January 1, 2015

The Time:  7:00 AM

The Place:  Redmond, Washington

Ray Wehrs, President of Calliope Games, is out jogging when he’s struck with a great idea!  Why not bring together some of the world’s greatest tabletop game designers and have them each design a family-style, gateway game.  These “Titans of the Gaming World” would create what we now know as the “Titan Series” of Games.

Ray decided right then to call James Ernest to tell him about the idea and enlist him in the project.

Ray: “James.  It’s Ray.  I’ve got a great idea for a series of games.”

James: “Ray, do you realize that it’s 7 o'clock... in the morning... on New Year’s Day?”

Ray: “No. I didn’t.”

They went on to discuss the project.  James decided that Ray was either completely mad or a genius, but wanted to be involved in the project.  He worked on both the video production for the project and a design for one of the games.  Paul Peterson (Running With the Bulls) was the next designer to come onboard.  He introduced Richard Garfield (Hive Mind) to the team and the list of designers grew from there.

Games for the series would need to fit the Calliope brand:

James Ernest first started working on a game about a train bringing families to a western town. “I find good stories (and themes) to be much more compelling than game mechanics. I want to be gripped by a theme before I bother to learn the rules. Whether that's based on a good story, a set of interesting characters, or just a "thing I want to do," like building a town, I still would rather make decisions based on a concept I already understand, rather than learning a set of rules in a vacuum and then navigating them to victory.”

Once he had an idea of the story, he moved on to the mechanics. “I generally like shorter and simpler games, but this was also part of the design brief. Calliope wanted the Titan Series to be "gateway" games, which I interpret to mean easy to teach, and easy for young players and new gamers to comprehend. A lot of the mechanics that wound up in Capital City are introductory-level versions of stuff you'll find in a lot of meatier games.  In the end, the rules are just enough to make the game run. I like simple rules because they give players the chance to make interesting decisions as quickly as possible.”

Once the game design was turned in, Ray and Andrew Hepworth (Art Director, Calliope Games) began looking for an illustrator.  They wanted an artist that could produce an “Old West” series of vintage illustrations, but also equally whimsical.  They spent some time on DeviantArt.com and came across the work of Brian Bowes (http://brianbowesillustration.com/).

According to Andrew, “Finding an artist is never easy, but from the initial contact Brian felt like a good fit for Capital City. His work had charm, quirkiness, and a whole lot of fun running through it. Just as importantly, he was able to bring his own ideas to the table and turn a brief (sometimes, I must admit, a somewhat fluid brief!) into appropriate illustrative imagery. On this project I occasionally felt a little out of my depth being a Scot working on a very American-centric game, but drafting in a Californian-based artist helped immensely. Brian was able to inject some local authenticity into the images for both characters and buildings, which gave some true depth to the menagerie that parades through Capital City.”

In Capital City, 3-6 players have four rounds, represented by the seasons of the year, to expand their Wild West town!  In each round they’ll first bid for player Priority order.  Next, in Priority order, they’ll choose Character cards from the train to come to their town.  Each Character belongs to a family.  Third, again in Priority order, they’ll purchase Building cards to form Main Street.  Finally, in reverse Priority order, players assign Characters to their Buildings.  As Buildings activate, they produce either Dollars or Victory Points.  As Characters are assigned to Buildings, other members of the Character’s family will also activate their Buildings, even if they’re in another player’s city block.  At the end of four seasons, the player with the most Victory Points wins and is declared Mayor of Capital City!

Capital City plays in under 40-minutes and, with only four rounds of play, makes every decision a critical one.  Capital City is perfect for both new and experienced players, and will be a sure-fire hit with your family or gaming group.