Designer diary: The White Castle: Matcha
By Shey & Isra
We delivered the final files for The White Castle to our editor David Esbrí in June 2022, almost at the same time that The Red Cathedral: Contractors expansion was released, and although we didn't know if it was going to do well or badly in sales, we decided that if we had already convinced Devir to publish an expansion for the first game, why not convince them a second time?
We wrote down some ideas on a sheet of paper and had a meeting in October 2022, during the Essen fair. At Devir they basically told us “Well, well, don't get so excited, you keep these ideas, and we'll see, the game hasn't even come out yet.” And they were basically right. What if The White Castle failed in sales? So we forgot about designing anything and left all those ideas stored away half-developed in a safe place.
Shortly after the Essen fair in 2023, David suddenly asked us: How are you doing with the expansion? Have you finished it yet? And of course, we panicked and started working at full speed. We had nothing done! The goal, therefore, was to have it with us for next year's fair.
One of the things we enjoyed most during the development of The White Castle was working with Joan Guardiet, our illustrator. So, we asked him: "What did you enjoy most about painting the base game?" And he told us that the whole part of the seasons, as well as drawing the different kimonos and characters that are scattered around the castle, was what left him most eager to continue developing.
We started thinking about the theme of the expansion. Something that Joan would enjoy drawing and have fun with. And that's when we came up with the idea of incorporating the tea ceremony. It had everything we needed for the mechanics we had in mind. A new type of clan member, a place to put it, and enough elements to be able to adapt it to the game.
One of the great things about designing an expansion after the game has been released is that you can gather all the feedback and figure out what the audience likes the most, and play it up, and what they like the least, and play it down.
So, after a lot of thinking we came up with the following:
● The 3 rounds.
● When you can do combos, the game is amazing.
● The lamp, being a key element of the game, sometimes goes unnoticed.
● The heron track.
The famous 3 rounds
One of the things that has been commented in reviews is that although 3 rounds is a perfect length to leave you wanting more, a 4th round where you can exploit the engine would not be bad.
The reality is that a fourth round, in the current state of the game, is counterproductive for two reasons:
- The gardeners would activate a third time and this would unbalance them with respect to the other two clan members and they would no longer be in harmony.
- Due to the high variability of the setup, if there is a good combination of actions, added to the skill of the players, it is more than likely that of those 3 extra turns, you will have 2 or even all 3 left. Nobody wants to be in a board game thinking "let's see what I do now because I've already done everything."
But at the end of the day, we designed for the public and a large majority demanded a fourth round. And this is where the fourth bridge comes in.
With a fourth bridge we would have one more set of dice in the game, but what to do? Keep the rule of taking three turns? How do you keep track of that if not with a pawn that is a pain to move every time it is the starting player's turn? So, we opted to apply the same math that applies in the base game. If there are 3 bridges, you take 3 turns and there will be 3 dice left. Well, with 4 bridges, 4 turns, 4 dice. Yes, it is one more round but diluted in the 3 existing ones.
Of course, if we give you one more turn per round, we will have to give you more things to do!
More combos, more fun
Due to the variability of the setup (how the cards and tiles come out), the game can be very variable, chaining together great turns. But at the same time, it will depend a lot on the skill of the players. Let's be honest, although finding the only possible combo is satisfying, it's cooler when you have more possibilities.
So we decided to add a dice placement area that will always combine. After many tests and crazy combinations of cards and dice, we decided to "simulate" the most optimal situation of the first floor of the castle, which is when two dice colors match and one of them coincides with a core action of placing a clan member.
Since we weren't going to add dice tiles, like the ones set for the colors in the castle (it would make the central situation of the castle much more chaotic and prone to generating analysis paralysis), the most logical option was to leave it open to any color, so we wouldn't force the players to always have to use the dice from the new bridge.
Boost the lamp
Once you become an expert player of The White Castle, you understand the potential that the lamp has in the game, and you need to take dice from the left side of the bridge to activate it as much as possible. The only 'but' is that it can take a while to start up to unleash its full potential.
To enhance this, all the new cards in the new area of the board can be obtained from the Geishas in the same way as they are obtained in the castle, except that they go directly to your lamp! In addition, they are more varied.
This had to be directly linked to the new action of the game, since the only way to obtain cards should be by progressing in the game. So, since we started from that premise, the new clan member would follow a philosophy similar to that of the courtiers of the castle.
The heron track
We know that the track gets long if you don't use it thoroughly during the game (we swear that during the entire testing of The White Castle, we frequently reached the end and sometimes it felt short).
Now, by combining with the new area and adding more cards that provide heron steps, it is easier (if you choose that strategy) to reach juicy scores on the track.
With all these premises taken care of, we presented a prototype to the Devir creative team, with David Esbrí, Joan Guardiet, Samu from MeepleFoundry and Benja. Probably the presentation of a prototype with the least development that we have ever prepared but the one we have most enjoyed seeing.
To give you an idea of how short on time we were, the premise was “Don’t pay attention to that blue thing, it will end up being a pond or something you can play with.”
And it was wonderful to see them play a few turns without the game falling apart. After a while of playing, they stopped and the four of them started planning what the production design was going to be like.
The board extension had to go underneath to integrate the bridge and not to the side as we had thought. Since we are introducing a new clan member, a new resource and a new line of dice, better than a personal board extension, it was a new personal board with everything integrated.
And since we were going to have a completely new personal board, why not change the bonuses of the personal domain action?
And of course, since the tea ceremony involves preparing matcha tea, we already had the name of the expansion, and that purple bridge and dice that we had made would turn green to match the name.
We thought a lot about whether to have gardens under the green bridge or how to tackle that part. After all, if you add 2 more gardener spaces, but not more gardeners, you dilute the effect they have and make it easier to achieve and therefore more boring. So in the end we decided to put the pond underneath, which would act as a well/garden depending on what the players wanted and only the Geishas could approach the viewing platform.
Also, thanks to having to think so much about this issue, it occurred to us that since the possible action at the viewing platform was variable and we had to design many to make it very variable… Why not add it to the personal board as a single action since we have a lot of them? That's how the variable action was born in the Geisha row on the personal board.
With all this and adding more of all types of cards and training camps, we already had the expansion ready.
After many intense tests, both physically and on Tabletop Simulator, we would like to once again thank our testers for their enthusiasm and encouragement, without which we would not have made it in time.
We hope you enjoy this expansion as much as we do, as we can no longer play without it!