Clank! Legacy 2: Designer Q&A Part II

We’ve been fielding questions over on Board Game Geek for the past week, and are excited to dig into more of the details of just how the game works and what you can expect. But be warned:

There are spoilers below!

Q: With how much legacy/story content was jammed into the first box, did you approach Legacy 2 with the goal of outdoing yourself or to provide a similar experience?

Jay: We expected to provide a similar experience, but with the added character-specific content there’s more story for each player to enjoy.

Q: What lessons learned from Clank! Legacy 1 and Catacombs have been incorporated into this design?

Andy: You’ll see a few notable changes to how the story is laid out, and some of that is due to what we saw in the first game. For one thing, wherever possible, Darkest Magic‘s contracts have their resolution right on the back of the card, so you don’t even have to pick up the book. Hopefully this will help folks save some time at the table.

Also, the original story didn’t always distribute itself very evenly among all the players, depending how much each person wanted to invest in revealing it. Now each player gets their own story mission every game, so there will always be beats for everyone to unlock.

Q: Are you buffing quest rewards and overall exploration vs just rushing to grab artifacts and leave?

Jay: Contracts are worth more points in CLAI2. It’s important that players are sufficiently rewarded for doing the fun thing.

Paul: I thought the rewards in CLAI1 were quite good! It was important in the first game that players would feel sufficiently rewarded for doing the fun thing, too. But there’s also a balance to be struck. You don’t want the other players to feel like they don’t have a chance because they couldn’t trigger a story event.

Q: Is it true that a game designer never stops tweaking their game? Are you disappointed if you try something and during playtest it just doesn’t work, if so, any examples? How hard was it to design a new game and try to be unique so it’s not just a re-theme?

Jay: You never stop tweaking your game, until it’s printed. And sometimes even then.

You try things all the time, mostly with the hope that they’ll work, but low expectations. At this point, I’m only disappointed when I try a high-confidence fix to a persistent problem and it still fails.
Designing a game of this size is very hard, but making this game unique from the original was no problem at all. One different choice near the design’s core ripples out to change everything else.

Andy: Sometimes a card or mechanic doesn’t quite land; that’s just part of the job, and you learn to roll with it pretty easily. But finding out that a joke you wrote just isn’t funny? Now that’s disappointing.

Q: How much input did Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade have in the original and this one?

Andy: The gameplay decisions – what the cards do and how the board is laid out, where you have to go to fulfill X and what you get for it – comes from us. The P.A. guys make sure that these mechanics we create feel like part of Acq Inc. You can find their direct contributions in several places – the Book of Secrets, the box art, even card flavor text – but their impact is all over the place. It’s a collaboration, but it’s only possible because this world is such a great playground.

Q: Are there any thoughts for solo-ability for this game, or is that just too much to try and balance?

Jay: The kinds of mechanics that lead to good solo stories are very different from the kinds that lead to good group stories. It’s better to provide the best experience for one audience than to provide a mediocre experience for two.

Q: With the success of the tiles in Catacombs, what led you to not utilize tiles in this game but instead the giant board again?

Andy: Catacombs brings a ton of variety to the table, but that means it’s not very predictable — either for us or for players! We want players to invest and participate in their own storylines, and it helps a lot to know where you’re going and what you’re expecting to find there. While you certainly can do a legacy game with Catacombs’ level of unpredictability, it doesn’t really fit with the stories we’re telling…this time.

Q: After the game ends, can you play with the characters in the other Clank! maps?

Jay: There are no map icons the characters reference. You can play them with other Clank! maps. You will likely find them stronger than you’re used to, though, thanks to the upgrade paths for their starting cards.

Q: Aside from story narration as a stretch goal, has anything else been done to help keep players engaged with the story when it interrupts gameplay?

Jay: The story this time is woven more tightly around the player characters, allowing you to follow (and influence) their personal growth, as well as uncover meaningful connections between your characters and the world.

Q: We loved the first Clank! Legacy with 3 players. Are 3 players also fine for this one or do you especially recommend 4 players as the characters are now asymmetrical?

Jay: Three is a great number for Darkest Magic. We’ve worked hard to make sure all the player counts work very well, but 3 has the advantage of being in the middle.

Q: Can you please elaborate more on cooperative mode and how it compares/works with the clank system?

Jay: Spoilers! There are a variety of objectives across the cooperative games, often more than one at a time. Sometimes you care about the group’s total score. Sometimes you mostly only care about vanquishing the Boss.

Andy: While the co-op experience will feel very different, we made sure that it’s still asking many of the same questions as a usual Clank! game. If something is good in a normal game, like grabbing a juicy artifact or stacking up gold for market items, it’ll still be good. There will just be some other new things to juggle, too.

Q: What changes have been made in Clank! Legacy 2 to facilitate more cooperative gameplay compared to Clank! Legacy?

Jay: The way the Franchise Reputation track works facilitates more cooperation across the board, and the campaign features multiple games that are purely cooperative.

Paul: The first playtests of some of the fully cooperative scenarios were a little lackluster. I suggested that we should replace the normal Adventure deck with a separate “Battle deck.” This allowed us to optimize gameplay in new ways for the cooperative scenarios.

Q: Are there any major changes to core game mechanics that will make bosses a threat even if cards aren’t purchased from the Market Row?

Jay: I don’t think we’re spoiling the details at this point, but the cooperative games give players some very good reasons to acquire cards from the Adventure Row!

Q: Are there other ways of moving or new obstacles on the map?

Jay: There’s a new fast travel mechanic that’s a little more involved than CLAI2’s Stagecoaches. And there’s another way of moving that’s totally different from anything you’ve seen in Clank! before.

Q: How does the length of play in this part 2 compare to part 1? Is the new game of comparable size and contents?

Jay: Although we’re aiming to fit everything in the same sized box, there’s definitely more stuff in CLAI2, especially more cards. It’s a 12-game campaign.

Q: Will the second legacy game have stickers that need to be put on the game board?

Jay: You will apply stickers to the game board. We are making efforts to make them easier to place.

Q: What’s next?

Paul: Thank you to everyone who contributed questions! We’ve got more Clank! Legacy 2: Acquisitions Incorporated – Darkest Magic on the way as we take a closer look at the Bosses waiting for you, and the new Co-Op mechanics!

As always, thanks for your support, and thanks for backing Clank! Legacy 2!