing challenges with its delivery. I’ve spoken about the issues with the Unbroken campaign before in other interviews (like this one here) and do not intend to rehash these points here.
Let's talk just a bit about the Kickstarter, not from a fulfillment perspective or controversy, but I'm interested in your personal experience of running a successful Kickstarter. Unbroken was wildly successful with over 16,500 backers and raising nearly half-a-million dollars. Your original goal asked for roughly $11K U.S. dollars. Describe for our readers your feelings as the Kickstarter blew up in popularity? Did you anticipate a 1-player game would be so desired?
I did expect the game would be well-received because I was deeply involved with a variety of awesome solo-gaming communities that showed me just how many solo gamers are out there. Engaging these communities and talking about Unbroken ensured people knew it was coming and were excited for it. I also put a lot of work into making sure that I am putting forward a well-tested, attractive looking product (I was fortunate to collaborate with immensely talented artists and graphic designers).
But clearly nothing prepares you for that level of success. As these figures climbed, I had a lot of anxiety mixed in with the excitement, and much of it turned out to be justified, as the challenges that the campaign faces demonstrated. Ultimately – having expectations of 16,500 people placed on you is a heavy load and until all games are delivered, I will not be able to fully enjoy the success that Unbroken generated.
You entered Unbroken into the 2017 Solitaire PnP contest. What was the experience of participating in that contest like for you? Do you have any plans to participate in future Solitaire PnP contexts?
It was humbling and extremely educational. It made me realize how many amazing game designers are out there also working in the same vein and how many great ideas the community generates. It helped me understand the obstacles that folks would have for trying out Unbroken (it required A LOT of printing for a PnP) and try to address those (we had a TableTop Simulator version created to not depend on printing – if you’re reading this – you rock, Josh!).
I am a little overly competitive in terms of contests and such – not placing better than Unbroken did (9th overall) kind of stung, but it was an extremely helpful experience. For the most part it came down to the importance of playtesting and I think that can be achieved even outside of this awesome contest.
So I think if I do have future solo projects – I will focus my attention on more robust playtesting (and maybe making the Print and Play require less than 50 pages to print…)
Your first game Cauldron was a multiplayer competitive style game. What made you decide to take a leap on a true solo 1-player game like Unbroken?
Life as a parent? You really learn quickly that there is a giant chunk of the gamer population who just don’t have the opportunity to get out and game with others as much as they’d like. So, I built a game that I as a parent of a young kid could play any time I wanted. And it seemed to get a lot of traction! It was very rewarding to get messages from backers saying that solo nature and short duration was exactly what attracted them to Unbroken.
On a more pragmatic note – a solo game is much easier to find playtesters for and to balance. Having to get together 2+ people for a test is a feat and requires special arrangements, whereas having a solo-only game with a good Print and Play made sure that I could get lots and lots of people to try the game ahead of release.
More than anything, though, it was a desire to create a game that had a specific mission and made no compromises in how it achieved it. I really thought that solo players out there wanted a dedicated game built from theme to mechanics to components for nothing but solo play.
I am always fascinated by how designers choose and balance difficulty in their games, particularly solo games. How did you figure out the right balance for Unbroken to make it a challenging game, yet ultimately something that can actually be won?
It starts with the mathematical model that I described earlier in the interview – there are some presumptions that given an average performance of the player the game should be winnable a certain percentage of times. So the baseline balance is built with that goal. Then, it is tested via aggregated data from hundreds of playtests with tweaks to individual elements until the results are where you want them to be. In the end the final version of Unbroken had a total win rate of something like 45% - challenging but beatable, exactly where I wanted it to be.
Or to summarize succinctly – lots of data nerdiness :)
Speaking of games that are difficult and can be unbeatable, you have logged over 400 plays of Lord of the Rings: LCG. You said in a Reddit AMA that you were huge Tolkien nerd. Outside of its theme, what about this game makes it hit your table so often?
Ah, LotR LCG. My precious :). Here are the reasons why I like it so much:
1. It is not overwhelming in terms of time. Even with a busy life of a parent, an individual game most of the time fits within an hour, so it lends itself well to multiple plays.
