2021-02-01 - Training Camp Revealed! Q & A with Designer Daniel Piechnick!
about 3 years ago
– Wed, Feb 03, 2021 at 07:20:10 PM
TL;DR: Link below for Ant Lab Games' playthrough (more are coming soon!), Q & A with designer Daniel Piechnick, and our first reveal of the Training Camp!
We haven't been able to pin down Daniel Piechnick for some video content... yet! But he took a moment to answer some quick questions for the Radlands backers. Here they are!
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself. What do you do? What kind of games do you like?
A. I’m from Adelaide, South Australia. I’m an investor, and I spend my free time playing and working on board games.
Farming euro Agricola is great, for its constructiveness and infinite depth. Libertalia’s simultaneous pirate crew selection makes for a simple game that’s psychological and hilarious. Perennial card game Magic: the Gathering is my strongest design influence. I’m also a very keen Scrabble player and former national champion.
Q. Where did the ideas for Radlands come from? What were your goals in designing it?
A. Other games give me a feeling, but usually, it’s just a moment. That feeling is what I try to recreate. Many of my fondest moments from my years of Magic were when I had constructed combos out of cards, and they could do all kinds of intriguing things together. I love combos, options, and allowing for player creativity. Radlands was my attempt to distill all that into its own game.
Q. Why should people play Radlands over other dueling games? What is it about the gameplay of Radlands that you find so compelling?
A. Each turn of Radlands can be played so many different ways. Which cards will you play, and which will you junk? Which people protect which others, and which camps do they all protect? There’s rarely a turn where there’s a “correct play”. There are so many consequential choices, that the player is really in control of their strategy. People almost never complain that they were unlucky when they don’t win.
In Radlands, the battle begins immediately and doesn’t let up. Turn one... Pyromaniac! And, when the battle ends, it’s usually a cliffhanger. There are so many ways to escape doom that you’ve never really lost until your last camp is destroyed.
I could’ve made a game with a million cubes, miniatures, and dice, and put it in a big, expensive box, with new stuff on sale every few months. I could’ve made something revolutionary, with a never-before-seen doodad, or mechanic. I didn’t want to do any of that. I just wanted to make something really good, that people would play for years. That’s what I would want in a game I bought for myself. Game design is 10% great idea and 90% polishing. The really hard stuff is the things you can’t see in a review or rule book. In that 90% is what makes Radlands magically good, and why Roxley is publishing it in a crowded market.
Q. How much replay value does this game have?
A. There are so many different combinations of camps, and each combination will make for a very different game. A camp will play very differently when paired with different camps. Take Arcade, as an example: it gives you a steady stream of punks. When paired with Training Camp, you’d upgrade those punks into people. With Reactor, they’re cheap defensive fodder, biding time before you go KABOOM! With Mulcher, they’re… “recycled” into cards. If you have The Octagon, you can send these punks into battle against the opponent’s valuable people.
And this is just the camps. There’s a whole deck of people and events, who will come out differently each game. We’ve been playing this game for years, and we still want to play.
Q. Do you have any favorite cards you’d like us to highlight?
A. Rescue Team. This card returns your people to your hand. There are about five major categories of reasons why you’d want to do that, and many, many individual combos within them. Underestimate this card at your peril.
Oh yeah… and the madness that is (***CENSORED BY ROXLEY***).
And (***ALSO CENSORED BY ROXLEY***)
Q. Do you have any advice for aspiring game designers?
A. I’ll pick one thing: start small! Radlands is not a big game, but it took 123 sets of revisions, over a few years, to do properly.
Thank you for reading!
-Daniel
At the cost of one water, the Training Camp will flip a punk in your play area, upgrading them from squishy to not-so-squishy, and potentially gaining you a useful power! (If there is an event on the other side, you instead get a fresh punk and your water back, and are free to try again next turn if the punk survives).
Remember - #PunksArePeopleToo!
For those who haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the first official playthrough of Radlands from Ant Lab Games! (*SPOILER ALERT* - they liked it!)
A couple of FAQs from the livestream and comments:
1 - The video's a bit long because they're streaming and found some specific game-lengthening cards and combinations. Their previous games went much more quickly.
2 - When asked about the cards and their potential slipperiness: "The Synthetic cards feel awesome tbh. I hope this starts a trend", and "I like this material and finish better than on the TMB [Too Many Bones] cards."
More video content will be highlighted in our upcoming updates, so stay tuned!
Our next update will feature a schedule for our live-streamed in-house Radlands Tournament, where Team Roxley will take each other on to determine the first-ever champion of this game! It's going to be INSANE!
Thanks all for your continued support, participation, and positivity!
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
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