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August 12: Design Goals and Name

The Tapestry expansion is here!

Over the next week I’m going to share what’s in the expansion and some stories behind the components and mechanisms. The expansion’s production is complete, and it’s current en route to fulfillment centers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. We’re looking at an early-September preorder, followed by shipping throughout that month.

I’m excited for old and new Tapestry players to try the expansion, and today I’ll start by revealing the name, the box, and the design goals.

Design Goals

I started working on the Tapestry expansion last year after people started playing the final version and sharing their thoughts. There was some feedback that stood out that I wanted to address (while making the expansion very easy to integrate with the core game):

–improved balance

–more interaction between players, particularly in the context of conquering

–more ways to get landmarks at higher player counts

–more direction early in the game

–landmarks that actually DO something on an ongoing basis

–landmarks that fit better in capital cities

In addition to this, I wanted to add some new civilizations that felt distinctly different than the originals and more tapestry cards.

I considered adding a 6th player, but I think Tapestry plays a little long at 5 players—6 would just be too much.

Also, while the balance tweaks to the original game happened before the expansion through the civilization adjustment guide, we’ve included those tweaks on the back page of the expansion rulebook. Why not reprint the civs themselves? Because we’re going to continue to collect data about the game, and it’s possible—unlikely, but possible—that those civs might need minor tweaks in the future. Any adjustments we make will always happen at the beginning of the game, so it’s not something you need to remember after setup.

Mission Accomplished?

You can decide for yourself over the next week if I accomplished those goals, but I’m very confident that’s the case, and largely through unique twists on existing components. I’ve called this a “more stuff” expansion, but you’ll see new tapestry cards, civ mats, and space tiles that are very different than the originals. You’ll also see a new card type that helped us accomplish two of the goals mentioned above.

Please note that one of the goals wasn’t “fit all expansion content into the original box.” That would have completely eliminated the possibility of new landmarks. However, if that’s really important to you, you can remove the insert from the original box, and then everything should easily fit.

As a result of those goals, I decided to name the expansion Tapestry: Plans & Ploys. Andrew Bosley returned as the artist, and the box—shown here—is one of my favorite illustrations. Rom Brown also returned as the sculptor, and due to the order of operations (me creating the capital city grid first, then commissioning the minis), the new landmarks due indeed fit perfectly into the capital cities.

I’ll see you tomorrow to discuss how we accomplished some of these goals! Let me know what you’re the most curious to know first.