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AEG is talking about their Essen Surprise GuildHall!

25 October 2012 No Comment

Guildhall is the “secret game” surprise hit of Essen this year!

With rich colors and expressive art, the professions of Guildhall have interlocking mechanics that test your ability to think ahead and put your kingdom in the lead.

The goal of the game is to gather professionals of 5 different colors in your guild hall to form chapters. Use completed chapters to buy Victory Points. Each professional also has abilities to help you gather more professionals, and slow other players’ progress.

Old World Economy

Set in medieval Europe, the first set of Guildhall has 6 professions. Each profession has an ability that changes the game. The ability grows stronger based on the number of professionals of one type that you already have in your hall.

Assassin: Kill a professional in someone else’s hall.

Dancer: Draw cards. Take another action.

Farmer: Earn victory points.

Historian: Bring a professional back to your hall from the discard pile.

Trader: Trade cards between your hall and another player’s hall.

Weaver: Place cards from your hand straight into your hall.

Designer Hope S. Hwang has kindly provided us with a look into the creation of Guildhall. This week, the start of Guildhall!

The start of Guildhall was to make a small and simple card game with “brain works.”

I wanted to make a game similar to 6 nimmt! by Thorsten Gimmler or No Thanks! by Wolfgang Kramer, which are more mechanic-centered rather the thematic. Then I remembered Michael Schacht’s Coloretto which doesn’t have hand cards. Inspired by this system, I focused on making a game that was simple, light, small, and strategic with no cards in hands.

The design of the game came clearer when the idea of no cards in hand was set. Cards were drawn directly from the deck and played. Six colors with 5 character cards were used and various effects were given to each character. A trader was used to exchange cards, and a scholar was used to draw a card from the deck. Since there were no cards in hands, each character had 4 effects. Icons were used to express effects since there was limited space on a card to explain. ‘Set collections’ were used in scoring.

A collection of 5 different characters with the same color was a set. A complete set was not scored, but an incomplete set was. So played cards had to be given to other player. I initially named this game “Guild” right up until we made a prototype. But because of the hassle of exchanging cards between players, the initial name was scrapped.

One month later, I stared to work on this game again. There is a Korean boardgame designers club, called KBDA (Korea Boardgame Designers Association). Professional and amateur boardgame designers gather once a month to introduce and play prototypes of their games. I needed a game to test in the meeting.

I usually look up the memos, ideas, and games I have worked on in the past when I design a new game because it gives me a chance to examine a new perspective or ideas which I have missed or overlooked. While doing that, Guild caught my eye.

I liked the idea of using various effects of the characters to collect a set, so I modified the game more strategically. Players had cards in hand and kept the played cards. The number of cards played in one turn was 1. The title changed to Gamun, which means ”lineage” and “family” in Korean. The theme was to gather technicians to make your village flourish.

Check out Guildhall Homepage