2. Immense replayability. There are probably around a hundred scenarios for the game that you can play and because the card pool is so huge – you can play a scenario with a new player deck and have a totally new experience. Then again – most quests (especially the newer ones) require you to try them a few times before you succeed, so some of it is bashing your head against a tough challenge.
3. Flexible experience – you can play it in standalone scenarios or enjoy a story-driven campaign introduced in later content. I love having one-off games but when I sit down and go through a series of scenarios following the story – it’s a particular pleasure. It also works equally well (though with different resulting experiences) as a single-player game and multi-player – different deck options become available, different strategies are required. So lots to experiment there.
4. Active community. There are thriving groups that focus on talking about the game generous with advice. Sites that share deckbuilding ideas and help you build your own decks. Not to mention that hunting down and acquiring the many expansion and adventure packs can sometime feel like a game in itself (a very expensive game this one). It adds an extra level of excitement as your card pool grows and your deckbuilding options expand.
5. I taught my eldest son to play it when he was 4 and sharing these adventures has been one of the most awesome father-son bonding experiences we had.
6. It has some of the most impressive Tolkien-inspired art I have seen. Magali Villeneuve is an enchantress. (see more of her art here). I make no secret of my weakness for gorgeous art – a pretty game will always get more plays from me.
7. I’m really really into elves.
It's interesting, because LOTR: LCG never sang for me. And I really like elves too! Let's switch gears and talk a bit about how you design games though. How do you generally go about designing your games? What is YOUR process?
There are two significant steps of game design for me. First is a lot of fun as I sit down and I think what the experience of playing the game should be – what the mood of the game is, what kind of emotions do I want the players to feel, what kind of decisions would they be making. This gives me a very general idea on the framework in which the game will work and the high-level approach to mechanics that I will take (resource management, dice rolling etc.). So, designing the lightheartedly mean Cauldron required a very different approach than the stark, gritty, decision-driven Unbroken.
Once that framework is in place comes a step that will only excite data nerds like me – the creation of a mathematical model that will drive the game’s mechanics under the hood. My background in research statistics helps me out here as I make sure there is a robust and balanced core that drives the game experience. This is a little bit less important in multi-player games because the interaction between the players can sometimes mask balance imperfections, but for a solo game, it is extremely important to get this balance right to guarantee the right amount of challenge.
So yeah, first I brainstorm and then I do a ton of math :).
In your general design process, how do you think about the solo mode? Where does that fit into your design process? Do you have a general method for creating solo play options?
You know, that’s a great question and it was a fascinating topic for me to reflect on as I was reading the interview you did with Keith Matejka (have a great deal of respect for his design and publishing work and had a total swooning moment when I came up to introduce myself at a con and was greeted with an “I know who you are”).
It was interesting to see Keith’s approach that defined solo modes primarily as add-ons applied to multiplayer games. Thinking about it then it struck me that solo options for multiplayer competitive games is not my preferred way of design.
As I mentioned before – I try to design for a targeted experience and to me a multiplayer competitive game is defined specifically by the interaction between players. If I do end up designing more competitive games – I’m not sure I will be including a solo mode. That’s not an underestimation of the solo gaming segment. If anything, the experience with Unbroken makes me excited to design even more games that have been conceptualized beginning to end to provide an awesome solo experience.
I do like playing some solo-mode multiplayer games (Imperial Settlers and Viceroy for example) but these never captured my imagination as much as dedicated solo games (or competitive games that you can solo, since you’re still playing against the game there). Maybe I just need to play more Stonemaier Games Automas to get the full experience of this kind (the fact that Scythe and Viticulture are both in top 10 of the The Top 100 Solo Games list of 2018 speaks for itself).
I can tell you that I love Stonemaier Games Automas. Scythe is an awesome game, I've absolutely smitten with Tapestry. Let's go back to the very beginning for you, though, Artem. How did you get into the hobby? What is your origin story?
My initial gaming experience was with video games, which translated into a period of obsession with tabletop RPGs. As time requirements and responsibilities of adult life started to take toll on available gaming time, board games presented an excellent alternative that requires less time and provides a more concise, close-ended experiences (also something that’s much easier to get non-gamers into).
