Naploeonic 20 Series Dispatch 2

Wither the Napoleonic 20 System?

One of the most common enquiries we get about the Napoleonic 20 series is “What’s the next game going to be?” The related corollary, of course, is “Well, are you going to do a game on?” Unfortunately, the answers to those questions aren’t that simple.

There are three critical bottlenecks in releasing new Napoleonic 20 games: the design list, playtesting, and the production queue. These three elements all inter-relate to determine which battles get done in what sequence.

As series developer, I maintain the master ‘design list,’ a roster of intended game designs that our designers use to stake their claim to various battles, marking that design as “theirs.” We discovered that we needed to have the list because there was a lot of redundancy and dilution of design efforts (at one time we unintentionally had three different simultaneous game designs of the same battle being worked on). Now, with the design list in hand, designers can concentrate on a handful of games and not have to worry about racing to be the first to turn in a completed design. At present, we actually have a small backlog of completed designs awaiting the next step in the sequence –playtesting.

The Importance of Playtesting

Playtesting is, in my opinion, the most critical phase of the sequence. We have a small stable of devoted playtesters (currently about a dozen gamers). Some are experts in the history of the period, others are simply great wargamers who have mastered the nuances of the hex grid, and those remaining are fine hobbyists who enjoy the games. I try very hard to ensure the group’s members have a wide array of interests, expertise, and experience as the playtesting process is synergistic. I’m convinced that if we had a different mix of talents, we wouldn’t be able to produce such a great series of games. For example, I always try to ensure that we have at least one novice gamer in the testing group, to provide that vitally important ‘fresh take’ that only a total n00b can bring – all too often, veteran gamers make assumptions about things based on previous experience and end up missing issues that are glaringly obvious to someone without that background.

Once playtesting is complete and I declare the game “done,” it gets turned over to Alan Emrich for insertion into the Victory Point Games production queue. It is important to understand that once this happens, the order in which the various completed designs get published is out of my control and subject to its own production cycle card draws, chit picks, die rolls and other random events.