{"id":10922,"date":"2023-11-15T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/?p=10922"},"modified":"2023-11-15T14:08:09","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T14:08:09","slug":"reigns-the-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/blog\/2023\/11\/15\/reigns-the-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Reigns – The Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Il est assez rare que je travaille sur commande. Je re\u00e7ois de temps \u00e0 autre des propositions d\u2019\u00e9diteurs, ou d\u2019autres, d\u00e9sirant un jeu sur un th\u00e8me particulier, mais je ne donne suite que si le sujet m\u2019amuse vraiment et si j\u2019ai assez rapidement une id\u00e9e qui me semble m\u00e9riter au moins d\u2019\u00eatre approfondie et essay\u00e9e. Sinon, je renvoie le demandeur sur Bruno Cathala, et depuis peu sur l\u2019\u00e9quipe de Kaedama, que je sais plus \u00e0 l\u2019aise avec ce type de boulot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parfois, heureusement, il y a des offres que l\u2019on ne peut pas refuser. Concevoir un jeu de cartes \u00e0 partir de Reigns, adorable petit jeu video \u00e0 l\u2019humour noir et malin, en \u00e9tait une. Il reste que lorsque j\u2019ai d\u2019abord \u00e9t\u00e9 contact\u00e9 par l\u2019\u00e9quipe de Reigns, Fran\u00e7ois Alliot, Arnaud de Bock et Thomas Bidaux, \u00e0 l\u2019automne 2018, je voulais r\u00e9pondre oui mais ne savais pas trop par quel bout prendre ce projet. J\u2019ai donc propos\u00e9 de mettre aussi sur le coup mon ami et voisin Herv\u00e9 Marly, \u00e9galement grand amateur de jeux d\u2019ambiance rigolos. Mes interlocuteurs \u00e9tant \u00e9galement fans de Skull, m\u2019ont dit qu\u2019il \u00e9tait le suivant sur la liste d\u2019auteurs qu\u2019ils pensaient contacter, et ont donc imm\u00e9diatement accept\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Le fait que les auteurs de Reigns aient pens\u00e9 \u00e0 moi et \u00e0 Herv\u00e9, et non par exemple Antoine Bauza ou Bruno Cathala, en disait d\u00e9j\u00e0 beaucoup sur la direction \u00e0 suivre – un jeu l\u00e9ger et rigolo, avec plus de baratin ou de bluff que de tactique ou de strat\u00e9gie. Herv\u00e9 et moi avons donc intens\u00e9ment pratiqu\u00e9 Reigns sur nos iPhones pendant une ou deux semaines pour bien nous impr\u00e9gner de l\u2019ambiance avant de commencer \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir \u00e0 l\u2019adaptation que nous pourrions en faire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>Une partie test au caf\u00e9 jeux Meisia, \u00e0 Paris <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dans le jeu video, le joueur est le roi, et son seul objectif de survivre le plus longtemps. \u00c0 chaque tour, l\u2019un de ses conseillers lui fait une proposition – attaquer les barbares de l\u2019est, construire un palais, faire un don \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9glise – qu\u2019il accepte ou refuse en \u00ab swipant \u00bb \u00e0 gauche ou \u00e0 droite, comme dans Tinder. L\u2019humour du jeu est tout entier dans les propositions, la mani\u00e8re dont elles s\u2019enchainent, et l\u2019effet qu\u2019a l\u2019acceptation ou le refus du roi sur l\u2019\u00e9tat du royaume. Tr\u00e8s vite, nous nous sommes dit que le seul moyen de recr\u00e9er cet humour dans un jeu \u00e0 plusieurs \u00e9tait de faire imaginer l\u2019histoire par les joueurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du coup, dans Reigns – The Council, si l\u2019un des joueurs est le roi, les autres sont ses conseillers ayant chacun un objectif secret. Les propositions des conseillers sont repr\u00e9sent\u00e9es par des cartes. Dans notre premi\u00e8re \u00e9bauche, les joueurs \u00e9taient totalement libres de raconter ce qu\u2019ils voulaient, les seules informations figurant sur les cartes \u00e9tant les effets d\u2019une acceptation ou d\u2019un refus par le roi sur les quatre \u00ab jauges \u00bb que sont l\u2019\u00e9glise, l\u2019arm\u00e9e, le peuple et le tr\u00e9sor. Laisser trop de libert\u00e9 aux joueurs en bloquaient certains, et beaucoup de propositions n\u2019\u00e9taient gu\u00e8re coh\u00e9rentes avec les effets inscrits sur les cartes. Du coup, nous avons ajout\u00e9 sur les cartes des mots cl\u00e9s – Dragon, Croisade, Taverne, Princesse\u2026 – pour tout \u00e0 la fois encadrer les propositions des joueurs et leur donner un point de d\u00e9part. L\u00e0, c\u2019\u00e9tait trop directif, beaucoup de joueurs interpr\u00e9tant cela plus comme une obligation de caser les mots dans leurs discours que comme un guide \u00e0 leur imagination. L\u2019\u00e9tape suivante a donc \u00e9t\u00e9 de remplacer ces mots par des ic\u00f4nes, remplissant la m\u00eame fonction mais de mani\u00e8re plus souple – et plus internationale, ce qui arrangeait bien notre \u00e9diteur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u2019\u00e9quipe de Reigns travaille \u00e0 Londres, mais ils ont fait le voyage pour nous