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This designer diary was co-written by the three authors — Mathieu Bossu, Thomas Cariate, and Timothée Decroix — and translated from French by Nathan Morse. Originally published in French on TricTrac.
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Only Believe What YouSeeMap...
Writing a designer diary is a singular exercise. It's not that easy to recall how events unfolded and to present simply the questions and decisions that led to the published game. However, we will try to take you on a journey with us through the creative process for our game Maps of Misterra, which was released in January 2024 by Sit Down! and which is also playable on Board Game Arena.
Adjust your backpack, and let's go!
Before Setting Out
The project was born out of a simple desire to create a game together. Mathieu and Thomas were already creating prototypes with their four hands. We met regularly with Timothée on social networks and at the Cannes Festival of Games, particularly during the famous "nights off", that is, evenings when game designers can play their prototypes with the public. We were really in a flow when one of the three of us ended up saying the sentence that started it all: "We should make a game together." This was at Cannes in February 2021.:strip_icc()/pic8107564.jpg)
Cannes Festival of Games 2023: After two years of pandemic and entirely remote game development, our heroes — from left, Thomas, Timothée, and Mathieu — finally meet again, where it all began (Image: Clélie)
We needed to find somewhere to start this venture, and as it turns out, all three of us share a fancy for maps. Such fascinating objects, aren't they? Maps are often magnificent, placing an entire world in your field of view. A map promises extraordinary voyages; it's a two-dimensional story box, which looks like it was designed for a board game. True to the theme, it's decided: The game will be about cartography.
Scouting the Land
Cartography, however, is already well represented in board games. Often the map mostly provides support for exploration. In the rarest of games, in which players actually draw a map, they seem to do so with complete freedom, with no need to represent any existing reality. They arguably create a world rather than a map.
And this was the first hurdle we encountered. The first few versions of Maps of Misterra revolved around successive expeditions to discover a new world. In practice, this meant each player moved their expedition on a common board that was gradually constructed from tiles. It was an interesting way to re-transcribe the great scientific and cartographical expeditions of the 17th and 18th centuries — but the result was an exploration game, not a game dedicated to cartography.
All Over the Map
Very quickly, we sought to integrate aspects of cartography into the game mechanisms. One of the fascinating parts of this discipline? Cartographical errors! Whether they arise from the insurmountable imprecision of such an exercise or are motivated by...political interests.:strip_icc()/pic8107569.jpg)
William Blaeu's 1635 map pinpoints El Dorado in the Guiana Plateau, near a legendary "Lake Parime", inspired by Gaspar de Carvajal (public domain) — but what is this immense lake in the middle of the Amazon that we find on most 17th century maps? Read its story here (article in French; sources in English)
We try to preserve this aspect of cartography by allowing players to cover tiles to represent the progressive evolution of knowledge of both the terrain and of the existence of cartographical errors. But this isn't enough. The cartographical theme seems merely a pretext in an exploration game. This version is stagnating, and we are not satisfied with the direction we've taken.
Observation is required. To portray mapping, we need two spaces: a territory (the real one) and its depiction (the map). In Maps of Misterra, we will thus have a central board on which the terrain of the island materializes, and a parchment board on which we draw a map of the island.
This new dimension seems original and innovative enough to us to continue experimenting. We're starting from scratch — or nearly so — but with a stronger concept!
The Truth Is Out There
With each player playing a cartographer, each will need their own parchment board on which they sketch their own map of the island during the game. The centerpiece is a common board on which the terrain of the island — or more precisely, our common understanding of it — is revealed as our expeditions explore it.:strip_icc()/pic8107571.jpg)
Photograph of the prototype, with the island board in the middle and the parchment boards where each player draws their own map
In practice, on your own map, you do whatever you want. The players have domino cards at their disposal that depict two terrain spaces, which they place however they wish on their parchment board, without necessarily having to respect reality. Not all cartographers are competent, and few are honest. You can even superimpose these sketch cards atop each other to revise a previous decision. Seriously, who can say that they've never confused a lagoon with a jungle?:strip_icc()/pic8107574.jpg)
The sketch cards to "draw" your own map on your parchment board, two spaces at a time
When a location has been mapped, we then adjust our common knowledge of the island, showing the newly mapped terrain on the central board.
