This is already mid-2019, and there I was, moving back to Barcelona. I packed away my board games, kept them in a basement at my parents' house, and moved with the bare minimum into an apartment all too large for my meager possessions. So much so that I used to get asked by guests if someone had recently robbed me.

Two things were happening during this time. First, we started doing the worldbuilding and art direction for Limbo, along with my friend Gerard. We used to sit down in coffee shops and at home visits to map out the world we were trying to build. I wrote full essays on brands that were puns on the world of the dead (i.e.: Charon Motors), made maps of the city of Limbo, fleshed out characters, etc. It was great fun, and I loved the project. More on that later.

The second thing that was happening is, I kept on hammering on the application.

Apps in Board Games

There is a general trend of trying to introduce apps into every aspect of our lives. More often than not, I feel it like trespassing. As someone that is very aware of excessive digitalization and a recognized hater of social networks, you need to give me a good reason to use an app. So why did I keep pushing forward with the Limbo app/website? At this point, it was clear that it was trying to solve two major issues for the game - which apply to every major TCG.

First, we knew we couldn’t guarantee steady releases on Limbo as a large company would. It would have been a dream, but it just wasn't possible. So we needed to find a way to shake up the meta that was accessible. That is what we called The Manifest. Basically, the app would give you a deckbuilder where you would choose a manifest (say v1), and with that, you could easily introduce deckbuilding rules, change the price of specific cards, etc. A dynamic way of balancing out the game without reprinting cards.

Secondly, I know a lot of folks out there hate deckbuilding or are unwilling to invest the time to do so. Heck, that’d probably be me if it wasn’t my game. The current alternative is surfing the internet for the best-performing, effective deck for a certain game. What this means is that regardless of the card pool that gets added to a game, within a week or two, everyone is playing the same five decks. We wanted to avoid that in Limbo and decided to take a page from Keyforge. Now, in Keyforge, they made the whole product around it and monetized aggressively by making you purchase decks over and over again. We don’t want that. And thus the Identity mode was born, where given a card pool, a unique deck is created for you by an algorithm. You grab those cards from the game box and play. This solved several issues: it keeps every card relevant in the format, provides an easy way to get started into the game, and keeps the ‘magic’ alive where everyone is bringing something personal into the mix.

The one hard line here was making sure we didn’t detract from the physical experience of playing a game (especially one that involves reading the opponent) by checking your phone while playing with no good reason. Unless there’s a very good reason (i.e.: Chronicles of Crime), I’d rather keep board games analogue.

How do you guys feel about board games with digital parts? What’s the line between what should be a video game or a board game?

To be continued…