A few months ago, our latest family game My Farm Shop was released. Rüdiger Dorn, the designer, is already well-known for his game Istanbul, which won Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2014. Editor Stefan, who produced the game for Pegasus Spiele, reports on the path from prototype to finished game:
“Many games take a long journey until they are published by us or another game company. It was the same with My Farm Shop, yet geographically speaking, it is not far at all from the designer´s home to the Pegasus headquarters in Germany. But more than four years have passed since Rüdiger showed us this and other very interesting prototypes. Nevertheless, it´s the thematic journey I want to talk about as it´s quite a long way from Mesopotamia to a tiny organic farm with a farm shop …
The prototype had elements that excited us from the start. All players are involved in every turn, and the game rewards players as buildings and goods get better as the game progresses. There are many different options, tactics, and strategies. But what does this have to do with Mesopotamia? To be honest: Nothing! But this isn´t unusual for a prototype, as the first step is always to show mechanisms with a theme that supports them.
In this first prototype, players mined mineral resources that could be traded at markets. Basically the theme worked, but, honestly, when have you ever wanted to learn more about Mesopotamia? Thereby, there are many things worth knowing, such as that the wheel and writing were possibly invented there. And perhaps the first beer was brewed in Mesopotamia. But I´m digressing. The theme is interesting but not ideal for this game, as even then the mechanics pointed to a family game.
The game was about earning and selling goods from the very beginning, so the topic of farming was not far away. But instead of the romantic notion of farm life, today we often see hard work, low returns on selling produce to corporations, and increasing automation. How nice it would be to have your own contemplative farm with chickens, sheep, and cows. All organic, of course! We can sell our products through our own small farm store and the weekly market. No meat, though, because our animals can instead produce goods for us like eggs, wool, and milk.
We could agree on this theme very quickly as it is also suitable for a game that can be played with children. And the designer didn´t mind; Rüdiger is a real game professional and knows very well that a lot changes from prototype to final game. But we still had to find a title for the game. It´s always best to find a title that works internationally. So instead of a German title, we had to find an English one. And My Farm Shop, yes, that worked!
So we found the theme and title, but were still missing illustrations and the final mechanisms. The graphics should look modern in any case, because as a model we had a small organic farm in mind, which could currently exist somewhere. We soon agreed to work with Fiore GmbH, as both we and Rüdiger had had good experiences with this team. And meanwhile, we continued to work on the mechanisms and rules to make them suitable for the target audiences – families, but also groups who enjoy a quick game with easy-to-learn rules. Long discussions (not unusual for editorial work on a game) accompanied this process. We questioned every detail and then changed, discarded, or added new ones as necessary. Entire blocks of rules for modules were redeveloped and discarded. So we have indeed made a long journey: From mining in Mesopotamia to running a small farm in modern times. But we are confident that, having reached our goal, we have done so well that now everything fits, and you can intuitively combine theme and mechanisms while playing. So we wish you a lot of fun with My Farm Shop!“
If you now want to get to know My Farm Shop, you can play it for free on the digital gaming platform Tabletopia. You can find many other of our titles to try out there in our gaming library!
Questions, comments, feedback? Share your thoughts with us at blog@pegasus.de