rencontrer \u00e0 Paris et faire quelques parties. Thomas est venu aux rencontres ludopathiques – o\u00f9 l\u2019on n\u2019a d\u2019ailleurs finalement assez peu jou\u00e9 \u00e0 Reigns ! Chacun a test\u00e9 ensuite le jeu de son c\u00f4t\u00e9 du channel, mais \u00e0 quelques exceptions pr\u00e8s les retours \u00e9taient plus ou moins les m\u00eames, ce qui a bien facilit\u00e9 le d\u00e9veloppement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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D\u00e8s que nous avons d\u00e9cid\u00e9 d\u2019avoir des ic\u00f4nes sur les cartes, tout n\u2019a plus \u00e9t\u00e9 qu\u2019affaire de r\u00e9glages, choix des dessins de chaque carte, remplacement de ceux qui n\u2019inspiraient gu\u00e8re les joueurs ou n\u2019\u00e9taient pas toujours bien compris. Il manquait encore un truc important dans le jeu video, la mort du roi, et c\u2019est Fran\u00e7ois Alliot qui a eu l\u2019id\u00e9e de demander au joueur ayant provoqu\u00e9 la fin du r\u00e8gne de la raconter, lui donnant ainsi l\u2019occasion de marquer quelques points suppl\u00e9mentaires. Tout est donc all\u00e9 tr\u00e8s vite, puisque nous avons vraiment commencer \u00e0 travailler en janvier 2019, et que le jeu \u00e9tait boucl\u00e9 d\u00e9but juillet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durant les derniers d\u00e9veloppements de Reigns, j\u2019ai particip\u00e9 \u00e0 plusieurs salons et \u00e9v\u00e9nements ludiques. Au mois de mai 2019, je me suis rendu \u00e0 la rencontre d\u2019auteurs de jeu de Vevey, en Suisse, organis\u00e9e par S\u00e9bastien Pauchon. Un peu avant ou un peu apr\u00e8s, je ne sais plus bien, j\u2019ai rendu visite \u00e0 Antoine Bauza et sa clique dans leur cafeti\u00e8re de Valence. En juin, c\u2019\u00e9tait Paris est Ludique. \u00c0 chacune de ces occasions, j\u2019avais apport\u00e9 mon prototype de Reigns pour faire quelques parties, et \u00e0 chaque fois il s\u2019est trouv\u00e9 quelqu\u2019un, un peu jaloux, pour me dire qu\u2019il avait aussi pens\u00e9 \u00e0 faire une adaptation de Reigns en jeu de cartes. Le seul projet qui m\u2019ait \u00e9t\u00e9 un peu d\u00e9taill\u00e9 \u00e9tait parti dans une direction tr\u00e8s diff\u00e9rente de la n\u00f4tre, et plus proche du jeu video, les joueurs \u00e9tant des rois rivaux devant g\u00e9rer des probl\u00e8mes identiques, enti\u00e8rement g\u00e9r\u00e9s par un jeu de cartes. Herv\u00e9 et moi avons fait le choix de nous \u00e9loigner plus des m\u00e9canismes du jeu, pour essayer de rester plus fid\u00e8le \u00e0 son humour. Vous nous direz si nous avons r\u00e9ussi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apr\u00e8s le succ\u00e8s du kickstarter, Reigns est rest\u00e9 assez longtemps indisponible, mais le voici de retour, d\u00e9but 2023, chez un nouvel \u00e9diteur, Passe ton tour.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reigns<\/strong><\/span>
Un jeu de Bruno Faidutti & Herv\u00e9 Marly<\/span>
Illustr\u00e9 par Arnaud de Bock & Herv\u00e9 Marly, inspir\u00e9 du travail de Mieko Murakami sur Reigns<\/span><\/span>
3 \u00e0 6 joueurs\u00a0 \u2013 30 minutes<\/span>
Publi\u00e9 par Nerial \/ Creative and Cool \/ Passe ton tour<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I rarely do commissioned game design work. Every now and then, I get offers from publishers or other companies wanting a boardgame on some specific theme. I usually accept only when the theme sounds really exciting and when I have at once an idea which seems worth studying and playtesting. More often, I forward the commissioner to Bruno Cathala, and now to the Kaedama team, which are better at that kind of job.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, there are sometimes offers I can\u2019t and don\u2019t want to decline. Designing a card game based on Reigns, an adorable video game with a subtle dark humor, was one. When I was first contacted by the Reigns team, Fran\u00e7ois Alliot, Arnaud de Bock and Thomas Bidaux, in autumn 2018, I wanted to accept but didn\u2019t really know how to start with the project. I suggested we asked my friend and neighbor Herv\u00e9 Marly, who is great at fun party games, to work with me on the project. They told me they were all fans of Skull and that he was the next one in the list of designers they wanted to ask, so the deal was done.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The very fact that the Reigns team had thought of contacting me or Herv\u00e9, and not better know designers such as Antoine Bauza or Bruno Cathala, was already a hint. They wanted a light and fun game, more about talking, storytelling and bluffing than about tactics or strategy. So Herv\u00e9 and I intensely played Reigns on our iPhone for one or two weeks in order to take in the game\u2019s atmosphere before we started really working on our card game mechanisms.