My gaming journey is pretty textbook – first the group got introduced to Munchkin, which led to us playing it TO DEATH (I have a love-hate relationship with the game and borrowed heavily from its take-that philosophy for Cauldron). That translated into Settlers, which was very popular with my group for a while after that. From that point on I joined a gaming group at work (Forbidden Island and Escape: The Curse of the Temple were popular options), watched a fair bit of Wil Wheaton’s series (Castle Panic is still in my collection) and got completely blown away when a friend introduced me to his copy of Chaos in the Old World.
From that point on you kind of dive in and become a part of this wonderful world of games and gamers and there is an infinite number of titles to discover and enjoy.
Castle Panic was one of my gateway games into the hobby. It might have been the second hobby game I ever bought. It was one of the first times I experienced a game that I could play solo. What multiplayer game do you wish had a solo mode and why?
The first answer that popped into my mind was Middle-Earth Quest. It’s this giant, epic, out-of-print Lord of the Rings adventure game where one player is Sauron and 1-3 others are heroes trying to foil Sauron’s plans. I love that game to pieces but because of its sheer size and time commitment (we’re talking a 3-hour game on average) – I only get to play it maybe once or twice a year. But responding with this title would be a knee-jerk reaction, as all I would be saying is – that’s the game I’d like to play more of, removing the restrictions that keep me from it (getting others to the table who are willing to commit). The whole reason that game works so well is because there is this wonderful tension that arises between heroes and Sauron and it really becomes a battle of wits with mix of visible and hidden information. I know there ARE solo modes for the game but to be honest – I have no interest in trying them, I’d much rather fit in an extra game with people here or there.
Another example that popped into my mind would be Arkon– this sharp, tight card game from a very well-run recent Kickstarter. But much like Middle Earth Quest – what makes that game special is the human interaction and the contest of wits that you can’t replicate with a deck of cards.
I think there are tons and tons of awesome games that can be played solo that were designed for that experience. And most multiplayer games that aren’t super-reliant on player interaction do come with solo modes anyways. So thankfully, we are spoiled for choice to not be left wishing for something that doesn’t exist :).
I know sometimes I still see negative connotations to solo gaming despite its growth in our hobby. What's your take on solo gaming and its growth within the hobby?
There is a negative connotation to solo gaming? I’m really stumped what it might be. Board games can easily be both a social and a solitary experience – the range of options available make sure there is space for all tastes.
Earlier I did see some surprised looks when talking about solo games, especially a solo-only game like Unbroken, but I think, as you note, the growth of this segment of the hobby is undeniable and any lingering misunderstanding of solo gaming will be going away shortly.
What's your take on solo modes being added to games as stretch goals in Kickstarter campaigns? Should publishers/designers make solo mode available from the outset or is it acceptable to use those as stretch goals?
Not a fan. Either you have a solid solo mode and it should be in the box to start, or it’s a highly optional thing in which case I question how good it is.
In some cases, it’s more a question of economy of scale – if solo mode requires extra components that the publisher could not afford unless they hit a certain volume – that make sense financially.
But ultimately – my question for any dedicated solo player is – if the publisher did not think the solo mode was good enough to be a “must-include” from the start - does it really deserve your time, attention and money?
Let's talk a bit more design. Are there any themes that you are itching to try out a design for?
Yes, absolutely. A theme that I would very much like to tackle is the rich Slavic folklore tradition. Baba Yaga, hut on chicken legs, forest and swamp spirits, sorcerers who achieve immortality by materializing and hiding their death – that sort of thing. I think there is such a depth and darkness to probe in the way these stories interpret the unknown and the danger of the world that lay beyond the limited civilization of the pre-Christian times. The recent (completely unnecessary) Hellboy remake probes some of that with marginal success. I think there is a strong horror element to explore in that tradition and would love to eventually create a game in that setting. Having come from the Russian background I feel I can do the genre justice.
What about mechanics? What mechanics do you like to use in your solo designs? Why?