The parchment board is the player's domain. No one can tell you what to "draw". On the central board, however, it's a different story. There you will have to interact and contend with others.
All three of us have this idea of seeing the cartographer travel around the island to report what's there. We like this idea of depicting ancient scientific expeditions. Each player will therefore have their own pawn that they move each turn, the position of which defines the spaces "within sight" that can be mapped right now.
From there, and from the first playtest, the foundations of the game were laid: This basic concept works and transcribes everything we wanted to say on the theme of cartography...but perhaps this merits a little further explanation.
The Map Is Not the Territory
At the end of a game, everyone's personal maps will be very different and not necessarily representative of the isle of Misterra, even though it's visible to everyone in the middle of the table. This can be surprising or even a little destabilizing.
Yet this is a studied and recognized dimension of cartography. To diagram the geography of a place, a cartographer must make choices about simplification, deciding how best to depict reality. A map is also intended for a particular use: to help with navigation, to prepare for war or a project, to depict a specific scientific or economic dimension, etc. Did we mention that maps are fascinating objects? So, a cartographer will make choices of representation best suited to this desired use. For the same space, there are myriad maps, all different.
The famous saying of the philosopher Alfred Korzybski sums it up: "The map is not the territory." Or to put it another way: Consulting a map gives us only a partial and subjective version of reality. Don't believe everything you are told.
Because in this game, the island has no pre-existing reality, we even further push the concept that cartographers express their own opinion in their maps, and thus influence the public. Because we learn about the location via our map, we are at the mercy of what the cartographers tell us. If a road is drawn here or a border there, we will go here and stop there. Such power!
The central board of Maps of Misterra would be better understood as the current best knowledge of the relief of the island, the result of what the player-cartographers proclaim at this stage. We see a steppe there because several cartographers have reported it so.
What a Relief
We quickly decided to add relief to this basic concept. The cartographers move through a territory composed of different types of terrain. For this isle to have a soul and not simply be a flat array of color swatches, the terrain must have some effects.
Mountain is the first relief that comes to mind...followed by a revelation: "Atop a mountain, one can see further, so one can also map further." Steppes are flat and conducive to movement, a lagoon should let you fish a card from the deck and make the river flow. Jungle — [shudder] — jungle is so dense as to obscure your view and render mapping impossible.
The jungle effect is the only one that is mandatory and negative. This strengthens interaction and forces sacrifices. It is also a way to give a veritable geography to a square of merely 5 spaces by 5 spaces. Moving into a jungle space causes you to lose the crucial mapping action, and thus generally forces you to choose another path — but if you really need to take the shortest path, it is possible to cross it to reach a part of the island not yet explored. You can also weaponize your pen by adding jungles to your map where they will hinder your opponents.
A certain three game designers may be so perverse as to place jungles on the board as soon as the game is set up...
Moving Mountains
In Maps of Misterra, the terrain of the isle is not predefined. The players' actions reveal its relief as the game progresses.
To add a little interaction and indecision, we imagined two states of knowledge about the terrain: the "hazy" phase of terrain tiles revealed with the first observation, and the "confirmed" phase from the second identical observation. But note: If another observation identifies the terrain as something else, we replace the hazy terrain with a hazy version of the new type, and so on.
If one accepts that the central board represents the common knowledge we have of the island, this rule makes it possible to fairly faithfully illustrate the evolution of scientific knowledge in which hypotheses are refuted or confirmed by successive observations.
In play, this provokes an aggressive rush to "observe" the terrain to one's own advantage. This principle also has the advantage of gradually locking down the island board as we approach the end of the game.:strip_icc()/pic8107576.jpg)
"Knowledge dispels the haze of ignorance", excited designers...
During evening playtests, we start catching players having fun contradicting each other's findings: "You clearly didn't get enough sleep: It's not a jungle here; it's a mountain!" and so on. We're onto something.
