Mythwind - an Innovation on Campaign Games
It is always exciting to see designers pushing the bounds of what we can do with a board game.
Campaign game mechanics have existed for some time – that is games with a memory - where each session of gameplay is impacted by prior games.
Warhammer Siege
Dungeons & Dragons is maybe the prototypical example, with characters evolving over months and years long campaigns. Tabletop wargames often have campaign modes (I have fond memories of playing Warhammer Siege in the late 1990s). Even some early formats of Magic the Gathering had campaign style mechanics.
With Risk Legacy (2011) and Pandemic Legacy (2015), designer Rob Daviau iterated on the idea of a campaign game and introduced the concept of a legacy board game. That is a game is a game that is permanently altered through gameplay. Components are marked, destroyed, and the gameplay evolves along an irreversible course.
While legacy type mechanics existed in the broader sphere of gaming (D&D, video games, etc), Rob is credited with bringing the specific innovation to board gaming.
Brendan McCaskell’s Mythwind looks to be pushing the envelope even farther.
Mythwind
Mythwind (now on Kickstarter) is a cooperative open ended campaign style board game full of magic, faeries, and farming. There’s a lot to love about the game including beautiful art, and lovely miniatures. But what really makes it stand out is that the game never really ends.
Most campaign games and especially campaign board games are iterative. That is, you play a game, and then another game (just with some changes). But it is episodic – and each playthrough is both repetition of and evolution on prior games.
Mythwind throws the idea of a game as a unit out the window. Instead of playing one game, and then another game, in Mythwind that first game never really ends – you just pause it and pick back up where you left off.
It’s reminiscent of open world video games like Eve Online, World of Warcraft, or even something like SimCity.
What makes this possible is how the designers tackled the problem of game memory.
Mythwind Component Tray
They created component trays that “save” your character from session to session. So, when you’re done playing, you can just pack it up, and then like loading back up a video-game you can pick right back up where you left off.
It is weird, it is innovative, and at the end of the day, it’s kind of awesome. So, check it out.
What video game, sports or RPG mechanics would you like to see ported into the world of board games?
