by Sami Laakso

[heading]Delving back to Galzyr[/heading]

Creating Lands of Galzyr was a huge effort. Designing the engine was one thing, but making the game’s open world work took years of effort crafting the necessary stories. Despite the game being a complete, intricate package, we still made sure it could be expanded later if such a time ever came. And that time is now!

We couldn’t jump into making the expansion right away, even if we wanted to. We needed a break to work on other things for a bit, but more importantly we wanted to give the players a chance to experience the game and the stories. Only then could we have a better idea of what we and the players want from the expansion. Let’s see where we ended up.

Lands of Galzyr the base game ready to be explored!

[heading]Determining the scope[/heading]
One of the very first questions was the scope the expansion should have in terms of content and components. During the base game’s development, we had rough plans to make a single expansion of 240 cards (compared to 480 in the base game) and 2 new adventurers (compared to four in the base game). Those plans changed quickly when we started actually working on the expansion, however.

Adding exactly two new adventurers in total was a figure pretty much set in stone. Those two were already featured in the base game’s artwork, it would round out the game’s skill system nicely (each adventurer representing one of the 6 skills), and it’s the number the box and certain game mechanics can accommodate. However, we found out that the necessary content to add both of them would take up roughly 120 cards, half of the planned budget. That wouldn’t have left enough room for other content we wanted to include.

The upcoming adventurers, Noko & Umi and Yamej
So we decided to go bigger, which left us with another choice to make: make one huge expansion or make two smaller ones. We settled on the latter option and a plan of creating two, 240-card expansions, both with one new adventurer and a ton of other content. The base game’s box has just enough room for all of this, even sleeved. The upsides are clear. We can develop the first expansion faster, the players get to play it faster, and we can keep the monetary barrier to entry lower. It just takes some more effort on our part to make sure all combinations of the base game and expansions integrate nicely and provide a good experience. But that was an effort we were glad to spend for the other benefits in this approach.

[heading]Seeking and Receiving Feedback[/heading]
Dreams and Mysteries being a straight-up expansion, we wanted to make sure it would serve its audience, the fans of Lands of Galzyr. So, we sought out a lot of feedback, from our own Discord server, comments here on BGG, reviews, etcetera. Even more importantly, we created a survey where we asked direct feedback from players.

One additional, unique avenue for data was the game’s digital storybook. Normally, you don’t get to know how many times a game has been played or what decisions players made while playing. However, with the game storybook being digital, we’ve been receiving some gameplay information from those who have not disabled sharing their gameplay data. With this data, we can identify which scenes have been played the most and the least, which decisions players have made during the stories, and more. For example, we could introduce more variety to the most commonly played scenes to lessen repetition.

Player feedback: what players would like to see in the expansion
The survey received over 400 responses. We asked players to rank different kinds of content based on how much they wanted more of it. We also asked for general feedback on what they wanted or didn’t want to see in the expansion. Overall, it gave us a good idea of what people wanted from the expansion.

The main takeaway for us was that players wanted more long-form content. More specifically, a lot of people asked for a bigger hook or reason to continue playing, a greater sense of purpose you could say. Some players also wished to gain more power through mechanical character progression, but that would go against the game’s core design. Still, we sought to address that feedback in other ways.

On the other hand, players generally did not hunger for new game mechanisms, as the level of mechanical depth seemed to have hit its mark for a story-driven game for many. The responders generally loved the game and just wanted more story content.

Player feedback: general feedback organised based on type
[heading]Dreams and Mysteries[/heading]
After thoroughly going through the feedback, we were ready to start designing and creating the expansion content. There are four aspects I’ll highlight in this design diary, and how I think they improve the experience without compromising the game’s identity.

As mentioned earlier, the expansion includes a new adventurer. While it technically makes it possible to play with five players at once, it more importantly gives one more character and save slot to allow more players to jump in and out between sessions. Smaller groups likely also enjoy an alternative character and storyline to experience, perhaps when the mood for mischief strikes.

The expansion box is stuffed full of content
Perhaps the biggest new addition is the extended personal stories for all adventurers. We wanted to keep them short in the base game so they would serve as an introduction, not railroad the player and dominate the experience for a long time. That would have taken away from the open-world feel of the game. Still, a lot of people wanted more from them, so we’ll now serve longer stories that are broken up into multiple games. It’s a personal goal to work towards, for both the player and the adventurer they’re playing.

Tied to the extended stories are the new adventurer special abilities. These are alternatives to the existing special abilities, since significant power increases are off the table, but they do still spice up the experience and feel like rewarding character growth during the personal stories.

Noko & Umi are ready to join the adventures
The last thing is a new grand storyline. While the base game already has one large over-arching story, players clearly wanted more. This one also unravels slowly, and the players can influence it a lot. We hope these things together makes it even more fulfilling to come back to Galzyr time and time again.

[heading]Conclusion[/heading]
Those were our plans for the first expansion and how we arrived there. I believe we have been able to address the feedback and make the game even better for those who already enjoyed it. In the end, the total amount of stories in the storybook grew from the base game’s roughly 700,000 words to well over one million words. That’s pretty crazy!

The expansion is now available at our online store and selected retailers.

What are some of your absolute favourite expansions and why?

– Sami Laakso