Gaming
Riot Games open up on the development process of a different sort of LoL game.
"Riot is making a board game?" League of Legends fans weren't alone in asking this when the studio's co-operative board game, Mechs vs Minions, was announced to the public at large last autumn.
As its creators revealed in a new interview, it was a question the team asked themselves as well while developing the title. Chris Cantrell, product manager at Riot and product owner for the game, or as he calls it, "the wringable neck," looks back at how Mechs vs Minions came to life and what he and the team learned from a real world game.
A true LoL game that’s a labour of love
It's telling that right from the start, Mechs vs Minions was always a passion project for all involved. "We got the game to its original state when we were bringing on a designer called Stone Librande," says Cantrell, speaking of the origins of the game. "He was the lead designer of Diablo 3, as well as the latest SimCity. The thing about Stone is that he very much loves the process of designing fun experiences."
In addition to all of the other design work that he does during the day, Cantrell tells of Librande going home and making board games, "just because he loved doing it." These little games would be played with his friends and family, and, as you can guess, one of them caught the attention of Riot.
Work soon began on the project. "Librande was pretty candid, saying, 'I'll do it, but I think you're going to find out that this is a lot more work than you expect.' He wasn't completely wrong," Cantrell recalls.
What is Mechs vs Minions?
Mechs vs Minions takes place in the same world as League of Legends, Runeterra. You play as one of four Yordles, piloting your mechs against a swarm of Minions. "I would say it's a cooperative programming game," says Cantrell when asked to describe the game, admitting that, to non-board gamers, it may not sound like the most interesting concept at a glance, but he elaborates further.
"The original version of the game was competitive. Now, in a competitive game, the fun is based off on the skill level of the opponent." Cantrell uses an example of chess, where players of uneven levels of skill can still play each other, but it's not terribly fun for either party. "In video games, there's matchmaking to help group up players of varying skill, whereas there's no such thing in board games."
Cantrell sees this as a big obstacle for getting people into board games. However, by turning the game into something co-operative, being a high level-player "turns you into an asset on my team." As for the programming your moves, Cantrell says that it taps both sides of the brain, where there's appeal in planning your moves and a more visceral thrill in executing them.
Rerolling design
Looking back on the first year of development, Cantrell says, laughing, "If I'm being honest, I kind of floundered a bit." They had the skeleton of a game, but it didn't quite look like one yet – that all changed when they hired illustrator Danny Beck, which helped to jump-start the game.
As Mechs vs Minions evolved, it reached a point where Cantrell decided it was time to bring on some key people within the board gaming scene: Tom Vasel of Dice Tower and Quintin Smith from Shut Up and Sit Down.
"Tom came first and he was like, 'Guys, you've got a game here; I don't know why you're worried.' He gave us some great feedback and helped us streamline some of it. At this point, we were giving each other high-fives." The team was pretty confident as Smith flew over to give the game a go. "He played it, and he's like, 'Well, I liked it, but I'm not sure I'd ever play it again'."
Up until that point, Mechs vs. Minions was mainly a one-off experience.
Cantrell recalls that Smith pointed this out. "He said, 'It's one game. It's novel and it's fun, but I don't have any desire to return to this experience'." After being asked what he'd like to see, Smith suggested expanding the game to feature a full campaign, as well as breaking up the board into modular pieces.
As Smith was saying this, Cantrell remembers, "You could look around the room and see everyone's smiling ear-to-ear." Despite firmly believing this approach would make a much better game experience, the problem was that this meant that they were going from one game, to what amounted to be 10 games.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, mech
To help in expanding the game, Riot brought on board Rick Ernst, who has more than a decade of experience adapting other media into video games, as lead designer to build the campaign's missions. Now his task was to do the reverse. Riot also wanted to have more hands on deck to play the game at the same time.
"The real magic is in the exploration, in playtesting," says Cantrell. For this, the team expanded to include core playtesters Nathan Tiras and Prashant Saraswat, along with enlisting the help of fellow Rioters to aid in testing and iterating the game.
As for manufacturing the game itself, Cantrell turned to two key partners. First was Chris Matthew from manufacturer Panda Games, who was invaluable in helping Cantrell understand the complexities behind manufacturing and publishing, as, rather than going through an external publisher and distributor, Riot decided to handle these duties themselves. The second was Noah Adelmen, CEO of Game Trayz, enlisted to build a custom insert for the box. This was the first time Game Trayz was called during the pre-production phase of a game's development and was a key part of the experience that the team wanted to create.
"I like to think of a barometer for this is the iPhone," says Cantrell. "Unlike most products, where you discard the box without a second thought, you get an iPhone and opening the box is something you celebrate. It's designed in a way to feel like everything has its specific place, and there's this impression, at least for me, of this level of craftsmanship. It creates an experience. It creates this impression of quality that lasts long after you open the box. I really wanted Mechs vs Minions to be a celebration for gamers, something that they'd be proud of and excited to show their friends."
Selling a board game to a free-to-play audience
Riot wanted to publish the game themselves in order to bring the cost down and make it as accessible as possible for players. That high-quality experience Cantrell talks about costs the consumer $75, which was an unusual ask for players who are used to LoL being free-to-play.
To board gamers, on the other hand, looking at everything that you got in Mechs vs Minions compared to most board games, it was a tremendous package. This is why, beyond leaning on League players to convince board gamers that Riot knew about games, Riot made a concerted effort initially to target board game players."If they understood the value, they could explain it to their friends who play League," says Cantrell
On the day of its announcement, Cantrell recalls, amused, "You would go on Reddit and see board gamers and League players writing, '$75? That's ridiculous!', but of course they represented radically different tones." In general, though, the response was hugely positive. "When I saw the response, it was overwhelming and very humbling, and one of the most memorable days for me," Cantrell recounts.
Looking back and to the future
Cantrell hopes that now that the game is out and more people have gotten a chance to play it, the doubt from both communities has diminished a bit. It's been a huge success for this small team within Riot, though they've always been clear that this was a one-off project. When asked if that opinion has changed, Cantrell talks about the joy of working at Riot, and their willingness to always experiment.
"Riot takes games as a service, and because of that, we're in a position that we're always trying to find different ways to engage players and to do what we think is cool. We're proud of the product. We'd love to be in the spot where there would be another idea that we could realise, but at the moment theres's nothing planned."
As for the game they did realise, Cantrell says. "Hopefully there's someone out there that the game resonates with. I adore this hobby. You can sit around sharing these experiences with your family as you're growing up, and with their friends, as you get older, and there's something really magical about that.
It's surreal to see the games that we're compared to; you always look at your game as your worst prototype in comparison to someone else's finished product. The team was filled with people with a strong attention to detail, and when you have that it's a blessing and a curse because you're never really satisfied. There's always things that you wish you could have done or felt like you could have pushed for, and that's all you see when you come from that point of view.
To be compared to these monolithic games and designers is so humbling. It's such a great industry, and I'm so proud that we can even be a part of it."
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