Last month I started a discussion of co-op games with an article I called “Gaming Evolution: Co-Op Games, Part One: Honored Ancestors”. It talks about some of the primordial co-op games which helped to create the genre in the 1980s and 1990s. Before I move on to more recent games, I’m going to be publishing a couple of interviews with some of the designers of those co-op originators, to further document the games that the modern co-op boom ultimately looks back to as its foundation.
This month I’m talking to Richard Launius. He’s best known for his design of Arkham Horror. He was thus perhaps the first entrant in the “American co-op” subgenre of games which is best represented in the modern day by Fantasy Flight Games … who not by chance counts Arkham Horror among its stable of American co-op games.
At some time in the future, I’d like to talk with Richard more about his more recent release, Defenders of the Realm, but this time I focused on his original design of Arkham Horror, the revision by Fantasy Flight, and how the co-op genre has changed in the almost 25 years since Arkham Horrorwas first published. If you’re not familiar with Arkham Horror, you may want to look at my review of FFG’s second edition.
An Interview with Richard Launius about Arkham Horror
Shannon Appelcline: Why did you decide to use co-operative game play when you designed Arkham Horror?
Richard Launius: I actually stumbled into it. I thought the Cthulhu Mythos was a very rich storytelling world and at the time the only game experience available to it was through the role-playing game by Chaosium. I wanted to create a game that a group of people could play together without a gamemaster, or a single individual could play alone since much of my gaming at this time of my life was solitaire play. So, I started to bring the Lovecraft world into a board game with various locations and encounters that would challenge any number of players. The challenge was creating encounters that would act as a gamemaster in the game so the players could just focus on their play and their personal adventure.
SA: Were there any existing games or activities that influenced the co-operative elements in Arkham Horror?
RL: The primary cooperative elements were spawned from role-playing games, the most influential being Call of Cthulhu. I loved the idea of a group of players facing overwhelming horrors that slowly (and sometimes quickly) drive them toward the brink of insanity and sure death. Once the idea came to me that the board would act as the gamemaster in the game, the rest of the adventure elements begin to fall in place, and along with that more cooperative game play. I do want to give credit to the Charlie Krank, Lynn Willis, and Sandy Peterson at Chaosium as they tied many of the elements together in final development of the 1st Edition of Arkham Horror which prompted even more cooperative play related to the players collectively closing all of the gates for the victory.
SA: Is there anything in Fantasy Flight Games’ new edition of Arkham Horror that you particularly liked?
RL: Fantasy Flight Games brought so much to the Arkham Horror design both in terms of the graphic look of the game, and from Kevin Wilson who is just a fantastic person and game designer. Kevin’s changes to the monster movement, the sliding hero skills, and the further development of the Great Old Ones slumber and awakening abilities were amazing.
In my updating of the game from the first edition that Kevin was working from, I had already decided that I wanted a final battle with the Great Old Ones and had created it where different Great Old Ones could be used in the game, but Kevin really took this to the next level with slumber abilities effecting game play, not just the end game combat.
One of the other major changes that Kevin and Fantasy Flight brought to the game was prompted by Christian Peterson. Chris thought that we should do cards for all encounters (the original game used encounter charts) and while challenging at first because of the many locations, Kevin and I came up with the idea of placing multiple encounters on each card which has worked very well. The move to cards has enabled several expansions to introduce more story and challenges for the players.
SA: You’ve recently developed a new co-op game, Defenders of the Realm, released over 20 years after Arkham Horror. How do you feel like the genre has changed in those years?
RL: I am glad to see that the genre has grown over the years. For the most part I break cooperative games into 3 categories:
1) Cooperative Puzzle games like Pandemic or Space Alert. Cooperative puzzle games to me present one or more situations that must be resolved in specific time. Often these cooperative games lend themselves to an overlord or boss player directing the others on their turns. These type of games are challenging and interactive, but to me often the actions for each turn are more scripted than I prefer.
2) Cooperative Traitor games like Battlestar Galactica, Betrayal on House on a Hill, and Shadow over Camelot fall into this genre. Additionally the one against many fall into this category for me – games like Fury of Dracula, Middle Earth Quest, and Descent. While all are fun games, and the traitor aspect centers around cautious to paranoid cooperative activities, the true key to a successful gaming session is reliant on how devious the traitor player(s) or villain player manages the game.
3) Pure Cooperative like Arkham Horror, Castle Ravenloft, and Defenders of the Realm. Pure cooperative games rely on the players working for a common goal against a board and game system that will shift each game and while all of the three types of cooperative games are rich in theme and story, this is the cornerstone to play in a pure coop. For me, pure coops rely upon the world, theme, story and overall game experience to make the game both fun and challenging. They create an adventure in which the experience of playing it is more important than winning or losing.
While I enjoy playing all of the games listed above, and all 3 cooperative genres, it is the Pure Cooperative game that intrigues me the most. And as you know – this is just one person’s opinion, I am not criticizing any of these 3 Coop genres.
SA: How do you design pure co-operative games of this sort?
RL: I’ve developed the following cooperative design guidelines when I design games:
1) Create a challenging AI in the game to force players to work together on strategy and not one player becoming the overlord directing all players on their turn (puzzle solving). This means that multiple good moves appear for every player on their turn, limiting the advice to multiple strategies.
2) The Board setup and play should have a number of random elements that constantly change from game to game making each experience different for the players, even though the game mechanics stay the same.
3) While I do not lean toward a traitor element or one against many in cooperative design, I do like the idea of victory for all granting a champion player — the best of the winners. This element, depending on the type of players can make for interesting game play, but it should always be an optional rule.
4) I believe cooperative games need to be strong in theme, a story coming out of the game that the players create as they play. This story should be something that the players enjoy from the game that goes far beyond winning or losing – and something that is remembers by them long after the game is over. Therefore all my designs always start with theme and work from that foundation.
5) The game should be highly expandable — the ability to add more story and more challenges to the game for the players, keeping it a fresh and fun experience is essential to a cooperative game since it does not have the intellect and changing strategies launched by an opposing player to challenge the cooperative gamers.
6) Last, but not least — the game must be fun.
After I work out all the details above, I build the game engine and play it, then change it, play it and change and play it again and again until I reach the level of challenge and story I think the game needs, using the mechanics I think work best with the theme to deliver the experience I believe cooperative players want in their games. At least the experience I want in the game and I am thankful others want that kind of game as well.
SA: Thanks very much for the insights into the past and present of co-operative games!
Around the Corner
I have more to say on the topic of cooperative games, and I plan to do so over the coming months with more articles on their evolution and more interviews with top cooperative designers. If there’s anything you’d particularly like to see on the topic, let me know. I’d also be fascinated to hear how you differentiate co-op games. Richard’s puzzle games, traitor games, and pure co-op are not too far from my own classifications of Euro co-op, against the enemy co-op, and Anglo-American co-op. So, what other ways do you divide them up?
And with that said, let me direct you to my reviews of the last few weeks. Most notably given the context, you should take a look at a review of Richard’s newest, Defenders of the Realm. I’ve also recently reviewed: Charon Inc., Innovation, and Nuns on the Run.
Now go eat a turkey for me.
Author’s Note: This was the last article I wrote for BGN before that site died. The series continues with an interview with Reiner Knizia. —2/16/11