Thinking about what a game has to be limits what it can become…

For a long time, my fantasy skirmish game Fame & Fortune has been a true PVP game. The premise was that each adventuring party had entered the dungeon to slay famous monsters and steal their gold, while taking out each other in the process.

Feedback we have been hearing for over a year of developing the game in a PvP setting is that there always seemed to be juxtaposition between wanting to attack monsters, but also being able to attack other adventuring parties. And for a while, this feedback was written down but neglected. I always used to have a vision for what Fame & Fortune would become, and any type of player collaboration frankly just wasn't a part of that vision. And, honestly, that's ok.

And yet so often playtesters would hint to this off-putting sense of one vs one vs monsters that I decided to try out a cooperative game mode against my judgements and preconceived notions that it wasn't what I wanted for the game and so it must not be what's best for it.

I couldn't be more glad that I was wrong. Since playtesting solely cooperative one vs many games between adventuring parties and a Monster Master, a number of wonderful things have come to light.

• I realized some hidden imbalances between player turn order hidden beneath snake drafting mechanics; something I don't need if the players collaboratively recruit their parties for their collective benefits.

• Player to player engagement has increased dramatically since players have started working together on the same turn. They help each other, make collective sacrifices, talk together, play together.

• All of these things only possible because one night I had a thought that maybe that the designer's intentions for what the game had to be, limited what it could become.

I am grateful to all of you who have tested Fame & Fortune this past year to help me refine its mechanics, build a great community, and test my beliefs. I look forward to continuing to test the game with friends old and new until it launches later this year.