Our interactive eurogame Sankoré is out now, and it's time for the second instalment of our 2-part behind-the-scenes blog series from designers Fabio Lopiano & Mandela Fernández-Grandon...

Action Selection

Mandela:

One of the elements that came surprisingly late was the action selection system. I kept throwing ideas at Fabio to fill this.

Multiple different prototype versions of the game's action selection system

Some of the earlier ideas for action selection systems. Top left we have positive interaction as placing your scholar provides increased knowledge within an area (this would become inverted for the system of enrolling scholars). Top right we start to see emergence of the school system where you fill classes which provide bonuses. Then lots of wheel-based systems. This is only one. There were lots. I was going through a bit of a wheel phase.

Fabio:

Most of the action selection systems we tried turned up being too restrictive for the game. So, after endless iterations, we finally ended up with an almost hybrid system, where, in your turn you have to pick two different action among 5 possible ones, with one of those actions, teaching a class, being its own action selection system. 

This basically means that in most of your turns, if not all, you do one “main” action (teaching a class) and one “support” action (enrolling a student, establishing a new class, graduating a student, exchanging a favour). Because of the game's strategic depth, a more restrictive system would be too frustrating, but something looser (like being able to do the same action twice) could lead to snowballing (like being able to teach two classes in the same turn, or graduating two students at once).

The Design Process

Mandela:

Once we had all these core systems in place I think we had a really strong game, but it was buried under a good game, so we had to strip the game back. If there is a common pattern in our co-design approach, it is that I get carried away elaborating on systems and at some point Fabio calls it out. I push back, we try a stripped-back version just so we can move on knowing I was right, then we agree that the simpler version is better and I can start the cycle again having learnt nothing. I find this one of the big advantages of co-design; you don’t need to be the one to kill your darlings, you can let your co-designer step in and wield the axe.

Fabio:

The game design process goes through alternating phases of expansion and contraction: there is a period where you keep adding features, mechanisms, bonuses, combos until you realise there are too many of them, so you start looking at which of these are really essential and which ones are unnecessary. Once you have removed everything that is not strictly needed, you then can start looking at what is missing now, and a new expansion phase begins. Hopefully, at each expansion phase, the game grows a bit less than the previous one, and at each contraction phase the game shrinks a bit less until it reaches the right size.

An early prototype version of the Sankoré player board

Mandela

In the case of Sankoré it was about combos, which emerged organically through the interlocking systems of the game. The height of this can be seen in the prototype player board above. Everything that we eventually removed from it was triggering bonuses. I like combos and it felt great to pull off that turn. For you. It probably didn’t feel so good for the other players as they watched and waited. 

The trick was that the combos, whilst satisfying in isolation, interfered with the flow of the game. In essence, we were sacrificing the game for the turn. Additionally, with the peripheral aspects gone, players now have more mental space to engage with those core elements and as a consequence get more out of them. 

By stripping it back, we left enough space for clever and rewarding plays but let people focus more on the shared main board. It also brought downtime to the level we’d hoped for; just enough time while others are doing their actions to plan your turn and maybe a back-up plan (before you get distracted by an unmissable opportunity they just opened up).

The final player board set up with cardboard close tokens and various wooden meeple

Development

Mandela:

When it came to taking the game to a publisher, a couple of options came to mind but we were impressed with Osprey Games and their vision for the game seemed well aligned with our own.

Here’s what the lead developer, Anthony Howgego, had to say about why they were interested in picking up the game:

Sankoré stuck out from the crowd for two reasons. The first was that the designers had really done the work necessary to do justice to the theme. The second was that it had a clever hook – a heavy eurogame without victory points – and that it used this hook to ensure each game ends in a dramatic and satisfying way, which is something very important and often overlooked.”

While the core of the game remained the same, it was during this phase that we saw streamlining in several ways, often very subtle in terms of gameplay but hopefully making a notable impact on player experience. 

One particular example that stood out was the Sankoré tiles. These are added to the central Sankoré Madrasah and are flipped over as part of Maths classes. Since their inception these were rectangles, and since you needed to see an icon on the board underneath, they also had that printed on the tile. 

It led to an issue of getting your fingers between them when you needed to flip one. We threw around a few ideas, and I thought I’d come up with a clever solution with a punch-out window on the tile, but really the solution was so simple once Anthony pointed it out…why aren’t those tiles just squares? Don’t have the other half, let players see it on the board underneath. Well…the reason…well there was no reason. 

