Designer Journal 3: New Mechanics

Whenever I’m designing an expansion for a beloved game, I always ask myself: “What do fans want?”

99% of people who buy an expansion already like the base game, so I don’t believe that an expansion should “reinvent the wheel.” My favorite expansions add “more of the same,” with some unique twists. The best expansions also include a few things you weren’t expecting.

Early in development, I had this idea of giving enemies upgrade tokens which could give them abilities that weren’t printed on their token. This seemed like a cool way of making the game less predictable and requiring you to change your plans on the fly.

Unfortunately, this mechanic ended up being very fiddly and didn’t have much impact on the game. We decided to scrap it, and I went back to the drawing board. I wanted something that felt impactful and would sometimes make you change your plans. So some form of ongoing effect seemed to be the right direction.

The biggest issue with ongoing abilities is that you need to remember them. I have countless gaming memories in which I realize, two turns too late, that I forgot an effect that would have greatly swung the game.

With these goals in mind, an idea slowly formed in my mind: ongoing events.

Ongoing Events

These event cards will situationally become an ongoing effect, staying in an action slot. They remain in play until you resolve another event card for this action, so generally they’ll stick around for a few turns.

The beauty of these effects is that they sit below the action and (usually) have an effect when you play a card on that action. Since they are physically right above the card you’re playing, it makes them very easy to remember.

A few of these effects add strength during the event step. These have a strength number and are visually very easy to understand. My favorite one adds +1 for events for the rest of the game unless you decide to deal damage to 2 characters when you draw the event. Depending upon when you draw this card (and which action you’re resolving), this can be an excruciating decision.

Most ongoing effects only stick to the action slot under specific situations. Commonly, they will happen if the rest of the card had no effect. This means that event cards in the expansion more consistently have an impact on the game.

If ongoing events make the game a bit harder, what do the heroes get as compensation for that?

Mobilize Planning Card

The planning deck was a late addition to the design of the core game. It was that last eureka moment that really brought the game together, but it had a lot of untapped potential.

When designing a new planning card, we took a look at what players wish they could do. There are many times during the game when I’m just shy of reaching my destination. In addition, there are times when a group of sentries (or grapple enemies) have locked down an important area of the map.

The mobilize planning card was designed to solve these exact situations. It lets you move up to 2 spaces, ignoring enemy abilities. As a bonus, this card is especially useful for our favorite lightsaber-wielding friend.

We also included 1 extra copy of “Bad Luck” to the planning deck to add tension and to keep the ratio of “Bad Luck” balanced.

These two new mechanics add lots of new decision points to the game, and are compatible with any mission (even the ones in the base game). In our next article, we’ll talk about some of the other challenges you’ll face, including epic duels.

The Clan of Two expansion arrives this summer! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and our website to stay up to date with the most recent news.

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