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Goblins, huh, what are they good for? Creating mana in a magitech factory, as it turns out. I introduced you to this great game a little while back, but here’s a reminder to refresh your memory:
In Sprocketforge, players are artificers building a factory with enchanted gears to produce mana and complete orders to earn renown. Players will add, upgrade, and swap gears in their factory to create an efficient system.
However, mana is messy and clogs up your vents, requiring players to balance earning points with keeping their machine clean. The noble houses of Sprocketforge will reward the factories with the cleanest system as players vie for favour to earn more points and additional actions.
Ah yes, you remember now. It’s the one with those cool looking interlocking gears, the one you can’t wait to get your hands on. Well, there’s not much stopping you now, as it’s available for pledges on Kickstarter and is knocking down its targets one by one. I had the opportunity to interview game designer Ananda Guneratne and publisher Jeremy Geenen from Sophisticated Cerberus Games recently, and here’s how it panned out…
Let’s get the important stuff out of the way: Sprocketforge stars a bunch of hard-working goblins. Are they in a union, and do they know their workers’ rights?
(Ananda) Goblins in Sprocketforge tend to be honor-bound people with a reputation for fair dealings. They would take great offense at the notion that anything more than their word is needed to protect the interests of their employees. This attitude causes a great deal of friction with employees of other races, especially the kobolds. For this reason, kobold employees tend to be uncommon in goblin-run factories.
Give us some background. Is this your first board game? If so, what did you do before this?
(Ananda) Sprocketforge will be my first board game to be published, manufactured, and distributed. I have a few other self-published games floating around, but they only consist of digital files; there is something very different about having a game actually physically produced. I’ve been designing board games for most of my life, though I have shelved or discarded almost everything I have ever made.
(Jeremy) Our first game was The Stifling Dark, which we designed and self-published. Sprocketforge will be the first game we have published from another designer, and it’s been interesting seeing the differences between self-publishing and publishing someone else’s game. Ananda has been great to work with and has made our experience as first-time publishers quite enjoyable. We can’t wait to bring Sprocketforge to life!
What's the first board game you remember playing? And what's the first one you fell in love with, and why?
(Ananda) I can’t remember the exact order, but it was probably Monopoly or the Pokemon TCG when I was around six or seven. I remember creating a Pokemon-inspired trading card game on index cards, complete with “booster pack” packaging made from construction paper. I didn’t play the Pokemon video games until much later. I remember being obsessed with Risk for a while, even creating custom maps. When I was around ten or eleven, the
Lord of the Rings version of Risk captured my attention with its extra rules simulating the fellowship’s quest to Mt. Doom. I’m not sure I ever actually completed a game of it; somehow, that didn’t strike me as a problem until much later.
(Jeremy) My guess for the first games that I actually remember would be either Aggravation or Parcheesi. Those were both staples in my household growing up, as were Rummy, Carrom, and many other similar board/card games. I think the first game I really got into was the WotC Star Wars TCG that came out in 2002. My brothers and I would play that game all the time and would constantly pester our parents to go to our local game store to pick up new booster packs (shout out to Chimera Hobby Shop in Appleton, WI). The fact that it was Star Wars certainly helped, but I really enjoyed the different abilities, the way you could stack characters to make them more powerful, and the interplay between the various arenas (Space, Ground, and Character).
Who’s on the team? How well does the team interweave together?
(Jeremy) Sophisticated Cerberus consists of three friends: Ethan, Matt, and Jeremy. We all grew up in Appleton, WI and went to the same schools, and now Matt and Jeremy live in Minneapolis but still get back to Appleton fairly often. Having three people is quite nice, not only for tiebreakers but also for divvying out the work. Ethan does a lot of our graphic design and animation, Matt does a lot of the development and worldbuilding, and Jeremy runs the day-to-day operations. We each have unique skills that supplement each other very nicely.
How long has it taken to develop Sprocketforge? How did development fit into your daily life?
(Ananda) I came up with the original idea that would become Sprocketforge in late November 2021 and conducted the first playtest in early January. I worked on it sporadically throughout 2022, mainly relying on the “Break My Game” Discord server for online playtests and other designers I know for in-person playtests. After Sophisticated Cerberus Games expressed interest in the game in 2023, I significantly stepped up my online playtesting, and after they signed it we started meeting to playtest it internally online. Screentop.gg has been extremely helpful for playtesting, as it makes it easy to hop online and quickly find people to play my game with minimal scheduling overhead.
What’s the main inspiration behind Sprocketforge? Which board games is it similar to? What kind of gamer would you recommend Sprocketforge to?