It totally made sense and immediately they were turned into octagons. This is such classic designer folly: we were so close to the game and had come up with all kinds of solutions within the parameters we’d set, but we’d failed to take a step back and question why those parameters needed to exist. It also arises because designers see so many versions of their game: maybe many iterations prior, it was vital that they were that shape and we became locked into that framework, but several iterations later those reasons had disappeared and here we were with those vestigial rectangles.

Two images showing the transition from the first prototype of the game's mathematics area to the final mathematics area on the game board, with rectangular Sankoré tiles having changed for diamond-shaped ones

Fabio:

Another issue we addressed during development was the game length: at the time we signed the publishing contract with Osprey, a four player game of Sankoré could have lasted close to three hours.

In order to speed up the game, we introduced more ways to add tiles at certain times, including some extra tiles to place during the final rounds of the game. We also added bonuses to the student queues, so that there is an extra incentive to enrol the student before the one that will actually trigger a scoring (this also sped up the game noticeably).

So now, even if the game box states a game length of 150-180 minutes, that’s actually an accurate duration for your first few games, but once every one at the table knows how to play, games can last between 90 and 120 minutes.

Cultural consultancy

Mandela:

From the start and throughout the design process, we continued to soak up all the information we could find about the setting. We read widely, watched lectures, attended museum exhibits, spoke to friends with connections to the setting but undoubtedly we are still amateurs and outsiders in this regard.

It was important that the setting would be handled accurately and with sensitivity, so we reached out to find an expert. Chasing through the authors of sources we’d encountered, we managed to get in touch with Mauro Nobili, who specialises in the history of Islamic scholarship in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Mali. He had expertise, experience, and a connection with the area which could hardly have been more suited and, furthermore, he was excited and enthusiastic about what we were doing and very generous with his time. Here are some of his own words:

"As a former gamer myself, I was enthusiastic when I first heard about the Sankoré project... Then, when I started seeing the product, I was impressed by the historical rigour of the game and its wonderfully illustrated materials. I am looking forward to seeing it out and, why not, to play some rounds."

Discussions with Mauro were not only fascinating but helped us enrich the game with a better understanding of the culture and providing greater sensitivity in its depiction. Once we had moved further into development, Osprey brought in Zain Alam who worked with the whole team, providing valuable input into the depictions within the game and allowing us to address any remaining concerns we had. On that note we have to really thank Ian O’Toole for taking the extra time to study and remain faithful to the art style associated with the culture and patterns taken directly from those manuscripts.

A close-up of the game board showing the graduation tokens, decorated with turbans A close-up of the board showing decorative patterning

There were many small adjustments. For example, changing one of the resources from Chi Wara, a ritual object used by certain regional tribes, to something more generally applicable across the empire (now a depiction of a moth to the candle as an Islamic symbol of inspiration); changing tables and chairs to rugs in the school; Islamic studies changed to Theology (since it implies the others are not also considered Islamic studies) among others. I suspect few of these things would be noticed by most players, but hopefully these changes are valuable to those that would. I do lament that we never managed to get the original patron of Sankoré represented (it is believed that a woman from a local tribe founded Sankoré in the 10th century) but I am happy for all we managed to get in there while keeping it a game at its core.

A photo of designers Fabio Lopiano & Mandela Fernández-Grandon smiling holding the Sankoré box at UK Games Expo 2023

Closing Thoughts

We have to extend our thanks to the many playtesters who gave up their time. Especially Mauro Lazzara, that stranger that taught Mandela Calimala in Essen who would go on to become one of our most committed playtesters.

Sankoré is a more complex game than either of us had tackled before. This meant many hours of playtesting and refining on our part but really it was a team effort to bring it together. That team includes everyone at Osprey, David Digby for editing the rulebook and supporting development of the solo mode, Ian O’Toole for his outstanding artwork and graphic design, our cultural consultants Mauro Nobili and Zain Alam, and everyone who took the time to play the game at conventions and gatherings and share their thoughts.

The final game is beyond what we could have expected.

We are really pleased to share this story with you and look forward to seeing the game on more tables soon. Hope you enjoy it.

Sankoré: The Pride of Mansa Musa is out now in the US and UK.

Order today.

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