Visions of Fawnalore: Bridging the Gap

When we first set out to design and make a game, there were a number of guiding principles we established. A lot of those principles came from a simple fact: the three of us brothers had very different levels of board gaming experience.

Chad, the youngest of us, is by far the most experienced board gamer. Matt, the oldest brother, considers himself an intermediate gamer (heavy rules can sometimes be a little overwhelming for me). And Adam, the middle brother, started this whole venture as mostly a “family night” board gamer.

It turned out that those differences gave us an advantage. They made one of our visions for Fawnalore very clear: Bring the excitement, strategy, and fun of heavy tabletop gaming to casual gamers and families. There are certainly others out there with a similar mission, and we appreciate any game designer contributing to that effort. But there is always room for more in this space!

This isn’t to say that heavy games are bad! Far from it. There is a time and place for all different types of games. But that is exactly why one of our goals with Fawnalore is to “Bridge the Gap.” Not only do we want inexperienced gamers to share in the joy of tabletop gaming, but we want to be able share it with them, and enjoy the game ourselves!

Our vision is to create a story-driven game (much more on the story in another post!) that players of different ages and experience levels can engage with, enjoy together, and, hopefully, build some great memories around.

The challenge, of course, is “How?” How do you take the immersion, strategic depth, and excitement that heavier tabletop games can provide and translate that into something approachable enough that almost anyone can learn it? How do you preserve meaningful choices and strategy without creating the daunting task of learning a mountain of rules and mechanics before you can even begin?

Maybe there isn’t a perfect answer, as the old adage likely applies: if you try to make everyone happy, you’ll make nobody happy.

We certainly aren’t bold enough to claim that we have developed the perfect solution. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t spent years trying! And through that process, we believe we’ve found an approach that is leaps and bounds in the right direction.

Our goal isn’t to eliminate depth. It’s to eliminate the barriers to experiencing it.

And that starts from the very moment the box is opened.

We’ve designed the unpacking and setup process to immediately pull you into the world of Fawnalore, and keep you immersed until you’re literally set up and playing the game.

One of the biggest hurdles with heavier games, especially for people who aren’t used to them, is simply playing the first time. Many of us know the scenario well. You buy a new game to play. Saturday night comes around. It’s 7:00 PM and you pull the game off the shelf. Then, by the time you’ve sorted all the pieces, figured out the setup, read the rules for yourself, and then, in turn, explained them to everyone else… well, sometimes the night is over before it ever really got started, and family game night has suddenly turned into family movie night (also great, but not when you really wanted to play a game).

Again, this isn’t to disparage any game out there. But it would be hard to argue that there isn’t a place for games that are a little less demanding to get started.

With Fawnalore, we don’t want you to have to learn the game and then start playing. We want learning the game to be part of experiencing it and playing it.

From the way the box is unpacked, to video tutorials everyone can watch at the same time, to the first campaign teaching you how to play, to complexity being layered in as further releases come out, players are introduced to rules and mechanics as they actually need them. Instead of trying to memorize everything Fawnalore can throw at you before taking your first turn, our goal is to get you into the world as quickly as possible and teach you along the way.

In designing all of this, we worked diligently within the confines of what we call the L.E.S.L.I.E. Principle:

L — Learnable

E — Easy to Teach

S — Streamlined

L — Low Barrier to Play

I — Intuitive

E — Engaging

For context, Leslie is my spouse—and she is famously NOT a hardcore gamer. Complex rules, thick instruction booklets, and lengthy explanations can turn her off to a game immediately. And yes, the acronym might be a little bit of a stretch.

BUT… It gave us a useful tool  to shape the way to thought about our game design. Every rule and mechanic had to pass a basic test:

“Is the cost of this added complexity worth the amount of engagement and fun it brings to the table?”

“Does it raise the barrier to playing beyond what is reasonable for the average family?

“Will it give seasoned gamers something interesting to think about while avoiding leaving beginners frustrated and lost?”

“Is it intuitive enough that younger or inexperienced players can follow along without feeling intimidated?”

These are the kinds of questions we asked ourselves ad nauseam throughout the development of Fawnalore.

And sometimes the answer meant simplifying something we really liked. Sometimes it meant removing a mechanic entirely, or, rethinking it to a point that it no longer resembled the original idea. Other times it meant designing a timeline of complexity throughout the campaign, so players don’t have to understand everything all at once.

The goal is to make a game where the complexity isn’t absent, but rather imperceptible, and doesn’t stand in the way of playing your favorite game with non-gamers!

We definitely believe we’re on the right track, and we’re currently in the process of sending Fawnalore to play testers around the country to see if we’ve actually executed these principles. I’m sure there’s more tuning to be done. But, that is part of the fun of this whole process.

With their feedback, we’ll continue to refine the experience until Fawnalore can truly help in the effort to “bridge the gap” and bring a game to the tabletops of seasoned, casual, and family gamers alike!

As always, thank you so much for your support. This is a dream in the making, and we cannot WAIT to make it a reality for you guys!

With much excitement,

Bunsun Studios