Chronicles: Origins and the Echo System Q&A

 

In 2011, Hasbro released Risk Legacy, from designer Rob Daviau. This game revolutionised how players saw games through it’s use of the “Legacy” system. While every copy of Risk Legacy was the same, over the course of 15 games, players would create their own, unique, war torn world, with the stories of their games literally scaring the game board itself. We were made to sign the board, to record our victories, to tear up cards as they were used. And we were ever driven forward by the promise of new content, sealed away inside packets that were only to be opened once certain, in-game, criteria were fulfilled. Or to never be opened in some cases:

Risk Legacy Do Not Open Ever

No longer did games need to be one shot experiences. No longer did a game need to remain in pristine, re-playable condition. The tremendous success of Risk: Legacy has paved the way for future Legacy games. In the coming months, two new Legacy games that Rob has been slaving away on will be released: Seafall, a game of exploring a completely new world, and Pandemic: Legacy based, of course, on the successful Pandemic license.

Now, something of even grander scope is on the horizon. The next evolution of the Legacy game system. In collaboration with Dirk Knemeyer, Rob Daviau has developed the Echo System. Much like a Legacy game, players will be able to create a world over a series of gaming sessions. Then, the Echo System allows players to take the world they create in that game and take elements of it forward into future games in that series, creating, in the words of the press release, a “multi-generational arc and story grandeur, like a role-playing game, but in the boxed package and mechanics of a modern table top experience”.

Echo System

The first game series to utilise the Echo System will be the Chronicles Series, designed by Rob and Dirk. Across the series, players will build a civilisation, from prehistoric tribes, through the ancient European civilisations, to the renaissance and on to the modern world. Each game will focus on a particular period of time, with each new game being effected by the previous games. The first game in the series, Chronicles: Origins, sees players leading pre-history tribes. Talk about being impressive in scope!

To find out more, I took part in a Q&A session with Rob and Dirk, held during #GenCant, the twitter based con for board game fans that couldn’t make GenCon. The remainder of this article is an overview of this chat! Massive thanks to @425suzanne and @WhoDaresRolls for organising, and to Rob (@robdaviaugamer) and Dirk (@dknemeyer) for giving up their time to take part!

Mechanisms

Chronicles: Origins begins by looking at interactions at the level of individual humans

but later games will steadily up the scale, allowing players to build… whatever they want!

But more than that, each game in the series will offer players a different play experience that goes beyond the setting. The games will focus on different elements of humanity, with appropriately differing gameplay mechanics.

This is pretty important. I don’t want to be buying multiple games that don’t offer something new in terms of gameplay as well as theme, and I suspect other players might feel similarly! With regards to how much information is passed forwards between games in the series,

so I don’t expect effects to be dramatic. The gaps between games in terms of setting are hundreds, even thousands of years. Rob and Dirk are also stressing the thematic and story elements of the series. I would also expect that each game needs to be playable as a stand alone experience, so new players can join the series at any point in its development, and this might constrain the degree to which later games can be affected. This is my interpretation of things though! Please feel free to draw your own conclusions from the tweets! After all,

While each game box links to each later game box, those elements that you pass forward are not decided in a single game session! Oh, no. Each of the Chronicles Series games is a Legacy game in its own right. This is Rob Daviau after all!

However, don’t go tearing up your box looking for the ‘Do Not Open Ever’ packet

Indeed, don’t tear up your copies of Seafall or Pandemic: Legacy either!

 Design

All new games need a starting point

and as you’d expect, designing a Legacy game takes a lot of time

But Rob has no regrets

Impressively, this design process has had to happen across the country!

Fortunately, they have set aside some time for sleep

Theme

As discussed before, the Chronicles Series is a civilisation building theme, but civilisations encompass a huge number of factors. While politics and wealth are a key element in most civ games, expect to see religion having a large role too

I’m intrigued by the “stays often” part. Does that mean religion can die out over the course of the game series? Going back to my discussion on what can be passed forward, being able to have religion play a key role in some games yet still have the potential to not be present at all suggests the series might be highly adaptable.

We should also be on the look out for future game series utilising the Echo System

Coming Soon…

The Chronicles Series is going to be an epic undertaking. Indeed, you can expect 5 games to be released over the next 5 years

The first is due to be put up on Kickstarter in February 2016, with a world wide release at Gencon 2016. It’s not yet clear whether they will continue to use Kickstarter for the subsequent games, but there is the possibility for dedicated players to get hold of a subscription for the entire series

If you want to find out more, the trailer from Artana is available here, and the original twitter chat is here.

The Chronicle Series and Echo Systems have certainly got me excited! What do you think of the system given what we know so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Written by

Matt grew up as a miniatures game addict and spent all his money on kickstarters. Now living out of a hut built from expansion boxes, he has been fighting his way up the long road to recovery by discovering all the amazing board games that don't need miniatures.

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