(Ananda) Sprocketforge arose from a need to solve a problem with a different game. In 2021, I was working on a card game called Weavers with an annoying upkeep problem: each turn, players needed to update as many as five different tracks at the same time by adding a cube to each one. Unfortunately, since I designed the game to have short turns, this created an unacceptable amount of tedious overhead. I was considering having circular rotating tracks to eliminate the need for cubes when I suddenly realized that if the circles were interlocked gears, I could also eliminate the need to rotate each one separately: the player could simply turn one gear, and the rest would follow. This idea did not make sense for Weavers, which is about magical combat, but it instead inspired an entirely new game.
(Jeremy) In terms of similarities, the ones that always come up are Tzolk’in and Gutenberg because, well, gears. We haven’t heard this one as much, but On Her Majesty’s Service also comes to mind due to the steampunk theme and rotating pieces. We think gamers who enjoy engine builders and resource management games will enjoy Sprocketforge, as well as people who like puzzles and optimizing their builds. Oh, and people who like fiddling with gears of course!
Have there been any major hiccups during development, and if so how were they overcome? How has playtesting helped in this area?
(Ananda) The most memorable issue was when we switched from asynchronous to synchronous gameplay. A previous version of the game was fully asynchronous: players did everything at the same time, and I had set up the recycling system so that each player had two exhaust stacks, one per neighbor, with different stages to avoid race conditions. Sophisticated Cerberus Games wanted to switch to turns for several reasons, so we tried it out. It seemed fine in internal playtesting, but it was agonizingly slow when I brought it to an outside group of game designers. We solved that problem by introducing the asynchronous follow system, which keeps players engaged in the game. Playtesting with new players is extremely important for this exact reason: experienced players are often blind to problems that can turn people away from your game for good.
(Jeremy) The biggest thing that comes to mind (besides what Ananda said) was trying to figure out how to manufacture the gears in a cost-effective manner. For the longest time the gears had stickers on them, which meant either the factory or the players would need to apply the stickers. We considered doing punchboard gears but worried they would wear out, plus they would require spindles. We considered printing directly on the gears, but that was too expensive. All of the above options also meant that we needed a gear for every variation of production symbols we wanted in the game.
The solution? Plastic gears with slots for punchboard inlays. This separated the production symbols from the gears, so we only needed as many gears as there were slots on the player boards. It also meant the production inlays could be double-sided, which allowed us to create the advanced mode of the game. This was a perfect example of iteration and collaboration that quite literally led to a game-changing outcome (pun intended).
Which is your favourite mechanic within the game?
(Ananda) I am incredibly proud of the passive trade (recycling) mechanic, where players can take waste mana from their neighbors. When it comes to interaction mechanics, I prefer cooperation to attacks, both because it is a better strategy in any game with more than two sides and because it leads to a greater likelihood of good feelings between players. But some players intensely dislike cooperating with anybody. What I like most about recycling is that the player's physical actions (taking something from another player while giving nothing tangible in return) frame it such that I consistently hear players refer to it as “stealing mana.” I also love mechanics that accomplish two different changes with the movement of a single piece, such as Spirit Island’s influence tracks or Eclipse’s population tracks. My second favorite mechanic is probably gear disenchantment.
(Jeremy) I am one of the players Ananda is referring to above My favorite part about recycling is that you can intentionally change the makeup of your exhaust based on your playstyle. If you want to be friendly you can keep a variety of mana in your exhaust to encourage your neighbors to take from you (which helps both sides). Alternatively, if you’re like me, you can intentionally only keep one type of mana in your exhaust to discourage other players from taking your exhaust. Even though this technically hurts you, it’s quite entertaining when your neighbor needs a certain type of mana and you don’t have any for them to take!
This is becoming a bit of a hot topic. What’s your thoughts on AI in game design? This doesn’t apply directly to your game as you have an artist with a distinct human style, but there are games out there which are heading to crowdfunding that seem to rely on it heavily. Is there room for AI in game design? Is there a limit to its acceptable use?
(Ananda) AI is alright in the early playtesting phase to create placeholder art. I didn’t use it for Sprocketforge because game-icons.net already had everything I needed, but games that require lots of unique detailed artwork to support their theme might not be able to get away with simple icons. But if you are past the stage of validating gameplay and are presenting the game to prospective buyers, you should not use AI art.
(Jeremy) We 100% agree with Ananda. We have anti-AI art clauses in our contracts and always hire human artists for our games. We do think text-based Gen AI (such as ChatGPT) can be useful for things like brainstorming names, but by no means should it be used to create an entire game (which has already been happening).