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Reigns team playtesting the game at the Game Designers Conference in San Francisco<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Reigns phone game, the player is the king, and his only goal is to survive as long as possible. Every round, one of his counsellors makes a proposal – attack the eastern barbarians, build a palace, give money to the church\u2026 – and the player swipes to the left or right, like in Tinder, to accept or refuse the proposal. The game\u2019s fun is in the proposals, the way they are interwoven, and their impact on the kingdom\u2019s health. We immediately agreed that the only way to recreate this fun in a card game was to have the players, and not the game, tell the story.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Reigns – The Council, one player is the king, and all the other ones are his counsellors, each one with a different secret objective. The counsellors improvise their suggestions based on cards. The first version of the game was completely freeform, the only informations on the cards being the effect of an acceptation or a refusal on the four kingdom health tracks, church, army, people and treasury. It was not enough, some players could not really improvise, and some proposals were not consistent at all with the effects on the cards. We added keywords on the cards – Dragon, Crusade, Tavern Princess – to guide the players and give them a starting point. this was too much, and many players interpreted this more like an obligation to use the exact word in their speech than as a thematic hint. So the next step was to replace these words with symbolic icons, giving more flexibility – and making the game really international, which was obviously a plus for our publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reigns team works in London, but they made the trip to Paris to discuss the game and play together. Thomas went to my ludopathic gathering, but we didn\u2019t play that much Reigns – The Council there. Then we each play tested on our side of the channel, and the returns were more or less the same, which made the final development relatively easy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once we had decided to have icons on the cards, all we had to do was fine tuning, choosing the icons on every card, replacing the few ones players didn\u2019t like or didn\u2019t understand. One important feature of the phone game was still lacking, the king\u2019s death. Fran\u00e7ois Alliot had the idea to ask the player who caused the end of the reign to tell the story, giving them the opportunity to score a few extra points. All in all, this was a job fast and well done, since we really started working in January and the game was finalized early July.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the last developments on the game, I took part in several game fairs and other game events. In May 2019, I went to a game designers meeting in Switzerland, in Vevey, organized by S\u00e9bastien Pauchon. One or two weeks before or after, I don\u2019t remember precisely, I met Antoine Bauza and his team at the Cafeti\u00e8re in Valence. In June, it was the paris est ludique game fair. On all of these occasions, I met game designers who told me they also had thought of a Reigns card game. One of them detailed his idea, which was very different from our – players were to be rival kings facing the same events, generated by a deck of cards. Herv\u00e9 and I have decided to get away from some of the phone game mechanisms in order to be more true to its humor. You will tell us if we were successful.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the success of the Kickstarter campaign, Reigns has been unavailable for while, but it’s now back with a new small publisher, <\/em>Creative and Cool \/ Passe ton tour. Though the game has rules in both French and English, it is only sold in France so far, but I hope it will soon reach at least UK and the US.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reigns<\/strong><\/span>
A party game by Bruno Faidutti & Herv\u00e9 Marly<\/span>
Art by Arnaud de Bock & Herv\u00e9 Marly, inspired by Mieko Murakami’s art for Reigns<\/span><\/span>
3 to 6 players – 30 minutes<\/span>
Published by Nerial \/ Creative and Cool \/ Passe ton tour<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Il est assez rare que je travaille sur commande. Je re\u00e7ois de temps \u00e0 autre des propositions d\u2019\u00e9diteurs, ou d\u2019autres, d\u00e9sirant un jeu sur un th\u00e8me particulier, mais je ne donne suite que si le sujet m\u2019amuse vraiment et si … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[466],"tags":[273,465],"class_list":["post-10922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reigns-the-council","tag-herve-marly","tag-reigns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2HNOP-2Qa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10922"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16097,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions\/16097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}