Seeing how I have exactly 1 solo design to my name maybe too early to start making over-arching conclusions here :). But the thing I liked most about how Unbroken came together is its use of limited information. The fact that the player is not quite sure what kind of a challenge they will have ahead of them makes for a great tension. Depending on what monster is waiting for you different strategies can be more or less successful. You can remove that uncertainty but at a cost, so the player is faced with an interesting balance – either sacrifice some of your limited resources and be certain what you’re about to face or go in blind and build your strategy to be as flexible as possible.
I really liked the way this played out and would want to explore this idea further – maybe by making the information availability not a binary yes/no but uncovering it piece by piece.
On BGG, you have given several ratings to board games, but nothing has ever earned a "10." Which game for you comes closest to that perfect rating and why?
I am impressed with your attention to detail and using BGG account as a source of data! These are not the kinds of questions I expected to encounter and the data nerd part of me is very happy to see these!
I believe in principle of unattainable perfection. A perfect 10 is a game without a single flaw or opportunity to improve. I am yet to find one like that and I hope I never do because I think constant striving for improvement is a wonderful thing.
The above-mentioned Middle-Earth Quest would be the closest to a 10 because it captures its theme with an engrossing experience, is highly interactive, gorgeously produced and features not one but multiple design ideas that I consider borderline genius. For example, the combat of the game is like a game-within-a-game that time after time creates incredible tension and excitement. It’s all card-based and over in just a few minutes (to not drag things down), but it connects seamlessly into the larger game narrative and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Is the game a masterpiece? Yes. Could it be improved? Yes. The final showdown is often criticized as possibly anticlimactic and the game could be a just a little bit shorter. So a 9 it is.
Similarly, I also rank Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 very highly because of how innovative of an experience it was – it tried to do things no game did before and succeeded, feeling both as a classic Pandemic and a totally different game, building a cohesive story and featuring lots of twists and turns, while making you feel the consequences of your past decisions. All in manageable chunks of a dozen 1-hour games. I think the game is a triumph, but there are things that could be improved (and no, I do not think Season 2 did that, in my opinion it lowered the bar, even if just a little bit).
Our conversation has ran long Artem, but I have so enjoyed getting to know you as a designer and a gamer. What impact has solo gaming had on your life?
It allowed me to play way more games than I would otherwise :). It’s such a great way to make sure your gaming isn’t dependent on time constraints and schedules of others. Especially parents of young children (mine are 6 and 2) have a hard time fitting in lots of social gaming, so playing solo is a great way around those limitations.
I also find it helps me reduce screen time. I work in front of a computer screen and really look forward to a chance to have a more tactile experience with games – solo board games are a great way to achieve that break.
Ok. Before we go though, I'll close with the standard questions. Do you have any upcoming projects you want solo gamers to be keep their pulse on and what else do you have planned for the Unbroken universe?
I try very hard to not get ahead of myself, especially since the fulfilment of Unbroken is still very much ongoing. I will not be turning my attention to any future projects until Unbroken project is fully delivered.
All of this comes with a caveat that the fulfillment of the troubled core campaign must be completed first – I am not looking to start anything until all backers receive their rewards. But I do have several ideas to expand the base Unbroken experience, both in terms of the monsters the players get to face and in terms of character options, including entirely new mechanics like ranged weapons and magic. Tentatively titled Unearthed Remains, I hope this expansion will eventually see the light of day.
One of the most exciting things about it is an opportunity to continue some of the world-building for Unbroken. This is something that was started already with a [url= http://altemagames.com/unbroken/unbroken-monster-stories/]series of short stories[/url] following the protagonists (and monsters) of the base game and I love he kind of world that emerged from those. Even in writing some of the later stories I started applying some concepts that I want to fully introduce in the expansion, so I hope it will be a seamless transition of narrative into gameplay.
Thank you so much Artem for participating in the Solo Saturday Post. Where can people find you on the internets and keep up with your work?
Normally I’m pretty active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. My activity usually goes in waves though, so right now I’m pretty quiet, but if folks are interested in my future work – these channels are a great place to stay informed.
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