Sprocketforge is a competitive game. Was this borne out of the theme, or was it always your intention to go competitive over cooperative?
(Ananda) Co-operative games pose several unique challenges, requiring full support from theme and gameplay. The initial idea that players were running gear-driven factories suggested a capitalistic theme, which does not mesh well with cooperation. I did not consider a cooperative version at any point during the design process because the theme strongly suggested competition.
What do you play in your spare time between sessions?
(Ananda) I play many different games, most of them only once. Some of the board games that I have been returning to repeatedly in the last few years include Spirit Island, Carcassonne, and Blood on the Clocktower.
(Jeremy) Not as many games as I would like! Terraforming Mars, Survive: Escape From Atlantis, and Carcassonne are some staples but I’ve recently really been into Bonsai and CastleScape.
Which one game do you wish you'd designed yourself?
(Ananda) There are many games I wish I had designed myself. If I had to pick one, I would have to say Root. Back in college, I loved playing the Dune board game because of the detailed and dramatically different factions. But Dune is a very long and excessively merciless game, and I tried multiple times to create a lighter asymmetric game that could capture the same feeling of playing a completely different game than your opponents. I think there was one where players were different types of monsters (zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc.) fighting over the resource of human bodies/souls which were also controlled by a player. There was another one where some players were acolytes and others were different gods they were worshipping. I never came up with anything that felt quite right, and when I played Root, I realized it was exactly what I had been trying to do.
(Jeremy) This is a tough one since there are so many fantastic games out there. I’m going to take the easy way out and say Catan, not so much for the success but more so for what it did for the board game industry. For many people (myself included), that was the game that opened the door to a new type of game that I never knew existed. Had it not been for Catan, I may not be here talking to you today!
What advice would you give to other prospective designers? What advice would you give to yourself after a spot of time travelling?
(Ananda) To other designers, I would say that it is often more efficient to figure out what is not fun about your game and remove it than to come up with cool new mechanics. The most mundane and physical of issues, such as shuffling decks of cards or having to count tokens every turn, can cause surprising amounts of damage to the player's experience. To my past self, I would say to go to more events earlier to get to know more people, both designers and publishers.
(Jeremy) Don’t be afraid to get your game out there early! I see a lot of designers who want to have the game basically finalized before they start doing external playtests, which can cause them to get blindsided by an issue that they never saw since they were so close to the game. As Ananda said, going to events and networking is also essential. This industry is quite unique in the sense that we are all technically competitors but everyone is super nice and willing to help. People like Dave Beck, Gary Alaka, and the team at Leder Games (among many others) have been instrumental in helping us get off the ground as a fledgling publisher, and we hope to return the favor to others as we continue to learn and grow.
How has the support been from the board gaming community?
(Jeremy) We’re always amazed to see the support for and interest in The Stifling Dark (and, more recently, for Sprocketforge). I don’t think some people realize how much blood, sweat, and tears go into designing, developing, and publishing a board game, especially when you’re working a full-time day job at the same time. Having people come up to us at conventions to tell us how much they enjoyed the game or about a really cool thing that happened during their latest playthrough makes it all worth it!
How does it feel to finally launch?
(Ananda) Fantastic.
(Jeremy) I’ll agree with Ananda, but I’ll also add “nerve-wracking”. No matter how much you prepare for launch there’s always that doubt and uncertainty about how the campaign will perform, coupled with the fact that you wish you could’ve made one last tweak to one of the images on the page or changed the wording on one of your ads. The reality is that we’ve prepared as much as we can, and now it’s time to open the floodgates!
We'll finish on another vital question. Everyone knows the different mana types create different magic types - fire, water, earth, air. Which is your favourite and what would you do with it?
(Ananda) While flying would be cool, I would probably have to say earth. We live most of our lives on the ground, and the ability to reshape it at will would be extremely useful. You could design an extravagant castle to live in and then travel the world, raising it from the ground at night to sleep and returning it to the soil whenever you leave. Earth is also the easiest element to monetize, as you can both create valuable materials and perform useful labor easily with it. With earth, you have both wealth and the flexibility to fully enjoy it. It also offers more scope for creativity, as the objects you create are solid and permanent.
(Jeremy) I’m going to have to go with fire, not because I want to watch the world burn or anything like that but because it’s my favorite color! I’m trying to think of practical uses like Ananda had for earth but I have to say I’m falling short. I suppose I could do some cool party tricks!
Sprocketforge is live on Kickstarter right now, and is going great guns! Get involved here: Sprocketforge: A Gear-Turning Engine Builder by Sophisticated Cerberus Games — Kickstarter