Points of Interest
"But how do I win?" you're probably asking by now.
To offer heartbreaking choices to the players, we came up with two conflicting sources of prestige points — a classic principle of game design.
On your personal parchment board, you must create patterns according to the hypothesis cards you received at the beginning of the game. Thematically, these are the cartographic objectives your sponsors have imposed upon you and expect you to confirm, even if it means diverging from what you see in the land. This is our representation, in the game, of the varied applications for maps that we discussed before, as well as the rivalries between the scientific societies of the great powers who finance expeditions to verify their theories.:strip_icc()/pic8115422.jpg)
This fascinating book from 2018 recounts the true story of a scientific expedition sent to the equator by France to determine whether, as Newton [rightly] supposed, the earth is bulging at the equator and flattened at the poles, or whether it's flattened at the equator, as Cassini from France then supposed, based on the cosmological theories of Descartes.
These hypotheses need to be respected only on your own parchment board. There is no need to complete them on the main board, and players often mistakenly think this is the case in their first game. The graphic design tries to remind you of this by using a parchment background for the hypothesis cards, and the terrain being depicted as it is on the sketch cards — but we are so accustomed to thinking of maps as faithful representations that a second play is sometimes necessary to get this acceptable disconnect clearly in mind.:strip_icc()/pic8107577.jpg)
The hypothesis cards, or the suppositions made by the sponsors of your expedition before your departure
On the other hand, you must also ensure that your map is not too far from the common understanding of the island's terrain because your reputation as a cartographer is at stake! Thus, you also gain prestige points for the fidelity of your map to the known relief of the island at the end of the game.
It's up to you to pursue your personal objectives without straying too far from the reality of the terrain. For those who want still more recognition for their cartographic efforts, we have included an expert mode that further rewards fidelity of the map to the territory.
Mine!
Each turn, players map and trace and walk the tightrope, choosing their balance between these two sources of point...yet we felt that we were lacking an option for turns that get away from this main action to spice up the adventure a bit and to offer some excitement.
After trial and error, we added a new alternative action and a new source of points: claims. Thematically, planting your expedition's flag atop a previously unsurveyed mountain is amazing! This adds a dose of interaction and requires you to monitor your opponent's movements on the central board a little more closely. It also offers a strategic axis that's complementary to the two main sources of points.
Some people may also note the colonial dimension of grand scientific expeditions and the strongly political aspect of territorial control implied by cartography.
Almost There...
However, there are a few loose ends to tie up.
Sometimes in a first game, players will contradict one another over and over again in the same part of the island. When this happens, the game state doesn't move toward resolution, so we need to encourage game progression and limit the maximum duration.
Rather than encouraging advancing (we three designers are a little twisted), we would prefer to discourage standing still. At the end of the game, you lose prestige points if your personal map is incomplete.
To constrain the game to a reasonable number of turns, we also introduce a third endgame trigger that's more artificial, but necessary: exhausting the sketch card deck. Some clever calculations guarantee that this condition is triggered without any player getting a disadvantage.
You Have Reached Your Destination
From an evening playtest via Tabletop Simulator to a brainstorming session, to cutting out the prototype, to clever calculations — mountain by mountain or steppe by steppe, if you will — it took us a year to arrive at the quasi-final version of Maps of Misterra. We presented it to several publishers, and the game won over the Sit Down! team, who would do a fantastic job (beyond our expectations!) of materially and graphically staging the game, then getting it to your home.:strip_icc()/pic8107578.jpg)
The Maps of Misterra box is full of promise, isn't it?
Also, thanks to the entire team, notably Stanislas Puech for the illustrations, Anthony Moulins for the graphic design, Michaël Derobertmasure for the development, Marie Ooms for the artistic direction, Sophie Troye for the communication, and Didier Delhez for managing the project. You have all made this dream come true.
We thank you, as well, for reading this. Enjoy playing Maps of Misterra, and remember, only believe what you map!:strip_icc()/pic8107579.jpg)
Four cartographers, ready to sink their teeth into an adventure
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